Support / Advice / ? Throw in the towel
 

I am currently doing my PPL (attempting to) I have just clocked up 80 hours ( I have been having lessons at varying points over the last few years with gaps - but of late 1 lesson every 1-2 weeks for an hour).

I am struggling with my navigation - If I get the nav right my tolerances suffer, if I get lost it all suffers)

Last week I did everything ok and my instructor said of test standard, today it all went pear shaped and was the worse flying I had done tolerances and nav lost on all 3 legs.

My instructor recommends that I go away and consider will I ever master this and get PPL- he won't put me forward for test ( rightly so) based on one good flight.

I have 10 hours of a booking left - which will make 90 hours, if I'm not ready for test then I'm considering throwing in the towel.

Does anyone have any recommendations, thoughts, tips, advice or should I just quit now

Disgruntled, frustrated, and incompetent student pilot :{

Keep going, during the learning process everybody hits brick walls (not literally of course) your instructor will probably sidestep the particular points you are having issues with and approach it from a different angle then it will all come together. When I was getting disheartened during training I finally sat back and thought to myself I must be overthinking this thing I mean Im not trying to put a man on the moon here, I'm just flying a Cessna and if these other dip****s at the flight school can do it surely I can .

As Robert the Bruce observed with the spider, keep trying and you will get it eventually

If you're overthinking it, take a step back and ask yourself why you wanted to fly to begin with. It was probably to fly places, or to enjoy the views or just to enjoy flying. None of these require pinpoint navigation or superb flying skills. ;)

Ask if you can have a flight where you just fly for fun. Or, better still, fly somewhere (and back!) for lunch. Forget about trying to achieve specific standards and have some fun to remind yourself what it is all about. If the school isn't willing to help you do that, find another school.

Regardless, it may be nice to have a lesson with another instructor - who may be able to shed some light from a different angle.

I don't know where you are but you can also ask someone if you can come up with them for a flight - it can be really useful to see someone else fly and pick up all the things that you already know but struggle to put together. There's a 'Spare seats available/desired' sticky at the top of this page (and similar on other forums as well) - lots of people will be happy to take you up.

If you really feel that you are close to giving up - take a step back and do something you enjoy to rekindle that positive feeling :ok:

B.

I agree with the above. Find a pilot, non instructor, at your club and ask them if they want to fly somewhere for lunch and share costs. Most would bite your hand off. You can see in a totally relaxed and non 'school' environment how easy it is to get from A to B and how you don't have to split hairs when navigating.

You will also get lunch which is the important thing.

I had a student with approaching your hours and he still had not gone solo, he had flown with most of the other school instructors and been told by all of them he should give up but he said that he enjoyed it and wanted to carry on - I suggested that we forget trying to get him solo and he just enjoyed his flying dual, we did this for a few hours, just throwing in a few circuits at the end of each flight - he then went solo and carried on to get his licence. As others have suggested, take the pressure off yourself for a few trips then go back to the serious flying.

what exactly is the problem? Divide your big task - the navigation - into smaller chunks - 1) keeping heading, 2) reading chart, 3) calculations etc. There's no point in trying to do all together if you struggle at these things individually

have you done instrument flying yet? If not, do it! Make sure you can keep heading, altitude and speed without visual reference. Once you get those sorted, go back to nav - at this point you should be able to keep your heading, so from there on you have to focus on map reading and dead reckoning.

Anyway 80 hours is a lot, at that point I would start to wonder would you not be better off with a new instructor?

80 hours is a lot, but not necessarily unlikely given that " I have been having lessons at varying points over the last few years with gaps".


Its good that you are now able to have lessons more consistently. And I agree that you should take the pressure off and just enmjoy yourself for a few flights. It'll come together.


You could change instructor, but I'd only advise that if you think there's a specific problem with how you and your current one work together (have you had the same instructor all along?)

Flight with cfi?
 

I was taking a long time to go solo and then on my second solo navigation became lost. On both occasions I had a flight with the chief flying instructor who was very encouraging.

Same instructor, good relationship, we have tried lots of different things to help, I don't think it is the instructor its me

The problem is navigating, I can do it easily in the classroom, set my plan etc etc its identifying land marks and not panicking if my plan don't work

Your instructors comments sound harsh, but I'm reluctant to criticise, as they might just be being honest with you.

In addition to the above advice, I've something else for you.

After I got my PPL, I started to use a GPS. Initially I didn't look at it on every flight....for some I just did things the way that I was thought, and just left the GPS running where I could get at it if I really needed too.

Now this produced something that was really unexpected for me. The GPS recorded breadcrumbs....a trail of points showing exactly where you were at each second. Looking back on flights, and comparing it to my plog notes, I realised that many of the 'wind corrections' that I made, were nothing to do with wind, but small errors that multiplied over legs.

For example, on many occasions I turned 1 nm too early. It's the difference between turning when you're over the town, and when you're over the town centre. It sounds like nothing, if it multiplies over two legs, it can lead to a noticeable difference. If you interpret that as a change from planned wind, and now make corrections for it, it can really mess things up and the mistakes multiply.

I only noticed this from being able to look at the GPS trail afterwards. Most times the mistake is not on the leg on which you get lost on, but the previous one or even the previous two. This is clear from the breadcrumbs, but hard to spot otherwise.

So I'd suggest that you ask your instructor to record future flights on a GPS (or you do it on your phone/iPad). Don't look at it in flight, as that's no use to you, but use it as a debriefing too afterwards. If you get lost, you can see where it all started to go wrong. If you don't get lost, you can see look to see if all your wind corrections where really wind, or a result of little mistakes.

If neither you nor your instructor have access to a GPS, then send me a pm, and I might be able to help.

One thing that I learned from this, as that the fewer turning points you have, the fewer opportunities there are for mistakes. So it can be better to fly a straight line, noting towns/places that you pass abeam, rather than trying to fly over them and then turn 5 degrees. For example, if you plan to fly from place A to place B, then turn 5 degrees, then fly to place C, you might be better off flying directly from place A to place C, and just note the time that you will pass abeam place B (which you'll still be able to see).

The other thing is that big obvious waypoints that can be seen from far away (lakes, large towns) make much better waypoints than small villages. They are much easier to see if you end up a few miles off tracks.

dp

Don't despair. It took me 90 hours to get my PPL(A). Then I went on to get a PPL(H), CPL(H) and instructor's rating. Ages afterwards I mentioned my 90 hours to an airline pilot, who said some people take well over 100 hours, but are still reasonably good pilots at the end of the day. There are all sorts of reasons, and you've identified two - your long breaks and your difficulties with navigation. Well, you've started having more regular lessons, and the nav problem is overcome-able (is that a word?).

I'd suggest you try another instructor, even if just a couple of times. You don't know that it's you, not him. I kept thinking it was me, and looking back, most of it was the instructor! It's hard to see straight when you're a student who's got used to one instructor. Try it; what harm can it do, and a different point of view is always useful.

Good luck. and when you get your PPL....you can buy a GPS, and not worry too much about basic nav. ;)

I got lost in the circuit on my second solo when ATC gave me an orbit on the downwind leg.
Half way round the orbit I was getting dizzy and thought I had probably done a full circle already so I levelled the aircraft and flew off over the horizon....
Fortunately VDF and radar got me home again. ;)

Firstly, there's no harm or shame in treating your hobby, for now, as learning to fly - it's not a race to a PPL.

Secondly, I agree with those who think that you should try and get some right hand seat time with friends who are going on trips. I suspect that you'll find that time spent in the air, with no pressure to perform, duplicating your friend's navigation, and also building up experience of being in the air - which makes a big difference to your free mental capacity to spend on tasks like navigation - will pay dividends.

Third - yes, there might be value in flying with a different instructor. I'm sure your instructor is good, but different people have different teaching styles and not every instructor suits every student. Somebody else might help you get the final issues cracked just because they teach it differently.

Fourth - don't give up. Flying's fun and there to be enjoyed. Other people (like my good friend Whirlybird above) have taken more hours to learn, and proved excellent pilots.

G

Don't give up.
 

Where is "somewhere" on your profile (why do people do that??!!).
If you are anywhere near Hinton in the Hedges or Turweston, you are welcome to come and have some fun in the RV8 (no charge except lunch!). You need to realise how much fun can be had in our sport and relax and enjoy.
The flying is easy, the over concentration and (thus) stress is probably what is screwing you up.
Don't give up, there is a huge amount of support out there if only you ask......
Regards,
Jez.

Jez

What a kind offer to make to him ! I hope he takes it up as the RV8 is a delight to fly ) I flew an RV6 which was a dream and it will certainly show him how much fun aircraft other than the normal spam cans can be!
Getting to the problem 80 hrs is a lot of investment in time and money and it would be a shame to throw in the towel when land should be in sight after a long journey!

You don't mention those 80 hours on route to where you are now ? I find it strange that anyone would tell you to consider chucking it in at this late stage ?
Where were they before when they were happily taking your money to amount those hours ?

Were any problems highlighted earlier on in circuit or handling ? You say that on the ground all is clear but once in the air everything goes pear shaped ?
This would indicate that for some reason you are leaving your brains behind ?
That can be nerves stress or could be the style of the instructor?
Someone who is very critical and impatient can destroy your confidence rather than add to it?

Need more information from you but something is not right that it has taken 80 hours to find you have a problem ?
I also do not like how you describe yourself as incompetent and have a sneaking feeling that maybe it's the instructor who is incompetent as its his failure if you chuck it in

Pace

I'd fully endorse all of the above points, enjoy it, cut yourself some slack. Why do you want to get your PPL? To fly. What are you doing while getting there? You're flying. So, what's the problem?

Fly with other instructors, fly in the right hand seat with other pilots, fly in the back of a four seater. Have some fun, that's what you're in this for anyway.

When you were learning to walk did your parents give you so many hours of practice and decide that if you hadn't got it by that point they should give up on you as you clearly weren't a walker?

If you keep trying there's every chance that the breakthrough is just around the corner and you'll make it soon enough. If you give up, you definitely won't make it, ever.

Foxmoth :ok:

My wife took over 80 hours to go solo and the instructors, wisely in my opinion, just skipped that and continued her training with all the other stuff.

Eventually, of course, she went solo but as others have said it's not a race, it's a hobby (to most of us)

I knew an ex Spitfire pilot who was in his 80s and used to turn up at the flying club to take a Cessna 150 with an instructor for an hour every few weeks. He no longer held a medical or licence.

This is slightly different as students are investing a lot of money on track to the Goal of being a PPL which means you are competent and safe to carry family and friends solo.

Some never achieve that ability but those types should be weeded out early on or whatever the problem sorted and I find it strange that this instructor tells him to consider chucking it in after he has probably spent £15000 on flight time.

Maybe a good chat and a plan with the CFI might sort things or go to another school for an appraisal flight with a new instructor and an experienced one

Pace

Fully endorse the encouragement folks above have given you. A lot of folks have difficulty with particular areas of their training, yet go on to become aces in that particular field. A different instructor may be helpful as suggested, I like MaxR take. You can overcome, as did this chap.

no, when I ask where is the problem, I want to know is the trouble keeping the heading? Reading the map? Recognizing villages? Timing? Like I said, navigation is a task that consists of many smaller tasks and you have to recognize at which tasks you fail at

Dublinpilot made a very good point about GPS and making mistakes by turning early/late. Keeping a record of your actual track will point out where exactly your problem lies. I had the exact same problem, I used a sportstracker app on my phone - not only it showed my route, it also recorded my ground speed which was handy assesing the effects of wind etc, I only needed one look at it and that fixed my problems for good

A couple of points, I am sure you will have been told these by your instructor, but might be worth reiterating:-

If you start off on the right track and have made the right calculations on the ground then you will NOT be very far from the landmarks you are after - even if you are 10 degrees out you will only be just over 3 miles in error after 20 minutes and you can see that far on most VFR days. On setting heading do a "sensible heading" check - is the coast/railway/main road/runway you took off from etc. in the right place and in the correct orientation.

Do not over navigate, if you have planned correctly you will have landmarks every 6-10 minutes, put your map AWAY and fly the heading, I see a number of people get lost because they are looking at the map so much they do not see what is on the ground and lose heading, as the time approaches for the next landmark then look for it - you should know in advance what you are looking for, once you have seen it you can then pick up the map if you need to to double check it is correct, how close to track you are etc. make any adjustments for time to track and next waypoint, look at what your next checkpoint is and when, then PUT THE MAP DOWN AGAIN!

Agree with Foxmouth,

Don't OVERNAVIGATE the journey,

Try and take the " big picture " view of the topography of the land and not be searching for small villages and towns, and resist the temptation to be searching for your landmarks long before you are due to be at them as that can stress you out. Even using roads can cause problems as they may change orientation for few miles and throw you off. Better to take the " 30,000" foot view with hill ranges, lochs or if near the coast large peninsulas or inlets. If you use radio towers etc, back up there location when you plan by identifying a hill range that starts or stops abeam so if you miss the tower it's not a big deal. And remember the UK is a small country your'e never going to get LOST lost as no matter where you are, even in a spam can, your'e never more than 30 minutes from landmark or body of water, coastal or otherwise, that is easily identifiable. The only time you will have to have your nav spot on is for the test, after that is trim it out, follow the magenta line, sit back and enjoy the view. Remember it's supposed to be fun !!

I think you would instinctively know if you were missing the mental faculty to navigate. In other words, I think you will know whether you are lacking the hands-on skill of applying conceptual knowledge or whether the conceptual knowledge itself isn't on your wavelength. It sounds like the former because you can do the work in the classroom.

Flying seems to be a bit like golf insofar as the brain can make things harder than they need to be and one bad experience seems to reinforce that tendency. You need some ways to give the brain some confidence and positive feedback instead. In short, you need some ways to make it seem easier. In addition to the suggestions already made, how about:

- picking some easy routes to get confidence. Some are harder than others.
- try flying the route using Google Earth - just to give your mind a picture of the route from the air and to spot landmarks.
- It sounds like you know when you are lost (which is good) so have a route which includes some unmistakeable landmarks which you stand a good chance of seeing for miles around, which you can fly to and re-gain your position (having checked before you depart that there aren't any no-go areas within a radius of such marks)
- Avoid routes which will take you towards the sun and in haze because VFR flying gets more difficult then at the best of times
- Have a VOR/DME configuration and practice being able to work out which radial you are on, and the distance from it. That will give you a fix if you get lost - which means you won't be lost for long, and it won't be so stressful when you are

I have mixed feelings in the use of aids ! I know when I learnt to fly we were forbidden to use any navaids whatsoever
There is some truth to the statement that pilot aids should be a compliment to your flying skills and not a crutch for a lack of those skills
You cannot always rely on pilot aids you can on basic skills and it is those basic skills which need to be solid!

At some point a PPL is issued which licences you to fly people who are totally relying on your skills for their lives
If you need pilot aids to cover a lack of basic skills I petty the PAX

Pace,

that's not what we suggested. The advice was to use aids such as GPS/Smartphone app only to confirm the track/route AFTER the flight, NOT during the flight! Turn the app on and throw it in the back of the plane if you must. This aspect of training hasn't changed since your day and any successful PPL candidate must demonstrate navigation skills without the use of any aid

@c_h: Don't worry, we all had our mentalmeltdowntimes ... You do have everything in sight already - first, for getting exam ready you have to fly more frequent. An hour every 1-2 weeks usually won't give you the training level needed to have the confidence. Try to fly at least 2-3 times a week right before having that click feeling in your head. - second, don't worry about navigation. We all get it wrong on a certain day and it is nothing to really worry (psst, just try to let this not happen on exam day).

Not necessarily the case - many years ago, cutting a long story short, I ended up following a student round a solo cross country in another aircraft, he flew the first leg and a half perfectly and was BANG ON TRACK, and on time when he "got lost", had he he kept on his planned heading and monitored his timing I am sure he would have been fine, as it was it was surprisingly easy from close line astern to tell the second he was unsure of his position!:hmm:

Try flying slower - just because the aircraft can cruise at 100 knots doesn't mean you have to fly at 100 knots. If a 70 or 80 knot cruise gives you more time to navigate while flying, do it that way. After a bit of practice you will probably be able to increase your speed without getting lost.

hello clinique_happy....

Trouble with going places while airborne is no road signs up there!
I learned in gliders (here she goes again!) where the first priority is just staying up, which means we spend a lot of time going around in circles in thermals. This makes it hard to get lost because you always are looking where you have been as well as where you may be intending to go.

The best way to navigate, in my opinion, is IFR - I follow roads. Or railroads.
A good trip is to follow the M40 from Wycombe Air Park to Oxford and back.
Or the M4 to Devises and back. This ancient method was the only one available to those women in the Air Transport, who delivered Spitfires etc from the factories to the active airfields.
And of course another splendid way to travel is to go by coastline. Why on earth do they insist in these contrived nav exercises to make the poor novice fly in straight lines?

Yes, study the map carefully before you go. Plan a sight seeing journey, keep it simple. We used to fly Bicester Didcot, but they kept knocking down the cooling towers....

One bit of wisdom I obtained whilst Foot Orienteering (and Bike Orienteering.) was not to go directly to a check-point, but to go definitely to the right of the check-point.
So for instance if the check-point is on a fence, go to the right, when you reach the fence, the CP is to your left. If you went straight to the fence, you would not know which side the CP is on, so you would be confused as to which way to turn.

This is called 'Off-Setting'.... Other tips are available....
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...gation&f=false
.
Best of luck...

The last two posts are a bit like the ones saying "once you have your PPL you can use GPS" this poster is trying to get his PPL and needs to be able to navigate in a (reasonably) straight line, following roads or aiming to one side (though of course having something like a Motorway across your track and knowing that a certain feature on the motorway should be left or right of your track is certainly going to help) is not going to get someone through the test!

Take a ride with another pilot – and bring your map
 

This will be a mystery destination flight for you.

P1 gets to pick field with good restaurant and 2-3 turnpoints. You follow on map, maintain flight log, calculate winds, track and groundspeed. After lunch try one or more turnpoints. At last one, you get to supply heading and ETA to home. Actually you could do that at each turnpoint.

This will give you time to familiarise yourself with how the landscape is represented on the map.

Flying an hour every other week is an inefficient way to learn and many sporadic students take as much time. A 90 minute or 2 Hour slot can get you farther away where you have to find where you are to work out a course and ETA back.

Crease the map, move a pencil parallel to the track until over a VOR compass rose to get heading, hold pencil over longitude meridian to read off distance. 90 kt is 1.5 nm/minute; so 24 nm takes 2x24 = 48 / 3 = 16 minutes

or first divide by 3; then double

whichever is easier for you.

Even easier, mark the top end of the pencil with mile spaces using a small saw, 6 minutes is 1/6th your speed - and on a Half mil chart, 6 mins is the length of your thumb at 90-95 kts, not exact, but close enough!

Offsetting track to destination
 

PhiggsBroadband, above, refers to offsetting and its use in orienteering navigation.

Sir Francis Chichester was the first to use it effectively in flying. He was born in the UK, emmigrated to New Zealand at the age of 18. In 1929 he bought a Gipsy Month aircraft in the UK, and flew it solo to Oz. From there, because it could not carry enough fuel to cross the Tasman sea, he shipped it to NZ, and fitted it with floats (which he did not always remember to pump dry before flying!).

He was the FIRST to use off course navigation in flying, steering to one side so you know which way the error is. In this way he was able to find tiny islands in the Pacific ocean.

After WWII he set up a map making company in the UK. And when diagnosed with cancer, retired, and sailed around the world in Gipsy Moth, the sailboat now restored and used for training young people.

Martin

I know you did not mean that )) I was emohasing a concern that maybe in today's age of easy navigation in the form of GPS and mapping its very hard to get lost! I can remember when it was a luxury to be able to move a distant VOR onto your track )) and that was as good as it got and then Decca ( wow)
Now jump into a Cirrus and the pilot aids are amazing but with that comes a danger
These aids should compliment pilot skills not plug holes in those skills and I sometimes wonder how much is plugging holes

Pace

So much wrong with that statement. PB Can we assume that was an attempt at humour?:eek:

You say that you can do the nav in the classroom, but it goes to pot in the air.

So you are capable of understanding what is required and what to do, but have a block putting it together in the aircraft.

As others have said, everyone has a block on some aspect of learning to fly. But eventually it clicks, unless you are a hopeless case. You have to weigh up how much you want to get that licence and decide for yourself whether to carry on until it clicks or give up. Obviously, if instructors were telling you that you are one of those hopeless cases, things would be different.

My stepfather started learning to fly at the age of 59. I have his logbook in front of me and it shows that he took 66 hours to solo and 120 hours to test (which he passed) at age 60. He found it tough to say the least, but he wanted it enough and persevered.

As for how to solve your particular nav "problems", there is a lot of advice on this thread on the techniques and I'm sure that much of it is good, but to be honest, you are not in the best position to judge which advice to follow and which to ignore.

Either trust your instructor or, if you have any doubts about the quality of the instruction you are getting, consider changing.

Alexa - where did your father learn? May just have been my student!

He learned at Barton, Ringway and Liverpool, qualifying in 1993.

Op,

If you are still around, here's a slightly different take.

Life is short and where ever possible to be enjoyed. Maybe it's worth doing something you don't like for a short while to gain a reward, but in general if you are lucky/privileged enough to have choices, do the stuff that makes you happy.

Since this appears to be a hobby for you (I assume, possibly incorrectly, that you have no professional flying aspirations) it's pretty simple isn't it.

If you are enjoying your flying training and can afford it...continue.

If you are not enjoying it and/or it is too costly...stop.

One thing you should not do (in this or anything else). Make quitting something you have stopped enjoying a "failure" in your own mind.

Quite the reverse...continuing with something you don't enjoy, and don't have to do because "you want to prove something to yourself or anybody else" is emotionally weak and ultimately pointless.