How many types?
 

Just interested to see how many different types people have soloed and what their favourite/worst/most challenging was!

:ok:

and how many different airfields visited and stories of the best and worst??

Looking at my book I seem to have - in no particular order...

C150/152/172/182/RG Cutlass
Piper Supercub/Tomahawk/Cherokee/Warrior/Archer/Arrow/Commanche 6/Seminole/Seneca
HOAC Dimona DA 20 Katana
Slingsby T67B Firefly

P2 in

Varga
PZL Wilga
Citabria
Bucker Jungmann
Stampe
Tiger Moth
DHC-1 Chipmunk
Grob 109
Vigilant Motor Glider


Gliders

Kirby Cadet Mk III
Sedburgh T21
Blanik (Tin Torpedo)
K13
K18
K8
Grob Twin Acro DG600 (Viking)

All in all great fun - and quite costly

However, I make up for it with

5,000 Instructional hours A320
2,000 Instructional hours B777




:ok: :ok:

Although I keep track of numbers of types, I don't have it divided by type and role.

91 types in total as operating crew (which basically means P1, Student or flight Test Observer). Offhand, I'd guess that somewhere around 50 of those I've flown solo / P1.


Most challenging (Flight Test Observer) probably theJaguar T2a which I always felt it hugely rewarding to have brought back with the required FT data, closely followed by the Eurowing Goldwing (a rather odd canard single seater).

Favourite, I'd have to make a list. Hawk T1 (FTO), HM293 (P1 - it's a single seater, and probably the nearest I've been to a WW1 fighter), PA18-150 Super Cub (P2 then P1), I also have a soft spot for early 1980s single seat flexwings like the Halfpint or Photon. Of this lot, the HM293 probably wins by a small margin.

Worst? Not sure I've got one, but I suppose the Hunter T7 (FTO) is the aircraft I've the least desire to get back into - but many people have assured me I'd feel differently if I'd flown the single seat "F" marks.

G

One type (and not counting).
Always challenging.

At risk of subverting FR's thread, sometime in the next year I'll probably hit my 100th type and it might be fun to actually pre-plan that with a particular type in mind.

Any suggestions as to what?

I only have one personal rule, I don't pay for passenger flights except for holidays and business trips - I have to be operating crew, if only as a student being checked out or trained for a rating.

G

Hi Genghis,

Here's a link to a picture of the HM293 taken in 1973. I think I may well have seen you make that flight, at a flying flee fly in (say that after a few beers) at Popham 2 or 3 years ago (I was in a Balerit)

http://www.qccuk.com/pfa/G-AXPG.htm

All the best

You may well have done, that sounds like the time I got to fly one - thanks for the picture, I didn't know that the type had ever been approved in the UK.

G

As Flik's post implies, when it comes to tallying the various types one has flown, only solo time is truly meaningful. IMHO, riding along as a student, observer, passenger, or "PIC under supervision" (talk about an oxymoron!) just doesn't rate.

Cecil Lewis said it best:

P.S. The above is not meant to imply that dual time is worthless for the purpose of assessing someone's piloting skills. At least in my experience, one hour of dual given by a good instructor can sharpen one's skills better than ten hours of solo practice.

MLS, the role of FTO - Flight Test Observer usually means more preparation than the pilot, often greater technical knowledge, more often than not planning and briefing the sortie, and almost invariably writing the report about it and doing a great deal of detailed analysis.

I've done this for a wide variety of tasks including erect and inverted spinning, transonic dive bombing, short field landing performance, asymmetric handling, civil and military crosswind handling, military helicopter OGE hover, performance of a 1930s biplane, dropping a parachute load from a Hercules over the Irish Sea - I could go on but would probably bore you. This experience is entirely equivalent to flying solo in terms of flying experience, albeit clearly different.

So, I maintain that my 40ish types in other roles is just as valid as my 50ish types as pilot in command including half dozen single seat types.

I have been a passenger, in NR Fairy's R22, numerous airliners, the occasional military fixed or rotary, and hitched a ride in a few light aircraft that happened to be going where I was: those I didn't and wouldn't log.

And it's a pretty poor instructor who allows a student to "ride along" as you put it.

Yes solo flight, particularly in a single seat aeroplane, is a quite unique experience - in that I agree with Cecil Lewis enormously, but it's only a small part of the overall experience of flying and learning about flying.

G

First post for me so Hi!

I've only had my PPL a short time so not much of a list but here goes.
C150/150 aero/C152/C172/Aeronca cheif/Bolkow junior/PA28-140/PA28-180R and counting :ok:

Just had to provide a summary to the FAA in the course of trying to get a private pilots certificate, so I have the list at hand.

SEL> 200 HP
Bulldog, Yak 52
SEL< 200 HP
Brava, PA 28, PA38, U-18, Cessna 172
SEL(TW) > 200 HP
U1, TF-51D, Pitts 2B, Yak 50, Harvard, U6A
SES
Cessna 185 Float
MEL (P)
PA31
SEL (J)
Jet Provost, MB339, L-39, Hawk, Hunter, F16, Harrier
TEL (J)
Typhoon, Lightning, F-15, Tornado, Jaguar, Mig 29, BAC1-11, T38, F18, F14, Lear 35, SAAB105, T2C
MEL(J)
Comet
SEL (TP)
Tucano, PC9
TEL (TP)
Andover, U21, C23
MEL(TP)
P3C, C-130
Helicopter
Gazelle, Scout, OH-6
Glider
X-26A, Schwitzer

48, could increase it by going down into different marks and models!!

Like Genghis, only included the ones I have either flown solo or performed a take off and landing with out the intervention of the resposible adult on board.

Best Typhoon, worst Hunter, closely followed by Lightning (only because the both took their toll)

When asked by my US instructor (of Syrian birth BTW) how many hours I had, I responded by saying "36 hundred" (a guess at the time its actually 4200). I was surprised when he told me I would need a few more to qualify. Turns out he didn't hear the "hundred".

T
:p :p

The FAA have high standards, are you sure that's enough for a PPL? :D

G

(Also don't count marks and models, or could probably add about 50%, agree on the Hunter, envy you the Typhoon).

Genghis, I have no doubt that you are highly qualified, and that your work is demanding. But I don't think that it has much to do with flying different aircraft types, which was the subject of the thread.

Try and tell that to the licensing authorities! The above reminds me of the line in Cheech and Chong's movie, Up In Smoke: "I don't know, man; if we're gonna all wear uniforms, then we should all wear something different, man." :hmm:

Agreed. My point was simply that a student has an instructor to bail him (or her) out, and so does not have the responsibility (or glory, such as it is) of truly flying the aircraft ... even if the instructor never lays a hand on the controls.

Cecil Lewis et al
 

MLS-12D . . . . excellent quote, Sir. A sublimely gifted writer the late CL to be sure. His lyrical evocations of solo flight (and many other aspects besides),are matched by Phillip Wills "On Being a Bird", by PG (Sir Gordon) Taylor, "The Sky Beyond", and by quite a few others to be found if you troll the annals.

A good starting point for a foretaste or sampler of these ensnarers of the moment [http://www.skygod.com/quotes/quotes.html[/URL]

Ah, that depends upon what you are after permission to do - as a CAA flight test signatory that's all utterly relevant to me and to CAA's Flight Test Dept who authorise me. As a pilot alone, only the P1 hours count clearly, but there are enough of those too.

G

Bristol Freighter First Flight

Two of us TPs went to fly one once and couldn't find our way to the flight deck.

Had to ask an airman who was going to pull the chocks. The way in was via a little obscure closed trap-door in the roof of the freight compartment

Invited the airman to come on the flight but he was adamant in his refusal to accept.

They were the days!!!

We have similar tastes in literature! :ok:

I have two of Lewis' books: Sagittarius Rising, and Gemini to Joburg. I like them both very much.

I have three books by Phillip Wills: On Being a Bird, Free as a Bird, and Where No Birds Fly. They are all good, although (inevitably) perhaps somewhat dated now.

I have a copy of The Sky Beyond, but I read it so long ago that I can't now recall much about it.

Apparently George Moffat has recently published a sequel to his classic, Winning on the Wind. Does anyone have any information about that?