PPRuNe Forums - After the PPL

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Best thing to do post-PPL is to buy a plane, or a share in one. Nothing will do as much for your currency and enjoyment of flying. On the other hand you may be one of the lucky few who can rent a very nice plane, in which case this doesn't apply.

Unless you are really not interested in going places, try to do the IMC Rating also; this will affect the choice of plane / share to buy because many cannot be used for training for a new license/rating.

Referring to how many give up and how soon, this data is not available from the CAA website directly but one can work out some estimates for 2000 and before. One needs to make some assumptions about the average age at which people start (that can be derived from the data) and the average age at which people give up. Looking at the data it's immediately evident that the total # of non-expired PPLs remains roughly constant while about 2000-3000 join every year.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiggermoth (Post 2868826)

So right now I'm a student PPL.

What happens when you actually pass, and get your PPL?

Where do you go from there?

Is it a terrifying ordeal? How long do you leave it until you take yur mates up? Do you rent, or get a share, or rob a bank and buy an aeroplane?

I'm really looking forward to writing up a little flight plan and making a good cross country run once I get the PPL. Getting an idea of how people make use of their PPL would be really interesting!

Do many people drift away once getting their PPL due to various reason?

So many questions, so little flying time..

TiggerMoth

I would say that this very much depends on your ultimate goal and how deep your pockets are.

I soon became disillusioned paying £100 / hour to rent a forty year old aeroplane just to fly around the local area but really I only wanted to be able to do that as I had neither the finances, nor the desire, to take my flying any further than simple, single engined VFR.
I would suggest that you join the PFA and find a friendly flying club which is local to you and your future flying should become affordable and fun. Alternatively, as has been mentioned, if your ultimate aim is bigger and better push on for IMC, night and twin ratings.

I think you just need to be honest yourself and ask where you would like to be in the next five or so years and then make as much effort to achieve that as you have in getting your PPL. I certainly regret not finding out about the PFA (and BMAA) years and years ago and feel that I wasted a lot of time and money pointlessly renting ageing PA28's