Grounded because of weather....What do you do?
 

Hi folks
I am currently doing my PPL training... As all of you are aware of it, the weather in the UK prevents you from flying whenever you want and keeps you grounded for days.... Could anyone tell me what they do (or what they used to do) when they are unable to fly because of the weather to keep their flying skills up to date? How do you keep the automatisms going?
Thank you :)

The obvious one is... read PPrune all day and get nagged by boss/wife/kids "God, you're not talking to those pilot friends again ,are you?".

When I was grounded during training I used to study for and sit the ground exams, thankfully I never got into a situation where the weather was flyable and I had to sit an exam. Once the exams were all sat I used to go in and talk to the instructors anyway as there was still much to learn ( there still is even though I have my PPL). I discovered that a certain area of Scotland gets fewer non flying days than the south of England, it was one reason why I travelled to Scotland to finish my PPL.

I spent the early months learning more about patience than about manipulating the controls. But for a pilot, that's an extremely useful thing to learn.

To learn HOW to fly takes around 45 hours. To learn WHEN to fly takes a lifetime.

Go flying.

That's what I did today.

OK, so it was my first lesson after not having a valid licence for 13 years, and it was basically to give the instructor (and myself!) an idea of whether I could still remember anything about driving a plane. No horizon, limited visibility of the ground (not enough to know where I was, see the runway from base leg half the time, etc), in fog and cloud part of the time.

The instructor reckoned that as I could fly tolerably well in that crud I should have no trouble getting back up to PPL standard.

Practice your instrument flying on Microsoft Flight Simulator - that's what I'm doing today!

Go and borrow the OFFICIAL operators manual for whatever you're learning in and read and digest it. It may help pass your skills test, it will definitely help you operate the aircraft better in the long run.

G

Go to the airfield, sit in the bar, and socialise! Depending where you fly from, of course - this is more appropriate at some places than others. If you're unfortunate enough to fly from somewhere where you'd be the only person in the bar except the cleaner, then drive down to White Waltham and sit in the bar there...

FFF
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As previous contributer, get those written Exams out the way! And try to remember what you learned, rather than let most of it leave your memory the moment the CFI comes back with a smile on his face after marking the papers!
Listening to ATC frequencies may help with radio familiarisation, also to build the picture of where everyone is in the circuit - not much use if the weather is so poor that no one can fly, but I found it helpful anyway - particular when driving past fields I hadn't flown into with procedures different to those one knows.

Thinks - must visit White Waltham! :D

Same as most people here, study , sit exams, talk to instructors/other club members, and look at the weather carefully - I found it very useful to learn to judge what is on the TAFs/METARs with what is out the window.

Once you have your PPL, go/no go decisions become yours and without an instructor to tell you it's OK, you need to understand how it really is.

All the above, plus...
 

All the above, plus...
Content yourself with this little safety maxim:
'I'd rather be down here wishing I was up there, than up there wishing I was down here.'
:)

Do all the family things and chores I should really be doing when, instead I am flying!

For instance, my neighbours can tell if we have had a run of flying weather weekends - the garden is a shocking mess and the car is caked :rolleyes:

Once you have your PPL, you will sooner or later face the much more interesting prospect of being benighted away from base. Look upon this as an Opportunity.

Most GA aerodromes are in the vicinity of small towns. The world is full of fascinating small towns. Cadge a lift into the nearest small town and spend the evening exploring it.

You can always fly home tomorrow, or when it stops raining.

Rattus