I'm sure I posted something to this effect on here before, but I'll mention it again. It's worth selecting your first non-flying passenger very carefully. Taking a loved one, or someone you want to impress, can put quite a lot more pressure on, when suddenly you're the commander with real responsibility and things are not necessarily going to plan.

It's worth re-reading the human factors stuff on flying with passengers and what to look out for in terms of their wellbeing. Also, make clear right from the start that you may - for a number of reasons - need to abandon the flight or plan. That reduces the pressure of disappointing someone.

I actually took a really calm friend who had done the odd flying lesson before and knew what to expect from a light aircraft. He was still slightly nervous at first, although that improved after my near perfect landing at our destination:D

I later took my father-in-law who is ex RAF, so had some idea too. Notwithstanding that, he was nervous as anything - something about the older generation having to put their trust in the younger - relative life roles etc. I was glad I'd taken my more relaxed friend up first!

Finally, make sure you're current and that you've flown enough recently to feel comfortable with your practical skill level. The recent weather has been so bad, I got to the point of deciding not to take any more passengers until I had flown again with an instructor (which I did today, yes!!!)

It's fun though - and a great step in the transition from student to PPL. Have safe flights all.

HH

Some good points here chaps!

Just a little note about flying near mountains. It was on my skill test that I discovered how dangerous it can be. With the examiner, approaching an area south of the Lake District - found that we needed near enough full power and lots of back pressure just to keep the thing level - scary at the time but didn't last very long!

I was lucky with my first passenger, in that he was very calm. I have taken up some 'hard as nails' people who just turn to putty in the air - quite funny actually :p

Cheers
Lee :ok:

HH - thanks for that! I've actually started a thread on another forum, about this very subject. I've come to the conclusion that I'm happy enough with myself to take a passenger up now, providing my hour with a FI is alright. However, only in good weather and well within my limits. And the flight will be a local route - around the area which I trained in.

Just about flying near mountains - I'm very keen to go to the lake district at some point, but think I'll be going either under instruction or with someone more experience in those circumstances for that very reason - I wouldn't like to be solo in a situation which mazzy described!

Thanks all, hopefully my first passenger(s) will enjoy the flight! (As well as me!!)

This seems like the best place to announce my solo. Not really the first as that was 30 yrs ago but a milestone still in my new attempt to reach a NPPL. Actually been ready for ages but weather or never ending commercial traffic at Newcsatle always got in the way. Beautiful flying weather day today so we went to Carlisle did about 4 touch and goes and then one on my own. Cup of tea and fly home. Just how a day off work should go. Really glad to get this hurdle behind and move a little nearer completion

A fellow Newcastle..er! Excellent, and well done on the first solo in this batch of flying!

Check yer PMs!

Gotta watch out for these Newcastle folk - they steal your cars and burgle your houses.........

(!!!!, that's scousers innit) :p

Well done and thanks for the post - I bet your first solo was just as good as your first, first solo!

Looking at getting back into the game myself soon - gonna book in with my Instructor and get up there (ahem) :E

:ok:

Congrats on the solo, i'm a fellow student at newcastle & i'm right on the verge of my first solo - its so close i can smell it! :E

Thanks to you all. Truth is just like the first time around the first solo I did not find that exciting. For more important in my memory was the solo circuits for an hour or so a couple of days later. It is just more fulfilling to walk to the aircraft, preflight etc. and not wait for the instructor to jump in. I sorta sat there for a while thinking when is someone going to tell me to call for taxi. I have had two solo circuit sessions now. The first brilliant in absolutley flat calm conditions. The second I scared myself a little as whilst calm when I took off between the first and second landings the wind swung right around to about 80 deg off and picked up in strength before dropping and backing for the third landing. The second landing spooked me because althougth touchdown was good and tracking nicely once the noswheel touched it started darting from side to side. I assume that as I was holding a lot of rudder in to counteract the wind the nosewheel would be cocked to one side when it touched hence the dart off towrds the edge. After that I think the weaves were me overcontrolling the pedals with fright. Just goes to show the landing ain't over until you are stopped. Left with a mixture of confusion over the incident and pride that the touchdowns had been well sorted in what was the highest crosswind I have coped with yet. Starting on navigation exercises this week.

Sounds like you were still flying a little sideways when you touched down - remember, keep the nose straight with the rudder, and then reduce drift with the wheel (cross controls). This is hard to do at first, but will come with practice (hey i'm no expert like!) :E

May be right Mazzy but at the time I was sure the drift was neutralised. Only when nose lowered did things go all exciting. It was a freaky little squall for a short while. At the time I wondered if it was wake turbulence as I landed behind a departing 737 but I made sure to be down well before his point of rotation. Anyway with such a wind the vortex even further down would have drifted off very quickly. (just been reading up on this) Of course my landings are so smooth as to be undetectable so Mazzy is probably right and I was still flying:rolleyes:

Bonnie - could be nosewheel "shimmy" - quite a horrible vibration of the noswheel on the ground. If this is the case, try and keep the nose off the ground as long as you can, and when it is down, if this happens, keep the controls well back to take as much pressure as possible off the nose, then just use gentle braking. ;)

Now there's a thought. I have heard shimmy on one of the fleet before but can't remember which one. Whatever I will be looking for some dual when the wind is a bit sporting to make sure. Thanks for the input Mazzy. Think I better change my user name, I use this on lots of sites, its the name of two of our dogs but when abbreviated to Bonnie - well it doesn't suit a baldy old coot like me.

Cheers Bonnie :p :ok: :ok:

Hey guys,

I'm very very new to these forums here, and I came across this awesome thread. I've not read it all by any stretch, but what I've seen looks very interesting and informative.

I've just turned 17 and I'm well on with my PPL training at Blackpool in PA-28-140s. I went solo about a week after my 16th birthday, but due to the terrible weather you know we've been having, I've only managed to get about another 4 hours of solo in since then. I've got just over 40 hours total under my belt so far, and I'm down to advanced nav work now, and beginning to look at land-aways.

I've not yet done any solo nav work, but with the weather set beautiful tomorrow it looks pretty hopeful indeed.

I'm a little nervous about it - presumably that's to be expected? It's not so much the fact that I can get lost, because it would be very difficult to in an area that I know so well, and if you do get uncertain, you can just head towards the big "W" and you'll eventually hit the large Blackpool tower, hopefully in a metaphorical sense anyway. It's more the fact that there's so much more to think about doing nav work than in the circuit. For example, the flight my instructor's given me involves a left turn if runway 28's in use, which takes me straight into Warton's MATZ. It's a lot to think about, talking to Warton, trying to get MATZ penetration, maintaining your climb, thinking about turning onto your heading, getting the time, checking the chart etc.

Then of course, there are major problems that I know I could be faced with. Surprisingly, it's not so much something like an engine failure that I'm worried about, because I know there you just maintain your 75 knots and put it down wherever the heck you can. It's more something like a radio failure, where you can still fly, but I don't have a clue what to do. Blackpool doesn't seem to have any special non-radio procedures associated with it, so do I simply squawk 7600 and return to Blackpool, joining on a base leg to whichever runway I took off from and landing, hoping there's no traffic very close to me that I've not seen?

Are these normal thoughts to be running through my head at this stage of the training? From what I've read, it seems everyone goes through slightly tougher patches in the PPL training.

Also, has anyone got any quick tips before I take the plunge tomorrow?

Thanks for any help/advice, and I might just stick around here!

Hey Woot - welcome aboard - glad this has been of use for you!

Some very good questions there, and a few concerns which I can relate to also. I flew in and out of Blackpool a few times, including on my QXC and the things you mention are typical of the area. The key to dealing with Warton, is to be prepared. After take-off, I woulnd't just call them up with "G-LFSA" I would actually give them a few more details as quick as possible so they knew exactly what I was doing:

"Wharton Radar, GLFSA, out of Blackpool for Liverpool climbing 1500".

You may not see it in CAP413 like that, but IMHO it makes perfect sense, especially as you have to say goodbye to Blackpool, change frequency etc etc. You will also find you get a quicker, more informative response - the controller knows that you know what you are doing...

Your worries of a radio failure are perfectly normal and we all share them, however here is my 2 pence worth. If you have a radio failure around Blackpool, then the first thing to do is remian CLEAR of controlled airspace. Blackpool has a lot of heavy commercial traffic, so you don't wanna be hanging around there with no radio. If it was me, I would quickly SQK 7600 and head over to Woodvale (you know where that is without a map don't you!!) circle overhead at 3000 ft (to keep out of there airspace - dont wanna hit any of those kids in a Tutor (I can say that, I used to be one ;) ) in theory, Blackpool, or whoever you were in touch with last should by now get the idea that you want to land there, and give them a quick call to let them know. Wait a few minutes and see if there are any green lights - if so your ok if not, then its purely your discretion. If it was me, I can imagine I would wait to see if there was any traffic, and if not I would plonk it on the runway.

Wat I have said above is open to LOTS of discussion and opinion, but make sure you check out CAP413 here: http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP413.PDF because it is laid out in stone there. If you read this, you may feel a little more relaxed (and that's not cos of the half a bottle of scotch you need to get through it ;) ).

Some people say it's a bad idea to go up with another PPL before the ticketis issued, but if you ever wanna go over anything just get in touch - and thats not forgetting your instructor of course, who is always your first port of call if possible..

Finally make sure you know your Air Law (sqk codes, airfield signals, procedures etc) - this is the stuff that helps you in the air when you get up !!!!!s creek without a paddle - however boring at first - you need it :E

What is your QXC route?

Best wishes
Lee :ok:

Hi there,

Thanks a lot for those comments, they really helped!

Well, just got back from the airport after a fantastic solo nav run. Tower controller got it slightly wrong, he cleared me for a left turnout off runway 10, but I pulled it up and he contacted Warton and got my info to them. It was a slightly busy time after I turned and contacted Warton, and my first checkpoint was under me in no time. I had few problems with Warton, but as things were busy I kept drifting slightly off my heading. I adjusted it with positive fixes to make sure I was on track - I thought I identified Burscough airfield, which was my turning point, but now I'm not completley sure that I did, especially after speaking to my instructor on the ground. it's very (very) disused and, in the bright sunlight and not fantastic visibility, it looks quite a lot like a field. However, I turned there and got established on my heading towards Preston. At that point the controller kindly told me that my radio was almost unreadable. I swapped radio sets, and tried transmitting on the other one, but I didn't hear anything back at all. When I switched sets back and transmitted again, he told me that he heard me much clearer on the other set but that he didn't think I could hear him, which was true. The crackling seemed to sort itself out anyway, he said I was readbility 4 by that time. I missed my first checkpoint on the way, but it was a slightly unclear road/railway crossing which I probably shouldn't have used. However, I positively identified my next checkpoint and reached Longridge successfully. The rest went really smoothly.

Sorry for waffling on, but I'm quite pleased that I've finally done it after a fair old wait :}

With regards to my QXC - think I'll be doing Blackpool - Caernarfon - Hawarden - Blackpool.

Thanks again for the reply!

Sounds like you done really well there, not nice having to worry about a broken radio on your first solo nav - how ironic!

Burscough is an arse to find, especially in poor vis becasue the runway is like a grey-ish colour. I always look out for the big green water tower and the industrial estate, which the airfield is right next to. You can also use Ormskirk as a good marker as it's pretty much 2 or 3 miles north west of it.

My first nav solo was similar - from Liverpool to Leyland, accross to Southport Pier (clipping Warton zone) and back to Liverpool - it was horrible - so much to do in such little time/space. Warton were very good however and like I said before, if you can help them along with decent calls then they will do the same!

Good job

Lee :ok:

Thanks for the reply!

Nice to know you had similar experiences with that. It's certainly interesting talking to someone who regularly flies around the area.

its really good to see this thread still active and lots of people entering the world of aviation! Just to add another dimension, I passed my IR today so am now a fully qualified CPL/IR, all I have to do now is my MCC course. It seems such a long time ago that I was here in this thread sharing my experiences with mazzy on the different bits of the PPL syllabus lol. I now have just over 200hrs, with most most of that being in Warriors, with 30 odd hrs in Senecas. Totally recommend any of you who are considering going down the commercial route, it really has been an amazing experience. I feel I know a lot more about flying then I did when I went out after getting my PPL! (and I don't mean that in an arrogant way!)

Enjoy your flying and happy landings!

Good to hear from you Blinkz, and congrats on getting so far along the road to a commercial licence. At 63 years old I'm way beyond such ambitions, and got my licence simply for the pleasure of flying. I'm currently doing my IMC which is very enjoyable has sharpened up my flying a great deal.

I know of another occasional contributer who passed his ppl skills test about 18 months ago (I think), and who has just landed a plum job as First Officer on Astraeus' 757 fleet. He's like a dog with two dicks at the moment as you can guess, and I wish him the very best in his new career. I wish I had done the same 40 years ago.

i havent read the whole thread yet. working my way through it slowely. Im about to do my second lesson and I was shocked to hear that people are landing on their second hour? landing is one of the most difficult aspects of flying and I cant forsee my instructor giving me the opportunity for a fair few hours yet. oh well i have my second lesson coming up very shortly so il wait and see...but i doubt it.

Hi Steve,
It might surprise you, but certainly in my limited real-world flying experience, and from other people's experiences, I've found that landing, especially in light aircraft, is not really that difficult at all. Certainly lining up and getting the descent right is really quite simple as long as there's not a horrendous crosswind or something, although it does depend on which airfield you're flying from. If you fly from a grass airstrip, it will be a lot more difficult landing there than if you fly at a large airfield with a concrete/asphalt runway.
Of course, the full technique of landing, especially the final parts where you're reducing power, flaring (but not too much, otherwise you'll float), kicking off any crab that you may have because of a crosswind, making sure your descent rate is low enough so as not to give everyone a headache, judging your height etc, all within 3 or 4 seconds, takes a lot of getting used to, and even experienced light aircraft pilots don't get it right every time.
Personally speaking, if I remember rightly, I did my first landing on my 3rd lesson, with my insructor assisting. My first few sessions were when I was very young, and were spaced out a long way, so I probably didn't do my first fully unassisted landing until just before I started proper training about 2 years ago. Of course, my landings at the moment are still very hit-and-miss (if you'll excuse the pun :uhoh:) with only just over 40 hours' experience, but I tend to be able to pull off fairly smooth ones now. Landing a light aircraft is very much about co-ordination and balance.
It's surprising how simple it is to at least get the basics - normal light training aircraft are built to be hurt and thrown around quite a lot, so they can take hard landings very well (especially the robust Pipers), and it's quite difficult to scrape the tail or hit a wing or anything like that. Remember, for your first load of landings, your instructor will be very alert, and he'll be able to tell if anything's going wrong at an early stage, and take over the aircraft.
I wouldn't be surprised, if the conditions are right and you've handled the aircraft well for the rest of the flight, if your instructor lets you control the aircraft during the landing :)
Have fun!

Have any luck with the landing Steve?

I did another solo nav today, and it went much better than my first one. Had a fantastic hour first with my regular instructor, went up to Settle and Clitheroe. For my solo I went up to a bridge near Cark and then along to High Bentham. That leg I was planning to continue on to Settle, but the cloud was fairly thick at my level and the ground was rising so I routed back towards Fleetwood and rejoined from there.

Turns out that radio problem I had over Warton was fairly common with the aircraft. It was just Warton that didn't like our radio for some reason, but everything seemed to work fine today.

Really enjoyed it today, it's given me a bit of a confidence boost. I'm booked in for tomorrow too, although it's looking as though it's going to be a bit windy.

heya. 2nd lesson under my belt and I feel as if i really learnt so much today. the first lesson I had a bit of a foggy memory of what happened etc because there was so much to take in but with this second lesson I had a few personal goals to understand and master trim and rudder.

I started by taxiing to the runway. unfortunatly I kept trying to turn with the yoke and resulted in me snaking left and right the whole way to the start point, over compensating with the rudder. when aligned on the runway I aided the instructor by pulling up at 55kt and maintaining 10 degrees. After levelling at 2k i asked about yaw effect on turning as I wanted to master the rudder on turning left and right and know what to feel for. Still need to remember to add a little rudder next time so thats a personal target for then.

After that I mastered trim which I knew I would fathom pretty quickly and feel confident to use now.

We then looked at some other basic effects of slow/fast flying. all of which seemed pretty obvious to me. then I spent a while following simple instructions ie climb 500 ft level off trim and maintain speed and height then turn west down 500 ft and stright and level.

At this point I felt that I was really able to be in control of the aircraft instead of it being in control of me. i had gone from timid movements of the yoke to purposeful and planned movements.

we entered a busy circuit at shoreham and came into land. I aided with aligning up to the runway until about 50ft before the instructor quickly took over.. lol

I taxieed back to the parking space much more accuratly this time although I received feedback to use the brakes next time.

booked another lesson for this morning but has just been canx due to cloud at 900 so i think im going to have to do a sicky on a fine day during the week! hehe

on another note my instructor told me hes leaving so ive got the chief instructor from now on rather than a student one. I imagine this will be much better for me in terms of instruction but I do worry about being less relaxed possibly?

stevo

Congrats on that lesson! Sounds like you had a great time.

Shame about the weather this morning, though it surprises me, it's nice up here. Unfortunately aviation seems to be like that - even with my few hours I've been set back so many times due to poor weather, and it makes training so much slower. However, if you hit a nice spell, it's amazing how quickly you can get on with the course.

I promise, you will say that about everything in the training, especially the QXC - it is then that you will be glad to be able to land after you've found the airfield ;)

It's really strange - I can't believe it's been a year since I got my ticket. I am reading these posts now and it brings back the memories :ok:

Keep it up :)
Maz :ok:

Still alive!! Nice work.
My update - currently in the thick of a taildragger endorsement. Top fun!!! I'll figure out what I'm supposed to be doing one of these days, I hope... :O

My update:-

I originally applied for my student license in October - it arrived in January whilst I was in Europe, so now I am trying to get the medical certificate processed. After 4 weeks of deliberations, I've been informed that I need to get a couple more tests done and that I should allow a further 3 weeks once the results of those have been submitted....which should see me through to mid-March before I can go solo. This is proving to be extremely tedious.

I've been doing a lot of travelling since my last update, so have not had much time to fly - I'm really holding on the paperwork before moving forwards again.

I went up for another round of circuit emergencies over the weekend in fairly challenging conditions - late afternoon, 32 deg, 12-15kts of x-wind.

My instructor and I are both of fairly stout construction, and the combination of our weights and the high temps did not make for great performance. Our Warrior was chasing a 152 around the circuit for most of the lesson, but not really catching it in the way that you might expect.

My judgement of different approaches seems to be gradually improving. I was caught short on one approach by the head wind on the base leg, and over-compensated on the next couple of glide approaches that more closely resembled stuka-stylee dive-bombing runs than landings - but the flare and touch downs were pretty consistent. Although on a couple of occasions I found myself being so relieved after touchdown that I prematurely released the backpressure on the stick and caused the nose wheel to judder fairly violently - but even with the engine randomly "failing" around the circuit I am reasonably confident of a good landing.

I am finding the mental side of it very interesting - I am repeatedly surprised at how easy it is let yourself become overloaded, focus on a single task and allow other tasks to slip. I have a number of other hobbies that require broad situational awareness, whilst multi-tasking but none of them manages to turn my brain to custard in quite the same way.

Hey-ho - onwards and upwards...:rolleyes:

Hello
 

Thought I should show my face and introduce myself after spending most of my adult life reading the whole thread (very interesting!).
In a way it's a shame I'm about 2/3 years behind you lot (namely Lee), but I suppose you have huge chunks of advice /wisdom to pass on.

I had my first lesson on Saturday.. It's now Monday and I still have restless 'need to fly, need to fly' legs. Flew from Barton in a lovely PA-28. It felt fantastic, after playing that bloody flight simulator, to actually do it. I even managed to get a little sqeak out of the stall warning on 'effects of controls' rudder inputs!

I work for a large financial Institution, and the amount of times I think 'that pensioner doesnt need £50k, thats daft, spread the wealth you bint!' whilst considering 'would she miss it if it dissappeared?' is dangerous!

Hope all you flourishing PPLs are enjoying it. Living the dream baby, living the dream :ok:.

Dave

Hey Dave!

Great stuff! I hope you enjoy the PPL course as much I as I'm doing at the moment.

I'm booked in for tomorrow, but the forecast is appaling. High winds, low cloud and rain don't mix very well to give good weather for a solo nav :*

Just to let you guys know, I did my QXC route dual last Tuesday - Blackpool --> Hawarden --> Caernarfon --> Blackpool. Enjoyed it SO much, I can't wait to do it solo (no offense to the instructor :} ), I'll hopefully be doing that within the next 4 or 5 weeks.

Hope everyone else is getting on well!

Well done guys, keep posting to keep this thread alive - it's a good un!. I had an IMC lesson canned today from East Midlands (wx) (but spent 2 hours in the classroom on NDB/VOR/DME approaches). It was more tiring than actually flying the same thing!! I'm supposed to be doing the some tomorrow, but winds are forecast to be 30 gusting 47kts, so I can't see it happening.

Hey guys,
Some news from me. I didn't get up last Tuesday, but I managed to squeeze one in on Saturday, enjoying clear blue skies at EGNH. However, I knew pretty quickly that I wasn't going to get where I wanted to, my instructor had planned me to go up to the south Lakes, and there was thick low cloud right from Carnforth up, at around 800 feet. I got pretty close, and descended a little, but I knew it was a no-go and had to turn back. Still, I got 45 minutes of solo time in, which is always good.

Today my instructor and I went down the low-level corridor between Manchester and Liverpool's airspace. I'm sure most of you are familiar with it, but it's a 4nm wide, 20nm long stretch of uncontrolled airspace not above 1250 feet. Landmarks are few and far between as it is, before you factor in the very low altitude. It was bumpy today too. However, it was very rewarding, and good fun too. Apparently the school's examiner often takes us down there on the test.

Booked my QXC for next week! Can't wait, I really hope it comes off. Coincidentally, I've got Wednesday off college too, so I've got double the chance.

On a slightly duller note, my instructor told me today that he's leaving on Friday for good, he's off to do a type rating. At least I've got very little of the course left now, so I'll just have a couple of different instructors over the next few weeks.

Ah well, that's my rant over for a while :}

EDIT - Actually, one more thing. I'm just about to call up an R/T examiner. My R/T is the only exam I've got left to do (save for my HPL, which I'm ready for and shouldn't cause too many problems). Anyone get any experiences of the exam they'd like to share? How is it? I've still got to read the book.

hi

was reading about the sex on first date... I mean, landing on second lesson scenario.
In fact, I see it quite often on the forums an dit makes me wonder if I am retarded, or an alien.... or a bit of both !

I went solo on my 14th hour of training, and up to my 10th/11th hour I felt wanting to get out of the bloody thing for not being able to get it right. Then all of a sudden it kicked in and all became easier. You know the score.

On my second hour I was probably still struggling to comprehend that the 2 pedals in front of me are not for braking and accelerating, and that while taxiing on the ground there's no need to move the control yoke to steer left and right !

Yet someone with no experience at all on their second flying hour can line up, glide down at the correct airspeed and gently touch down safely just a few yards past the numbers !

Of course I must have been hanging out with the wrong crowd ! ;)

It's sometimes a lot of fun hanging out with the wrong crowd!
I think it was in the 60's!;) ;)

high-hopes I'm not sure I see your point - could you clarify please?

Woot - I know the feeling about having your instructor leave. Strange at first, but you'll be just fine when you settle in with the next chap!

See if you can find Ashcroft Farm the next time you leave the low level southbound - it's a small grass strip which we used for my QXC. I landed there also with another pruner last summer - quite a nice place...

Cheers
Lee :ok:

Lee,

Funnily enough, that's the waypoint we used to turn back to head northbound again - it looks like the best one down there to confirm you're out of the corridor.

I actually thought when I was overflying it that it looks a very nice place to land at - is it private or can anyone land there? I've not got a Pooley's handy.

Regarding the Pooley's flight guide actually - do you know of a free place online with that info on? Or is the AIP Aerodromes section the only place like that. It just seems a bit much to have to buy one and keep updating it, when I'd only be using it maybe once a month at most.

hey lads and ladettes i thought I would keep you posted with my exciting 3rd lesson.

After 6 yes 6 cancelled flights over 4 weeks due to weather it was just about flyable today so i seized the opportunity to get up there. There was a strong crosswind just within the aircraft limits of 15kts.

After being introduced to my new instructor I told him what I had learnt etc and off we went. taxiing was fairly difficult getting to the runway as It takes me about 5 minutes to get used to each time. after snaking to the runway startpoint I pulled up at 60knts and we climbed bumpily to 3k ft and levelled out. this lesson was all about straight and level flight and what a difficult task it was with the wind bumping us about all over the place. I managed to master it but it was very hard to know if we were rising or falling as the 'picture' was moving up and down and left and right by about 30 degrees constantly. the instruments were swinging around all over the place and the altimiter needle jumped over 100ft up and down. maintaining a specific aaltitude was very difficult but im glad i had the experience in these kind of conditions because it will be a better test in the long run.

To my surprise the instructor suggested that we could still cope with a bit more turbulence! I had a firm grip on the controls at first trying to over compensate the sharp gusts of wind but later learnt that its easier to use just one hand to fly and hold the yoke loosely rather than with white knuckles.

Time to enter the left hand circuit and upon making the final turn we realised that the wind had pushed us way past the runway so we crabbed our way back and had to make a rapid descent so as not to miss it. I had a go at keeping level on the way down but left the rudder to the instructor. it was really strange to be flying towards the runway facing 30 degrees out of alignment and just on Q the instructor took full control at 30ft and whipped off the rudder to bring us in alignment a mere second before touching down.

I enjoyed the lesson and found the added wind made things a lot more tricky. every time i feel like I didnt do enough though. maybe others feel the same at the early stages and its just typical trigger happy newbie syndrome???

After landing I taxied much more accuratly back to the parking spot and ran through final checks.

Then I took a chance at my met exam. feeling I had nothing to loose and I PASSED!! all those cancelled lessons kept my head in the books/CD rom over the past few weeks and it paid off.

finally I settled the bill of £264 for 1hr flight, exam, kneeboard, logbook, checklist, and membership...Then I cancelled sundays lesson through lack of funds :*

Hey there, posted a while back to introduce myself - (currently on straight and level flight exercises- 4 hours in-don't get to do much flying as I'm still trundling along at uni + the recent weather) -bit bumpy this morning but a gorgeous day to fly...my take-off was a little dodgy today-strong winds pushed me off my course as I took off- causing me to drift:uhoh:

My instructor tell me if I tackle straight and level then my life will become much easier! doesnt seem too bad at the mo, but I guess practice makes perfect....

Had the privilege of co-piloting (uninstructed) to Birmingham Int for a school trip, which was brilliant experience -would definitely recommend school trips to those who have the opportunity! especially us baby pilots! you get the time to feel comfortable with the aircraft and learn so much, as well as the excitement of landing at another airport and getting to know other pilots and the instructors...

off to the flyer exhib on sat with some other wanabe pilots to poke people for more information. Iv still got a lot to learn! :8

FG

***First taildragger solo for me this morning!!! Woohoo!!!!***


:} :) :cool: :8 :p ;) :O :ok: