Hi mazzy, reading your posts with interest, I am not a pilot but would love to be one, but do fly with a mate at liverpools LFS, just wondering your progress seems excellent and I see you are a user of MS flt sim products, do you think they have helped you with what you have done up to now and if so with what aspects, I somehow think I know what your answer will be, keep up the good work mazzy.

Regards Nick.

Sunfish - keep up the practice. Good to see you are dong well!

Nick, MS flight sim is good to a certain extent, it helps you learn the basic controls and is great for practicing instrument work. Try not to develop your own style or habits though when using it, as the real thing is quite a bit different. I read the ground school notes which are scratch on the surface of most of the PPL topics, dont forget though they are written by an American with a dodgy sense of humour!

You should let me know when you are next at LFS - perhaps we could meet up.

Cheers

Lee

Hi Mazzy and all,

Good to be back on here at last after several weeks on the ground (work and weather!).

Spent an hour this morning going around in circles at Wycombe. Rain showers forecast and the base was around 1000', but actually quite good visibility and fairly smooth.

Thanks to everyone's advice, I'm beginning to get the landing flare right, but still getting a regular B**locking from my instructor for being too rough with the rudder throughout the touch and go.

Mazzy, I'm sure you've said somewhere earlier on the thread, but reading your posts about pre-flight and stalling made me wonder what you are learning on. Mine's the Warrior - nice stable aircraft, but why a manual flap lever?!!! (My arms are quite short and I have one hell of a reach to pull it up off the floor).

The Human Performance book is one of the more readable - enjoy it!

Long term forecast is more settled - so maybe some more hours over the next couple of weeks???

Keep posting
 

Ill chat here to, very isolated in my house really im 15 so I tend to go on a bit about my flying to my parents!! Im a PPL student with roughly 21/22 hours under my belt! Flew to the Isle Of Wight (Sandown) and got a taxi to the main town for lunch! Recommend that for others very nice little place!

Seeya!

Evening Hampshire Hog! Keep up the practice on those flares! With regards to the flap lever, it generally doesnt cause me a problem (I train in the PA38 Tomahawk) apart from when you have your harness too tight!

CaptainKarl: welcome to Pprune! there is no better place to talk about flying. This is a superb place for information and contains a wealth of good advice. Do not be afraid to post questions if you have one, that's what it's for.

Please do keep posting - best regards,

Lee
:ok:

Great
 

Thanks for the "warm" welcome (it ain't warm its raining):O So who in here is a pilot?

Well, there's a lot of fledgling pilots in this here thread but on PPRuNe in general?

According to the front page, there's about 600 people online RIGHT NOW, meaning there's literally thousands of regular visitors...and a lot of the forums are specifically geared towards current aircrew...bottom line, I think it's fair to say, is that there will be thousands of pilots who use these forums...like mazzy says, a great resource for pilot wannabees!

Welcome to PPruNe :ok:

V1R

Forced landing practice again yesterday. Flying the plane is not he issue, its now about selecting the right field and the high and low key points, ie airmanship. I'm taking too long to do this.

Hi Sunfish,

I have done several EFATO exercises, but not the detailed 'forced landing' stuff yet. Having said that, I guess the speed of your decision making will come with practice - it's like learning those 'before landing' checks off by heart - first time it's laboured and adds to the mental overload - gradually gets easier.

I was on a (management) course a while ago with a gliding instructor (owned his own school) who was also a PPL. He was complaining that, as a very experienced glider, he could put a plane down in just about any field from almost any position, but on revalidating his PPL for the forced landing his instructor insisted he do the spiral descent/circuit and that totally screwed him up!

Keep up the practice.

Welcome Capt. Karl. As has been said, this is a very good place to discuss your flying. Don't worry about the occasional negative response from 'les miserables', we try to encourage them to leave asap! My wife gets fed up with me talking about flying too - so I understand your situation with your parents - they just don't get it do they? What are you learning on?

Paul

Hi Guys,

Glad to see theres quite a few of us going for our "wings":ok: :O Hope its okay to contribute to this thread Mazzy?

I amassed my first 10 hours at the tail end of last year and then needed to pass Air Law and Human Factors before soloing. Sadly work and life got in the way and I had to suspend my training :( Nevertheless things are looking up as I have had the time to refocus and last week passed my Human Factors exam! Busy battling through Air Law now (I really recommend the Transair CBT course on it!) and hope to take and pass it in the next week or so. Then its back in the air for me! Cannot wait! :cool:

Fingers

I got to the point of my skills test - ran out of money (poor student! gotta pay bills etc!) and had to choose flying or continuing to stay with the missus!

The missus won!

However about to start NATS and get 15hrs of flying training so with a bit of luck might get this finished after all!

Mazzy and the rest - good luck, keep at it.

:ok:

Hi Tired Fly Boy! Good for you! Hope it allworks out well for you! :)

Funds are a kicker aren't they? Done two of my solo x-country and have now pretty much run out of cash for the next couple of months. Its a pain because I'm not going to be able to fly again until the winter when the weather is rubbish. Maybe some nice chap will offer me a job in the states and I can learn on the cheap.....:rolleyes:

c-bert

As a humble public servant, I sympathise with your predicament. Funds, wife, child etc - all designed to ensure moderation in my newfound hobby!

Just to keep your practice up, do you know any qualified PPLs who are happy to take passengers/students flying? Quite a few people seem to blog a little extra (unofficial) time at the controls by that method. Even if they won't let you fly, they might be happy for you to navigate etc. (Can't wait to get onto x-countries now!!!)

Flying as you do, from S'oton, maybe there are some ATPLs around who like to do a little recreational flying and would be prepared to share costs?

By the looks of it, a few more in X amount of months time! :D :D :D

You dont even need to ask - it aint my thread, it's ours! Keep em coming!

I know what you all mean by funding (doesnt everyone). If I have too many lessons too soon, then I will run out of cash then wont be able to fly for a while - so I need to take it easy. Keep posting progress and hurdles, it's a great learning resource.

Best of luck

Lee :ok:

Not a bad idea HampshireHog but unfortunately, due to the nature of So'ton it ain't a very social place. We all pretty much turn up, check out the aircraft and go. Not hanging around after either.
It's a shame Goodwood is so expensive as I think it would probably be a more friendly place to learn (and its just a close to me).

On an aside I think this thread is increadibly useful and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside seeing all the other people going through the same sort of thing as me. Keep it up guys, hope to see some of you sometime. :ok:

Hi everyone!

Mazzy & others, hope you don't mind me making my very first post on this thread!

Being a 11 hour PPL student, it's great to see that other people are going through exactly the same as me and this thread is a great help in learning.

I am currently doing circuits and am managing them fine except for the flare. The approach is usually perfect but it all falls to pieces when I get near the runway, usually failing to keep the nose attitude high enough and meeting the tarmac too quickly.:ouch:

I am doing my training in a C172. Does anyone have any tips?

I know exactly what the money problems are like. I was fortunate to manage to take my first 10 hours over a fairly short period of time, however, those funds are now gone and I will probably only manage 2 hours a month for the foreseeable future, which is a pain because once the 'bug' bites you just keep want to keep it going. Is anyone else only managing this amount each month? How do you find it?

Keep this excellent thread going.:ok:

The flare takes practice and that's about all there is to it. Just try not to foxus on one point but take in the whole picture out of the canopy and 'feel' for the runway with the aircraft in a slightly nose high attitude.

As for the cash, I've been doing 1 lesson a week for several months with no problems but I'm now going to have to cut down to probably the same as you. It's not ideal but if that's all you can afford then that is all you can afford...

Hi DeltaMike!

Im learning in a C152 and love it! I wonder if the 152 and 172 are similar from a handling point of view? Prior to stopping my practical training (needed to pass those darned exams before solo!) I was around the same number of hours and found the flare came with practice and my instructors constant words of "keep flying it" in my ears before touchdown. I found it easy to become too hung on on actually "landing" the plane rather than letting it land itself, if you get what I mean...

Have you passsed your air law and Human Factors yet?

Fingers

c-bert

Don't really know it, but what about Old Sarum? Bit of a drive, but not too far and I've heard reports that they're more of a friendly club.

Welcome Delta Mike.

In practice, I've only managed about 2 lessons per month, with the odd extra one thrown in from time to time. It's not too bad. I have found if I have to miss a lesson for one reason or another that it can take a few minutes to get back into things, but everyone has good and bad lessons anyway so it could just be attributed to that. I know many articles on learning to fly suggest at least one lesson per week, but it really depends on how good you are at learning and remembering things. I fill in between lessons with the odd session of FS2004 - has its limits, but good for recall of key points. The British Airports and Photo-scenery add-ons help. And when you can't fly, there's always those exams to read up on!

If you look at some of the earlier posts, you'll see we had some discussion about the landing flare. It seems to be a sticking point for many people and probably the best bit of advice I've heard is just to keep looking further along the runway than you're probably comfortable with! Hopefully, someone can give you more specific help on the Cessna.

c-bert, FingersR, & Hampshire Hog

Thanks for the advice. I guess I'll need to believe my instructor when she's telling me "dont' land!". I have a couple of hours booked in just over a weeks time, lets see if I can master it then.

FingersR - As far as the diferences between the 152 & 172 go, I have flown a couple of hours in a 152 and the one thing that struck me for straight and level flight was the engine cowling on the 172 slopes down much more than the 152 which caused a bit of confusion as you could see much more of the horizon and took a bit of getting used to. The space is another factor. There's much more space than the 152 and being fairly tall this is an advantage. Whilst the club has a couple of 152s I am happy to pay the slightly higher hourly rate for this alone, coupled with the fact the 172 is more readily available for bookings when it suits you. The bigger engine gives a great rate of climb and the 172 is much more stable in the air being that bit heavier, however, I have been told this makes it a little bit harder to fly. Whether this is true or not but its a great excuse when you don't get those flares right!

I passed my air law exam a few weeks past and I am currently reading meteorlogy with a view to sitting that exam in a few weeks time. I think that human factors is the next one that my club recommends I do after this. Is it easy to follow and understand?

I haven't taken the exam, but human factors is probably the easiest to understand of all the subjects, if you have a basic understanding of human biology and you've ever done a first aid course! I'm doing Met next - seems to have some complicated bits. Did you find anything particularly difficult?

Paul

I found human factors very easy. And it's only a very short exam as well. Looking through thte Q&A books there are three or four questions that always come up (although I can't remember them off hand:( ). I'm still studying for Met though as there seems to be an awful lot to remember and all the info is very similar i.e. cloud types associated with warm/cold fronts.
Nav is quite enjoyable if you fancy a break from met, but it pays to have done a couple of practical nav lessons before you get really stuck in as some of it makes a lot more sense then.
I found aircraft (general) to be quite straight forward but then my degree is in aeronautical engineering so some might say I have an unfair advantage! :ok:
R/T theory was quite simple as well, at least once you've been using the radio for a good 20 hours.
Still have R/T prac and flight planning to go though.....:confused:

I think you notice the difference between the 152 and 172 most on climb-out (much less of a struggle!), approach and land (needs more precision to pull it off) and - most of all - go-around (the amount of forward pressure on the column needed before you retrim is considerably more).

DeltaMike02

I was learning in both the C152 and C172,

I was always told to wait till the last 50' then level off, then very very slowly pull back on the control column till it was almost in your belly!

But thats what all the good text books say!

I had problems with judging the flare height and one day found that a quick glance out the side window (assuming your in the middle of the RW), when i could see the runway edge at the bottom of the spar that was when to cut the power and glide the remainder.

Obviously this depends on the length of runway- but EGPF has a hell of a long runway for a small plane!

Hope that helps but it takes time and patience and a few bounces till you get it right!!


:ok:

The 172 sounds fun! :D At some point in my training I'd like to have a go in a PA38 "TerrorHawk" - Although I love my C152, theres something about low wing aircraft that looks cool!

I found Human Factors quite starightforward - I found going through the book ( Im using the Pratt books) and then making sure i got at least 90% consistently using the PPL Confuser before I took it meant I went in full of confidence. Hope to get airlaw out of the way this or next weekend and then its back in the air and hopefully solo after a few hours!

Got the Nav & Met Pratt book last wekeend and had a flip though. Met appears to be a lot to understand but looks very interesting. Will probably become a weather bore as well as a flying bore - my poor wife! :p Thats the next step after airlaw for me. I also been using the Transair CBT course for airlaw and found it an excellent tool. Will certianly be investing in the Met one too!

Fingers

Fingers,

'You're not going to become a weather anorak are you?!!!' My wife's words only a couple of days ago as I was gazing skywards and making comments about 'embedded CB'! Have to remember to keep my mouth shut sometimes.

Paul

You think that is bad? Wait until you start learning Practiced Forced Landings. 'Field anorak' anyone?
I recently had the opportunity to go up as pax over in Houston. My only constructive comment was, "Gosh, aren't your fields big over here....."

LOL Chaps! ::D Good job we have each other to chat to instead about these things! :ok:

PHEWW
 

Glad I am not the only one who talks about these things with the wife/girlfriend etc. I have passed the air law, and most recently MET - I always find myself gazing into the sky naming clouds and stuff like that - its good in a way because this is stuff that we all should know, not just pilots. The MET is basic stuff when you consider the weather as a whole and its something that people take for granted. I think its great to be able to understand WHY the weather is the way it is - I mean, how many people do you know that could give you a reasonable explanation as to why clouds formed? And as to why the clouds seem to move in a slightly different direction to the wind (corolis effect). Once you have read the book and learned the questions, try and use this new found knowlede when outdoors, even when seeing weather reports on TV - you can see occluded/cold/warm fronts on the chart and I bet not a lot of people could tell you what they are. My girlfriend must get so fed up of me talking about flying and weather and allkinds all the time - but it will pay off one day when I can put my money where my mouth is and take her flying for the first time, only then will she appreciate the true value of all this learning and cost and all the :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad: that goes with it. I think that people just dont understand all this until they experience it for themselves. Sometimes I find myself explaining to people WHY I am studying for a PPL? Like its any of their business to question my intrest, but like I said - those people who know nothing and say everything, and who are always off the mark to criticise, will never know anything until they can do it for themselves!!

Back on the exam side of things - I thought the MET wasnt too bad. The only thing I thought was quite difficult was looking at various METARS/TAFS and having to pick one which closely matched the metform chart - some of the questions seemd a little vague but with practice it can slowly start to make sense. The one thing that I would recommend after passing your exams, especially the MET, is to always keep looking at weather reports each day, and definately before you fly - you will then be able to appreciate them more and learn them better.

Enough of my rumble (I do enough of it in here dont I :8 )

Thanks all - this is great reading for me also - please keep it coming :ok:

Lee

Hi mazzy...


Great Diary...keep it coming! I am almost in exactly the same situation as you. I have passed Air Law, Met and most recently Communications. I'm 3/4 of the way through Aeroplane Tech... which is a real ***** incidently. 12 hours 40 on the books.

I went solo this week and, weather permitting, should be back up there on my own tommorow. It was undoutedly the best experience of my life to date... I will never forget it. I am sure yours will be exactly the same when you get there... get excited!

RC

Lol!

Can totally relate to the talking about planes/flying/weather/nav etc etc all the time - I have driven my family nuts for years with it!!! ;)

Has grown worse since started ground theory - had Met. & Air law last night. I was at my parents' the other week and the weather came on - my mother said 'okay smartypants, you tell us the weather, then we'll switch to the other channel and see if you're right"....... :p

PPrune is great for discussing all things aviation without driving my friends crazy..... on occasion I've been introduced with "This is SkySista*, she's the one that's crazy about planes...." :cool: (*not real name of course)

This thread helping a lot as to questions that I want to ask once I'm back flying....

As to not being able to fly often, the thing I've been drilled most often with, if you can't fly all the time, at least keep it regularly spaced - consistency is the key! And as has been said, try to read up on your stuff when not flying, to keep it fresh in your mind...

(Lecture over ;) )

Sky (the one who's crazy about planes.... lol

PS - For those of you in OZ who have/know someone with Foxtel, there's a program on (think Sunday mornings) on Discovery or similar, where a guy is building a kit plane, in between they go to the airfield and he shows the pre-flight checks etc. Also last night on Discovery, "Super Structures", they had a segment on Boeing's plant at Everett - completely awesome!!! Catch it if you can! :ok:

Solo Today!
 

Beautiful day after two days of very windy weather.

Did four circuits with CFI who then got out and said "Off You Go".

One very careful circuit, uneventful landing and congratulations from the tower and that was that.

Now to build up a few hours solo in the circuit, then solo in the training area. After a few more lessons on precautionary landing, low flying and so on its the General Flight Proficiency Test (GFPT) with that and a pass in basic aeronautical knowledge (BAK) its into a Piper Warrior and Navigation training for the final PPL test.

Congrats Sunfish! Must have been awesome!! You're lucky you got some nice weather - it's been really crappy here (WA) for the last week or two - one cold front after another (yes, I've been doing Met.! :p )

Good luck with the Nav. training!

Sky

SkySista,

That sounds like the series "A Plane is Born" in which Mark Evans (with more than a little help - seen and unseen) builds a Europa and learns to fly at Gloucestershire.

Watching the build was OK, but the segments on his lessons were the most entertaining bits I found. The programme has a web site at www.aplaneisborn.com. They're selling DVDs of it there, though it does (or at least did) seem to get repeated fairly reguarly on the various Discovery channels in the UK at least.

Congrats Sunfish! Very well done! :ok:

Hour 10
 

This morning the weather looked completely cr*p - I drove to the airfield anyway and it was decided that we would do an hour in the training room, talking about the circuit. My instructor gave me an hour lesson on the circuit which was an excellent insight into the process. I really learned a lot today in this lesson, and coming towards the end I just couldnt wait to get up and flying - which is what we then did!

Preflighted the aircraft and got her started up ready to taxi, only to realise we had forgot the headsets - a quick jog back to the school.....

Today was a VERY windy day, we saw gusts up to 25kts and my instructor said that this is the worst you will see it, and wouldnt really fly in anything worse. We done 5 circuits, 4 left and one right due to traffic. It was awesome and it is suprising how quick they go, before you know it, after taking off you are preparing to land! The general procedure was take off, crab the aircraft to maintain runway line, get to 200ft, do various checks, trim aircraft. Once at 500ft, start the turn and then continue to ascend to 1000ft - again, ensuring sufficient crabbing technique to maintain correct line (we had to do quite a lot of crabbing today).

Once at a 1000ft and generally 45 degrees from the end of the runway, begint the base leg. A quick call to tower "[callsign] downwind". Then comes the traffic information and instructions, either number one or number 2, followed by the recommended guidelines for separation between larger aircraft. Then the BUMFFPICHLC (who can give me all of these? And who hasn't bought their checklist??) hahaha.

Onto base, again with a quick call and into the descent. Power to around 1700rpm, maintain nose up, slow down, one level of flap because of strong (very strong) x-wind and away we go to landing. Today I was making full use of the controls in order to put her down correctly, there was a hell of a crab in order to maintain centre line. My instructor pointed out that it was difficult for my first attempt at circuits, but from this lesson onwards, the conditions can only be better (or equal) and things will seem easier next time. I am completely satisfied with the way things went today and am glad that I have got some experience (although very little) of windy conditions, as like I have said a few times, this was one of my original fears. Bloody marvellous and cant wait for next lesson, as always!

SkySista - you are a legend!

Congrats to those who have just gone solo, I get nervous/excited just reading about it. :p

Safe flying,

Lee :ok:

Sunfish,

Congratulations!!!!! I'm pretty close to my first solo and can't make up my mind whether to look forward to it or be extremely nervous - same as Mazzy really, but I haven't been up in such strong crosswinds yet!

Keep it up all!

HH

Ive seen them programmes skysista!
 

He has also built a helicopter and some others!

Paul: I fly a Robin HR200 (Which I cannot find for fs2004 can anyone help?)

Errr... forgive the brain lapse Mazzy, but what for....?

I once flew a Robin, not sure what type it was, it had a "bubble domw" if that helps.....?

Lovely little plane, looked greatin black with a yellow chequer scheme on it..... bloody hot in summer though!!!!! ;)

Sky