Data - excellent description there - I like it ;)

Kook - now you would go and mention the Ashes! :ouch:

:E :E :E :E :E

Yep, I would... and DID!!! :ok:

One of the things I had to do was hand over control to the instructor, then close my eyes, whilst he put the plane through a series of turns, climbs and descents (in cloud), all done in a relatively gentle fashion. I had to describe to him what these manoeuvres were as they happened eg "we're turning left now" "Now we are climbing" etc. When he had finished, I was convinced that we were flying straight and level, but when I opened my eyes in order to recover the aircraft, I was amazed to find we were in a descending left turn!!
Another time (again in cloud) I had to close my eyes whilst he put the plane through a series of more aggressive manoeuvres, to simulate bad turbulence in cloud (which can be disorientating), finishing by putting the plane in a steepish descending right turn, which I had to suss out and correct into straight and level flight, with only reference to instruments.
Aas I said before, all great fun but damned tiring!!

well the weather has been awful in the North East recently (well on the days I'm booked to fly any way! :E)

I managed to get a lesson on Thursday but the wind was horrendus, ATIS and ATC was saying 15kts but my instructor reckoned it was more like 22kts!

anyway, up we went and my god was it bumpy.. we flew up to the training grounds north of Morpeth for some PFL's - this is the first time I'd done PFL's, (it was too windy for circuits) I managed to pull off one decent one but unfortunately there was a lot of military activity going on & it was decided what we head home. Landing was very interesting to say the least. I knew the crosswind was going to be bad but it still didn't prepare me for how much rudder and opposite alieron was needed, suffice to say I cocked it up! I really need to get these crosswind landings nailed.. :{

Hello Miraz,
We're planning on going to the "air museum a couple of hours away which is having a flying day" this weekend as well... look out for us!

Check your PMs...


K

Good stuff guys - all this IMC chat is making me want to start the course :ugh:

What a glorious day on Sunday in the North West - went down the Welsh Coast with a friends (and yes it was actually the first time I have ever done this! (people who fly from Liverpool know that route all too well:p ))

I have to say it was one of the best flying days I have had - not a cloud in sight. Crosswind was there, but made all for a challenging landing - my friend loved it.

Here's a question for you - I don't know about you but I am the type of person that loves to pass on knowledge, so every time I take someone, I find that I want to teach them something, so they have gained a lot more than just fun sight-seeing. Is anyone else like this?

Cheers
Maz :cool:

And to top it off, went straight to the model flying club, to get some flying in of a different kind!

Dammit!!!
Weather was crappy, as expected, and our 'back-up' IFR lift failed to show... so never got to that air museum out west. So I went and did my first hour in a taildragger instead - and (sadly for the bank balance) I might just be hooked... :ugh:

Is there any chance...
 

Could an admin pull out the hours lessons and post them in one locked thread ? It's very interesting, but 83 pages to get to the hour lessons is really slow.

Hello all,

Apologies for the lack of posting!

I'll skip to where I am - haven't flown since mid Sept :{ but have the GST booked mid Dec!!

I'm at university at the moment, so haven't had much time to fly. With a bit of luck though, I'll get the ticket. Had one test cancelled already, so fingers crossed for the second.

I'm slightly worried about the lack of currency, but I'm going up with my FI (who happens to be CFI) and doing some revision!

Fingers crossed and best wishes to all!!

That would take some time to do. Remember this site is run in our own time, it would take ages to do something like that. I do believe Mazzy has done something like that anyway for his website-to-be.

Mazzy, please check your PM's dude... :)

Yes I have a test site up and running now, and as soon as I get a few issues sorted and the domain name registered, it's all yours!

JWF - good luck on the test, it seems like ages since we last chatted and I completely lost track of your progress. Don't forget the full write-up at the end!

Cheers
Lee :ok:

Kookabat's taildragger lesson
 

Kookabat

Well done! Did you go to Curtis? I presume you flew one of the Citabrias - they're responsive aren't they?

Cheers

Dingbat

G'day Mr Dingbat,
Certainly did - MWY all the way!! We were sitting at Curtis waiting for either that IFR 'back-up plan' to arrive or the weather to lift and neither happened (was intending to take Cherokee LJL to Temora) so I figured, there's an instructor - there's an aeroplane - why not!

Quick thoughts from an hour in the circuit in a Citabria:
-Power to weight is much higher than the Cherokee... this thing can scream along if you want it to - and it's very easy to let it creep a couple of hundred feet high without realising...
-Following numerous 172s and Jabirus, that are flying ridiculously large circuits, around is easy if you slow her riiiiiiight down.... 50kt on downwwind, anyone??:D
-Roll is particularly heavy but you're right about the control responsiveness, the 'dead spot' you get in the middle of a Cherokee's controls is not there!!
-Rudder!! Rudder!! Rudder!!! KEEP IT STRAIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :ugh: It'll take a bit of getting used to for a dyed-in-the-wool Cherokee driver like myself.
-Doing everything with 'the wrong hand' will also take some getting used to I think.

All in all though, awesome fun and yep, I'll be back for some more once I have a few dollars to spare.


Kookabat

I had to abandon my trip too....cloud base being lower than the mountains does not make for good VFR conditions.

So ended up flying more circuits at Bankstown in the Warrior for the afternoon - seemed to go reasonably well...not what I would describe as pretty though.

I am going to be in Europe and the US for most of Jan, so I am going to try again for the Feb flying day at Temora.

Flight cancellations are all too common on this student thread :{ :p

That's right Mr Miraz - and they looked like pretty good circuits from where we were standing - flapless too!! ;)


Roll on February!

why is the weather is great today when i'm stuck in work? :( it's been awful the last couple of times I've had lessons booked. I'm desperate to get the circuit cracked, hopefully the weather will be good this weekend.. :ugh: :E

I'm trying to use the lesson time for exam study if its cancelled, hopefully this will mean I'll be ready for the airlaw exam by the weekend...

To bring this thread back on to the front page!!
I did my third IMC lesson today. The winds were pretty bad, and the turbulance was, well, "sporty" as my instructor put it! We left East Mids with worsening conditions forecast, (Prob30 3000 in RADZ PROB30 BKN700), and headed South, initially VFR with a Sierra Whiskey zone departure. I then spent an hour flying near Leicester with a partial panel, navigating here, there and everywhere using the compass, turn co-ordinator, rate 1 turns, and stopwatch only. It really works, and is a confidence booster (and possible life saver) if heaven forbid, you ever lose suction, and as a consequence, HI and AI).
It was not easy in the bumpy conditions, which had the compass dancing round all over the place, and for sure it was not easy to achieve an accurate heading within 5 degrees of that required. Fine adjustments at 3 degrees/second thereafter, getting us onto the heading required.
The weather really closed in for our return, which was in cloud most of the way (and at 16.00, really dark too!) so we asked for (and got, from the ever helpful controllers at E.Mids) vectors for an ILS approach. We joined on a 12 mile final at 3000' (QNH), and boy was it rough (my instructor wrote "extreme X-Wind" in the notes afterwards)!!
Keeping on the localiser in such conditions took immense concentration, with the plane crabbing some 20/30 degrees off runway heading (27), and bouncing around really badly (worst I've ever known it).
The ILS approach is made considerably faster than the normal 70 knots (we were doing 105 knots), so I had to dump a lot of speed for crossing the threshold.
The landing was OK too, though the instructor "nudged" me for a bit more 'into wind' aileron in the flare, and all this in view of an Easyjet airbus' plane load of passengers at the hold! Hope I didn't frighten them too much before their flight!! To the non-savvy eye, it may well look as if we were about to crash!!!
These ATC Vectors and ILS approaches (especially in such conditions) are frankley the best fun I've ever had flying since my GST. I was absolutely knackered when I got back home, but I am REALLY loving every minute of it.
RECOMMENDED!!

Chequered Flag,
Brilliant write up,I was there along with you.
I've gone along the vintage taildragger route,no amazing trips,mostly local within East Anglia but some pretty amazing landings!!!!
Anyway at least we are using our new licences to the full, whatever the new found route or discipline.
Happy Christmas/Holidays all 0-45 thread readers.
Lister:)

Great posts thanks :ok:

I haven't had a chance to catch up on prune - am in Altrincham on a C# course at the moment (boring I hear you say!). I am booked in on New Years Eve to take my 10 year old brother flying for the first time - he's getting the bug and reminds me of me when I was that age - he is gonna love it!

Have a great Christmas and New Year all...

Bes wishes

Lee :ok:

Hello all,

It's been a long time since I've posted on here, many apologies! Hope everyone is well! It's also been a long time since I've been flying, but luckily I've managed to get 2 flights in over the last few days. For the benifit of those who haven't seen or don't read flyer, here's an account of yesterdays flight:

I hadn’t flown in three months due to university, so desperately needed to get flying. After about 5 cancelled lessons I wasn’t holding much hope for joining the class of 2006. Luckily though, weather was good enough on Thursday to get flying, and I did just that.

Had a lovely revision flight with my instructor, and all went to plan just about! I rang my examiner that night (whilst Christmas shopping :mad:) and we were set to go, if the weather held out.

Woke up at 0830 and saw the weather – it was to be cloudy and not too nice. Spoke once again with the examiner and decided to go for it anyway, if worst came to worst we’d just do the skills section.

I had my route to plot, and had it all sorted. Once I got to the club I went straight to check the weather and wind forecasts – variable. Not the best I’d hoped for, but never mind.

I met my examiner, a very nice chap, we chatted about weather, maps and all sorts of wonderful things. Weather wasn’t brilliant, but “sod it”, we’d waited long enough.

Took off, left Newcastle’s zone and routed pretty much to the North. ¼ and ½ way points on the leg looked excellent. I actually remembered my FREDA checks for once and I was beginning to relax, which was greatly helped by the superb attitude of my examiner.

I arrived at my point a minute before I’d expected (terrible planning, eh). Unfortunately the cloud was becoming a nuisance, and I pointed out that had I in fact been solo, I probably wouldn’t have continued. We decided to carry on as we both felt safe though.

15 or 20 miles into the next leg I was told to divert. Quick moment of madness trying to find a pen that actually worked on my chart (good timing as ever), eventually scribbled a line on it and got an ETA. Off we went towards the coast, dodging a glider and a GVS. About half way in it as decided that my work load wasn’t high enough and I needed to fix our position using 2 VORs. Fair enough, I duly did so being very careful to get the right ones! Got my fix spot on(ish), and a few minutes later I saw where I was supposed to be heading . . . but I wasn’t heading towards it. Grr quick correction and we were fine though.

Got there and it was time for a 180 in “IMC”. No real troubles there except I couldn’t get my watch from under my jumper arm, so scrambled a bit but managed to get it accurate enough.

So, that was the end of navigation. Luckily the weather was good enough and I was quite chuffed to get it out the way!

“Time for a PLF” so says my examiner, and he pulls the plug. No problems really until it was decided that I needed an engine failure on go around too! Nose straight down and a nice field straight ahead to land in.

After a scaring a few cows like that it was decided we’d climb to 4000 and do some stalls. Eek, I do not like stalls – never have. Not because of what they are, but the recovery always seems so rushed! But anyway, I have to do them, so I just went for it. Unfortunately I went for it without doing the checks, which I was promptly reminded to do! Clean configuration was fine. Base turn not quite so good but I got away with it. With approach configuration I managed alright too.

Next we did a steep gliding turn, no worries there. And then a recovery from a spiral dive – fun! I’ve always loved these, not quite sure why but this was no exception and it was fine.

It was now apparently time to head back to Newcastle, “what, already?”. Examiner asked if he had forgotten to test me on anything . . . Steep turns! So we climbed back up to 4000 and did them. Good job I’m honest! To be fair though, I really like steep turns and I thought I handled them quite well.

Now it really was time to go back to the airfield. Slight obstacle in that there was some low cloud, but we skirted underneath it. Only consequence of the cloud was that we did bad weather circuits. After asking nice Mr ATCO for three circuits, we were rather rapidly on finals for only my second time in 3 months :sad:, and my landing certainly wasn’t the best in the world. Ditto the second. And ditto the last. But they were safe – that’s all that matters, right?

And that was it, “well that’s a pass” from my examiner and one happy smile on my face! Got an obligatory picture with the aeroplane and my FI / examiner and then attempted to tackle the paperwork.

Apologies for the length, but it’ll be nice for me reading this one day too! All in all I had an excellent flight, flew reasonably well and really enjoyed it.

As you can imagine, I'm a rather happy John at the moment!

Just a quick thank you to all who have posted on here. Especially Mazzy, this thread has often given me the motivation to carry on when it "just wouldn't click". And I've learned a lot through it, too.

Cheers everyone, hope to see you all sometime!

Merry Christmas to all, and I hope you all have a great new year full of happy (and safe) flying! :ok:

JWF.

John,
Many, many congratulations - a great Xmas present. You were lucky to have avoided all the recent fog. A very enjoyable write up too. It'll take a few days to sink in, but it's a GREAT feeling innit!! Have a few beers over Xmas (and I'll have several for you too).

Yeah, bit of an artificial exercise, that, with the instructor/examiner doing the flying whilst you mess around with pens and maps and stuff.

In real life you may have to do it in your head, you won't always have a passenger who can do straight-and-level whilst you use your hands for other things like drawing lines.

(Last real life diversion I had, I did have a passenger but it was a foreign schoolgirl with limited English and it never occured to me to get her to do the flying. I just glanced at the map and guessed. Yeah, maybe the navaids would have helped ... except that nothing much was working on that aircraft that day, just the DME IIRC.)

Congrats John, great job. Welcome to the club!

hmmm you must have had a nice examiner! In both my PPL and CPL I've had to do the calculations whilst flying the aircraft!! I just put it in a orbit and do some hasty sums, more guesstimates then anything else. Once I have the initial heading I set off, the rest of it you can work out on the way. Happy christmas everyone! Hope the weather improves for some winter flying. I passed my 170a last week and will be sitting my IR early january, wish me luck! :sad:

A VERY nice examiner! As I understand it, you can ask the examiner to draw a line for you, having told him/her exactly where you want it drawn. This is in a helicopter, anyway. Everything else, you do yourself. That's reasonable; in real life, you'd either have a passenger who could draw a line, or you'd have an empty seat with all the stuff on it, so it'd be slightly easier to do it yourself. But once you've drawn your line, you estimate headings, times etc. Nobody should be doing the flying for you.

It's tough, which is why in real life I like flying with another pilot if possible. :ok:

Ah yes, I've used that line with an instructor on a test: "Can you just do this for me please, if you weren't sitting there I'd be able to do it myself because I'd have the gear ready on your seat".

JWF Well done indeed. Welcome to the class of 2006! The grin should last well into the new year. Merry Christmas everyone.

Chris

John my friend - very well done, I am made up for you. A superb post too, thanks :ok: As others have said, the good feeling lasts a lifetime, and is boosted even more when you take your first passenger. It is then that you will feel a real sense of responsibility and realise that all those hours you spent training were worthwhile - you won't have you instructor with you any more ;)

In my test, the instructor done the handling whilst I calculated the route. I suppose however, if he see's that you can put the aircraft in a decent trim, and have relatively relaxed flying, then I suppose you could do the same should you be on your own. Interesting debate though - I do see both sides...

Well, very best wishes to you all - I have seen this thread close a few times and am always made up to see people posting once again. Suppose when you've spent about 2 years of your life doing something, you kind of miss it when it goes (but that's the stella talking) :p

Take care everyone,

Lee :ok:

Many thanks everyone, it's much appreciated! And certainly very nice to join the club - even if I'm yet to be given the licence from the money grabbers. . . .

As for the diversion - examiner took control. I asked him whether he would or not, and didn't seem to mind either way. However I agree, it's not totally realistic. I've had to divert solo two time (albeit not over massive distance). A scribble on the chart and basic heading did me. I had near to full tanks so didn't need to make any decisions fuel wise. Once on route I started thinking about how long it might take.

So, what's next? At the moment I'm going to build as much P1 time as possible - I'm determined to go on long(ish) trips. I'm very much hoping to go commercial in the very near future (OAT if I'm lucky), but money is a problem. So for now I'm just going to enjoy the PPL!

Anyway, thanks again everyone, hope to see you sometime!!

well done John, I;m looking forward to flying with you in the very near future!

:ok:

Likewise!

And many thanks. Won't be long until we're congratulating you on a flying milestone I feel!

Well done John. All over at last !!!! :D

Give me a shout if you want to share a flight.


Regards one and all

Safe flying in the new year :ok:

Hi all, I'm a new pruner!

The site was reccommended by a trainee pilot where I'll be flying (Biggin Hill) - been reading the threads from those keeping diaries and expressing their experiences whilst doing their ppl and its been a treat to read to see what's in store for me!! Really helpful to know it wont all be plain sailing! And it's great to know experienced pilots are ready to give advice...

Perhaps you'll be hearing from me as I embark on my ppl over the next few months... :)

Cheers

Hi Flygirl - welcome to pprune, and welcome to this thread! There's a good bunch of peope on here (apart from Neil :E ) who are glad to help!

Let us know how you get on and enjoy the training ;)

Lee :ok:

another newbie
 

Hi,
Great thread, very enthralling.

I'm about to start my PPL out of Sherburn. Just had my 40th birthday so I'm ready for a long challenge.

I've had a lifelong facination for all things that fly. I've been wasting my time flying model aircraft (fixed wing and helis) for the last 10 years so it's about time I threw the toys away.

Anyway I've nearly completed reading the 'Flight Training Book -1' so I can't wait to get up in the air next saturday.

Chris - welcome :ok:

Just one thing on your reading - use your flying training book as you go along, you will find it much better that way. For example, the night before you do the steep turning lesson with your instructor, read the steep turn chapter. That way, you won't get caught up with other parts of the syllabus and worry about them etc. Best to start looking at Air Law (I specifically never used the words "get it out the way" :ouch: ) as a lot of school's will require you to have passed this exam before your solo - also, it will get easier as you start to relate the theory to what your'e doing in the air etc...

Oh and don't throw your model plane's away - if you have any gear you don't want I will buy it from you :ok:

Thanks for the advice Mazzy.

Model aircraft can be great fun but unfortunately I don't have much time for it as my 3 year old daughter and 4 month old son demand alot of my spare time and I have other interests as well.

It's all about weighing things up and deciding what to do. I love flying things and motor racing. When things are on a budget you have to decide what you will get the most out of. Learning to fly is something I've always wanted to do so why wait any longer?

I'm beginning to think that life is too short to do everything.

Chris I'm 24 years old and I have already learned that in a big way.

I once wrote a thread on pprune a few years back, asking for advice as to whether to begin lessons and pay or save up first blah blah rubbish......

Someone said to me - LISTEN go do it now - if you don't start you never will. And here I am now.

Go learn to fly - you'll never look back (unless your keeping centerline) :E

Lee :ok:

First non-flying pax
 

Hi all,

Another milestone today, my first non-flying passenger.

I took my young sister (well young to me!) for a local bimble. The idea was to fly from Wellesbourne over Worcester check out the Malvern hills and back again.

The take off from runway 23 was fine and the trip towards Worcester was reasonably smooth at 2500'. However the closer we got to Worcester the bumpier it got. The Malvern hills are up to 1350' and due west of us and with 2000' winds at 280/30 we were appraoching the ripples of the mountain wave effect from the hills. We aborted the Malverns and just did a couple of orbits of home then headed back. An uneventful circuit with a nice landing with just a touch of cross wind and one very happy sis.

Chris

Sounds great, and a good, quick PIC decision too, by the sounds of it!

I'm hoping to take my first passenger up soon too - my "other half" will be the victim. And then my granda (who flew a bit at my age (20sish) but never has since, in small AC).

I'm really looking forward to it!

Glad you enjoyed your flight!