Finally Started my Training!
 

Hi All,

Just wanted to introduce myself on here as the brother of 'Mazzy1026' who seems to have been somewhat of a PPrune veteran several years ago!

I'm currently a massive two hours into my training, and I can happily say they have both been an incredible experience. Its taken me a while to finally get the ball rolling with learning to fly, but it is definitely the start of one hell of an adventure! Admittedly, the whole process is a little daunting to me, in particular the exams side of the PPL, but I'm sure this is something which can be better understood with the help of a few good text books (currently on order) and a lot of determination!!

If anyone is in the same(ish) position it would be great to hear from you - as I am presumably one of the lowest hour students on here! :O

Cheers guys,

Tom

You're behind me by a whole hour, though I do have some sneaky experience as a youth when I did a gliding scholarship thing.

Like you - it's been on my hit list for many years (Well, the gliding thing was ~15 years ago!), but I've really been bitten by the bug now!

I am about four hours in. Well five if you include the 'experience flight'.

Enjoying it immensely and am getting the hang of the basic airwork (turns, climbs, decent etc.) and the correct attitude of the plane.

Doing the maneuvers in 'open sky' is one thing, it will be interesting when they are applied to take off, landing and general circuit proceedures. i.e. when you need to time the events and aim for a particular point rather than just 'please climb to 2500', now turn 90 degrees. etc.

Welcome Mazzy, VWdan and Gentoo,

You will find an awesome amount of experience and support here, and club house spirited discussion along the way. Let us know about your experiences as you progress through your training...

I'm due for my skills test shortly, enjoy your ride, first couple of lessons are overwhelming and you don't learn much, after fifth or so lesson things start to click into place ridiculously fast.. and from there on it's like a vintage video-game where you play the same level till you advance to the next one from which you will look back and think - the previous one was easy, now this one's difficult... it's a swing that goes up and down all the time, if things don't get tough, you're not doing it right :D anyway, enjoy it, I know I had

Good luck Tom, hope your training goes well. Happy flying!


Cheers,
Danny.

I'm 10 hours into my training and also loving it.

I did Ex19 today (Intro to Instrument Flight) which began with my instructor asking me to attempt to maintain S&L flight with my eyes closed, using only my physiological senses. I thought I was doing well until I opened my eyes and discovered we were losing altitude with 30 degrees of bank...

Where is everyone training? I'm at Gamston and the 6000ft runway is perfect for those questionable landings :D

Get your instructor to begin by teaching you about safety altitude because that stops you opening your eyes and discovering the side of a mountain ahead of you!

I'm 34 hours in, and gearing up to do my qualifying cross country.
Still quite a few exams to do, but really enjoying the flying and have gained a lot of truly memorable experiences, not too mention a few scary moments i.e. the first solo, just after leaving the ground!

The only advice I could give is don't concentrate on getting the licence, just enjoy the flying and you will get a lot more out of it.

As a suggestion I kept a diary of every flight on Word during my training. I did it to use during training so that I could look back on previous lessons to see what I had done, but now some years later it's nice just to look back on it. You will forget what you did and how you felt about it very quickly once you get your licence.

Gamston is one of the places I fly from. Who are you with?

Gamston Flying School :ok:

I'm about 17 hours in and starting to get a handle on the important "how to land" bit of circuits. I thought they were never going to end but I'm finally enjoying the final approach phase.

I'm flying out of Turweston, near Silverstone, so the landmarks are pretty handy.

Flying Diary
 

I also kept a diary about every lesson during my training last year, and still do now. Every flight I write a few pages about what happened, what went well, what I learned, what didn't go well. I also put a few notes about wind and runway in use etc., how I felt, anything new. Its a great way to consolidate your experience to write things down, and as Thing says, it will be nice to look back on in years to come (if I can read my hand writing that is...)

I would rather not say where I am training in case I want to have a moan at some point down the line.

Chances are I will not need to moan though as the place seems like a decent school and club. There are a variety of instructors and they seem to have different styles so it's good to get a few opinions.

I am thinking of paying 'upfront' though, to get the saving. A lot of people advise against this but I hope to use up the hours quickly and will pay by credit card so I think (need to check) that I am covered if there is some issue with the school's finances.

Unless you are absolutely certain that the Credit Card company will reimburse you, under any circumstances that you can think OF,


............................................DON'T EVEN THINK OF PAYING 'UPFRONT' FOR FLYING TRAINING!:eek:


MJ:ok:

Don't do it!

Thanks very much for such a warm welcome guys!

That's the one thing I can say about the flying community, so far, everyone is genuinely interested in helping you out and giving advice wherever they can!

Next flight is booked for this coming Saturday for 9AM so no hangover for me.... My MAIN lesson learnt from last weeks lesson though is to be more prepared in terms of reading up on the lesson ahead. I would have been far more relaxed if I'd have known what was actually coming and what kind of questions my instructor was going to ask me. But I suppose this was a given and I should have been far more prepared!!!

Again, I suppose this is all part of the learning curve! I'm looking forward to getting to the point where I can sit in the PA38 and know exactly where everything is and exactly what it does. Currently, its still like stepping into the unknown (but that's what excites me!):O

Just a quick update on my training: I did both Air Law and Operational Procedures today and passed both with 100%.

If anyone is yet to sit theory exams, I throughly recommend both the EASAppl app for iPhones and the online tool Airquiz, as a supplement to your reading of course ;)

To the new budding aviators and aviatrix, welcome to PPRUNE. Please post your experiences here, as we all enjoy reliving our student days vicariously through you.

Chillindan: I found a flight diary an excellent debrief tool as it allows you to make some sense of what just happened to you in your last flight and you can go to the next lesson with properly thought out questions for your instructor about improving your skills. I ended up making mine into a blog and its still going today.

First of all, bfg, well done mate! 100% is absolutely brilliant - you must have put some serious revision into it! :) I'll have to take a look and see if there's any kind of equivalent for android devices as that could come in extremely handy.

Can't wait for my next flight though - been slacking with it a bit recently due to a camping trip away and terrible weather but really looking forward to getting back into the skies. I think I'm still at the point where everything is still a little daunting, especially the navigation side of things but again, this will no doubt come with time. How is everyone else getting on with their flying progress? Very sad news about the pilot killed at Oulton park... flown over it during every lesson so far :(