Cessna 172 pro-active familiarisation for PPL
 

As I posted in this post I am starting up for a PPL/CPL training. I found, on the internet, that the Cessna 172 is a very popular training plane and hence I want to familiarise myself up-front with this plane. The school I have in mind (Fly-in-Spain) has these Cessna's.

I have an x-plane simulator license (v.11) since yesterday with a standard Cessna 172 in it. My questions to people that may have done the same are as follows:

1) I would like to download the REAL documentation of the Cessna 172 and use it one-on-one with the simulator to learn to understand each instrument so that when the real instructor guided lessons start it isn't all new and overwhelming. I also want to start using the correct vocabulary from the start and not my own newbie terms.

2) Is there anyone who knows of a possible better (newer/better resolution/more complete/etc) Cessna 172 version for x-plane v.11. I am prepared to buy the better stuff and do things right. In the end all this 'amatory-grade' simulator tools are cheap compared to NOT be prepared and having to take exams all over or forcing your instructor into several extra hours of training because you have no clue what he is explaining.

3) Last but not least, are there Cessna 172 options to consider? With a car you have options and I suppose that is also the case with a plane. I prefer to learn to much then not enough (i was thinking radio/information systems/GPS/etc). In that case what are the options one should look for (I mean prepare for). I am of course not talking about tissue or leather seats type of options :)

4) Can someone tell my why glass cockpits are important? Schools seem to have them. Is there any use for that in simulators or is this only for extra visibility for VFR training?

Many thanks.

"Glass cockpit" just means digital screens replacing the traditional gauges and dials.

Have you done ground school yet?

Most instructors don't seem to like teaching simmers - you can get yourself into some bad habits if you're not careful. Useful for practicing navigation and some other skills but useless for handling.

I don't think my simming was too harmful but if you have time then concentrate on books. If you can arrive ready to sit air law then it will be a real boon.

Yes, there are lots of different c172s. Your flying school should make their manuals available to you.

Are you sure you want to do a cpl rather than atpl?

Hi A.W. If you were flying in Great Britain you would most likely only have the option of a 30 or 40 year old Cessna, and most likely C152 not C172.
That is because of their relative costs. So look for the usual set of 6 'steam driven' Gauges, and a Carburettor engine.


My Aero Club does have a newish C172SP with Fuel injection engine, but only hires it out to trained pilots. ( It is a dog to start when hot, if you get the sequence wrong.)


As a cost effective start to your PPL you could see if the club has any old Charts for you to practice with. Practice some 100 nm routes, and see what type of airspace you encounter and at what altitude. Use a Permanent Marker Pen to mark the chart, and a Whiteboard Marker to erase that line after use.


One other pre PPL thing you could try, is to listen on a Scanner to the local airfield, to get used to the language used on the Radio.
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Change "don't like" to "hate" and I would fully agree with the above quote. Every PPL I taught that had a lot sim time arrived with a boat load if negative learning and bad habits I had to beat out of them. You can't prepare for the initial PPL lessons on your own using Microsoft flight sim. PERIOD !

Want to really impress your instructor. Google "attitudes and movements" and then go through everything you find. Make a note of anything you find you don't fully understand so you can ask your instructor. The Attitudes and Movements lesson presents the foundation skills that you will use in every part of every flight for the rest of your flying career. Truly understanding and apply the concepts in this lesson is vital to successful flight training.

With respect to a particular training airplane, any airplane, my general observations about student weaknesses, is that systems knowledge is weak to non existent and that they have not committed the emergency vital actions to memory. The airplane Pilot Operating Handbook is your friend :ok:

I found a chart or cloth covering the instruments soon resolved any bad habits and made the student fly by looking out of the windows and set the aircraft attitude as they should.

By the way, despite my negative comments about flight simulators, it's good to make the effort. And you will be able to make good use of the sim later practicing procedural skills and navigation so it won't be wasted.

As others have implied, I'd lighten up on the sim and hit the books, the attached link is an FAA publication called Pilots Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge that is downloadable, free and covers pretty much everything a young person starting out on a PPL needs for reference material, as you're learning in the UK/EU I'd probably skip the first chapter on the FAA's history.

https://www.faa.gov/regulations_poli...t_handbook.pdf

Suggestion: just don't.


It's easier for an instructor to teach you to fly from scratch than to have to start by getting you out of flight sim bad habits and ways of thinking.


(The sims do come in useful, later on when you can fly, for instrument procedures and suchlike.)

I'm very much in agreement with Big Pistons here. There have been a few exceptions, but mostly simulator time does more harm than good - teaching yourself to fly on a sim will just teach you wrong habits that will take a lot of time and money (and the frustration of your instructor) to rectify.

But quality time spent with the official manual for whatever you're going to learn on will most certainly not be wasted. Get to know the manual inside-out, and whenever you find things in there you don't understand go to other textbooks to understand tohse things. This will all do you huge favours.

G

AirWaterloo,

Welcome to the group. I agree with the negative sentiments with respect to home computer flight sims, and worse, the users of these casual systems teaching themselves bad habits.

You have advice from some really experienced pilots and trainers here, and I agree with it. We learned to fly just after paper became a new idea. Computers were sliderules. And we learned well. Sure, there are excellent innovations in electronic technology to support piloting. These innovations will result in systems I grew up with fading into history, that's evolution, and as it should be.

But, the basics of piloting will remain unchanged, and must be learned. Preparing to fly a plane is excellent, prepare by reading the guidance material linked to you earlier, and the flight manual for the aircraft. It's very easy to find scans of single Cessna flight manuals on the internet. For the detail you need now, most any Cessna flight manual for a 100 series fixed gear, later than 1975, will be in a format, and contain the information which will be useful for your familiarization.

Don't concern yourself with "options" on the aircraft. At the PPL level, and optional equipment which may be installed will be a needless distraction to the new pilot (and my sweeping statement is intended to include glass cockpit). If you can only find glass cockpit to learn in (which is where we are pointed), okay, but don't go looking for it, nor pay extra to have it available if you have a choice.

If I were able to influence the flight training industry, every student pilot would train in a Piper J3 Cub with no electrical system at all, until later stages of their training.

Prepare to pay your instructor for the training you require. If your instructor would like you to practice or review on your own, they will direct you (and it will not be to a computer sim). At the initial stages of piloting, simming, and watching Youtube self help instructional videos are detrimental, and will increase your cost to take you to a PPL skill level.

Simulators are excellent training tools, when certified for the purpose, and used in a training environment. The cost of that level simulator will be a little less than the use of the aircraft, though not much less. And, it will not provide much benefit to a student pilot.

Thanks to all for the advice.

Based on the reactions I will change the Flight Simulator usage and use it to learn about the instruments, their usage and how they react in relation to activity of the plane.

I will refrain from flying or doing take-off and landing exercises and just see how instruments indicate their information as the plane moves. Furthermore, now that I have been told what a glass cockpit means, I think I will also try to map what instrument (old way) maps what information in the (new way) and if they differ in features.

I have also just set-up FlightAware to listen to radio communications in order to get used to the many accents, the fast speech, the noisy radio channels, etc.

I also have set-up Goolgle Earth to map real 3D Airport images (RunWays, TaxiWays, etc) with the ground maps that FlightAware embeds. I think I know the Jerez (Spain) Airport by memory now and JFK starts to become very familiar :) - just joking.

Thanks also for pointing me to the "Pilots Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge" of the FAA.

And although I found my English to be quite decent (3rd language) I found out that the aviation world has a lot of abbreviations and field specific terms. So I started to enhance my vocabulary with a book on Aviation English.

AirWaterloo,

See if you can work out how to do self learning without using a simulator, digital map, FlightAware or Google Earth at all. Just paper for the first while....

I'm not saying that a digital map (including Google Earth) is not useful, but it's not what you need to learn first or best. That will come later - learn to fly a plane by feeling the controls, and looking out of the windshield. Listening to radio communications can be educational, if it is done in the context of integrating what you have been taught during flying instruction into your understanding. If you're simply listening to the communications, while interesting, it will have very limited basic training value. Focus on learning to fly the plane, by feeling the controls, and looking out the windshield.

A book on aviation English - excellent! More books! Yes, they can be on a computer, I'm not any computer, I just discourage the use of a computer to evade the basic disciplines of reading the required instructional material in written format, and distracting the student pilot from learning what the instructor has to teach.

An instructor who comes to recognize you've learned it wrong, will teach you the right way. They'll figure out how you learned it wrong. And, of course, they will charge you the time to provide the corrective instruction. You'll pay to unlearn what the sim showed you, and what you misinterpreted from the mapping software. When your instructor is ready, they may direct you to limited use of some mapping software. Wait for them to tell you the time is right for you.

@Pilot DAR, thanks. I have the 7 Pooley books and the 9 exam question books underway. I also downloaded the FAA's Pilot Handbook and started to extend my vocabulary with an English Aviation Vocabulary book.

However, the FlightAware listening is ABSOLUTELY a must for me as English is my 3rd language and currently I cannot repeat (just repeat) what the tower and pilots are saying. I pick-up some numbers, of course the Alpha, Bravo, Charlie stuff but that is about it. I MUST absolutely get used to the mix of fast speech, the complete lack of articulation and the accents where applicable and at least be able to repeat what was said (even if I would not fully understand the meaning). I teach (complex matters) in English so you can understand that it is quite scary to me that I cannot repeat a simple sentence that I hear in a radio communication.

I use JFK radio communications because, over here, it is said that New-Yorkers are the most difficult to understand :) Don't take that to serious :)

I find it particularly useful when flying by myself to a grass airfield I've never visited before, as they can be a bit of a b*gg*r to find (yes, even with GPS), and familiarising myself with the local landmarks in advance does help.


But I can't imagine how it would be useful for a beginning PPL student.


What would be useful is reading (some of) the books you'll need to learn to pass the exams (some bits are rather harder to get to grips with until you have some flying experience). And, yes, listening to the radio, but whilst you're studying the appropriate book so that you know what you're listening to.

Hi AirWaterloo. The ebook 'Handling Light Aircraft' by Julien Evans might be a useful supplement to your training. Good luck, and welcome to the pilot community. Some of us have been messing about with flying machines for half a century! But I expect we'll grow out of it one day!

I am a native English speaker and still find New York ATC quite hard to understand so do not worry!!

Can I suggest that you just wait until you get to Spain. My staff are extremely capable and will teach you everything you need. We invariably find flight simmers a nightmare to train as they have so many preconceptions. ��

Please take the advice of bose-x. Close the flight sim down and don't open it again until advised. You'll thank him some time in the future.


If you want to do anything read the Pooleys Air Law book until it sends you to sleep, then continue reading it the next day until the same thing happens. Repeat daily.

Phone F.I.S and ask (or Bose-X might post) what versions of the 172 they operate (M,N,P,R etc...) then download the appropriate POH and LEARN IT from front to back. Speeds, systems, Emergency checklists etc

... but bearing in mind that schools sometimes provide students with school check lists, and instructors will expect students to follow the school version. (It'll cover the same ground, but may have different emphasis, and extra items, and do things in a different order. Simple example: POH check list might say to switch all lights off when leaving the aircraft, but school check list might say to leave the beacon on, that way they can see from the club house when you've forgotten to turn the master switch off before the battery has gone flat.)

We run nearly a dozen 172s. All different in some way or another. Like I said, just wait, I have very competent staff......

Spend your time learning your theory as suggested earlier as that will be the blocker to you finishing.

@bose-x, will do.

Books (Kit 1) ordered with Hans should be here in a day or 7.

Thanks.

What I was hinting at was the woeful lack of understanding of the aircraft systems and specifics of operating it - especially the emergencies. However, yes the school may provide different checklists that cover all eventualities and all versions.

I once learned the POH to a greater level of detail than my PPL examiner knew it - when he asked what instruments would be lost with a total electrical failure I included all the engine instruments (as well as the flight instruments) and told him which ones would and wouldn't be affected, not something he kept in his head for a C152. I've forgotten all that now, of course.

Yet even better will be the checklists for all of these things which are provided in the approved manufacturer's flight manual for the aircraft. It is wise to use the checklist approved for the specific type you are flying.

In your effort yo understand systems, consider each item in the cockpit, and ask yourself, "why was it included in this aircraft?". With the understanding of why it is there, and then how it operates, and what powers it, your knowledge of aircraft systems will grow well.

Incidentally, whilst this may seem anti intuitive - if you want to hear good RT *don't* listen to an American tower feed. That country uses some of the worst non standard aviation English in the world.

If you want to hear really excellent quality aviation English RT, you would be far better off searching out a feed from Germany or Belgium.

G

You'll hear a good mix of international RT practices down at Jerez. IIRC when I did a few pleasure flights from FIS the area controller was handling a whole bunch of US mil traffic along with the usual Northern European commercial flights full of sun seekers and a smattering of GA trainers and bimblers.

I noticed :) Looked for Brussels, Amsterdam, etc.

To my surprise the Schiphol (Amsterdam) ATC's speak DUTCH in between their English (as do some KLM pilots). Often just greetings like good morning or so but still. I thought that when at least one party spoke English on the Radio all should switch to English. At JFK I also hear them use numbers in stead of digits. Another thing I thought was not done.

However, I don't have the RT books yet and the above examples makes me understand all the warnings in replies to my OP that one must avoid learning wrong things or develop bad habits with simulators, and I will now extend that to unverified assumptions and poor or bad sources of information.

Pooley's where are you, I am waiting impatiently :)

Your location says you're in Belgium?

In which case, no need to much about with the internet - just get hold of a VHF scanner and a chart and listen to the local en-route RT.

Pleasantries in local languages are normal. I'll generally greet French controllers with "**** radar, bonjour, this is G-ABCD", or words to that effect. Most countries will do a small amount of local language conversation with local traffic.

But, my experience en-route in Belgium and Germany is that those two countries have consistently some of the most clear and correct English on RT. They're unlikely to lead you astray.

Whilst the UK has a few national differences also, this book is free online and covers all of the basic principles extremely well...

https://publicapps.caa.co.uk/modalap...detail&id=6973

The main non-standard things in the UK are the names of "services" (Basic, traffic, etc.), the rest is pretty much universal and will work anywhere.

G

Glad to be corrected, but I would add Swiss airports to the list of eligible "field" sources regarding correct (English) ICAO phraseology, and there are several available on liveatc.net.

Side note (and question to the instructors here) regarding the pros(?) and cons of PC simulator use: in my case, the idea of "I wonder how flying feels in reality" which led to my going for a PPL stems from MSFS exploits, and I suppose I am not the only person with that "background". Maybe my flight instructors were simply so polite as to never rub this in as a handicap -- or it really wasn't of noticeable importance after all. Do you think it is really the PC simming per se which causes trouble, or rather an "I already learnt about flying from MSFS/X-Plane/whatever, so no need to (re)learn"-attitude?

Having said that, I completely agree that for all aircraft handling aspects, PC sims (no matter which one, and even with joystick/yoke, pedals, and TrackIR) are largely useless and transfer badly to the real thing (the other way around works better IMHO :)). By contrast, with good scenery packs they can be pretty helpful for improving navigation (even without scenery packs for pre-GPS radio navigation) and online networks like VATSIM or IVAO offer the opportunity to practice active RT fluency for free.

Either/both depending on the individual to be honest. The second is much harder in my experience to work with. At least someone who realises that they dont know how to fly is willing to work to get rid of the bad habits (like not looking out of the window), somebody who thinks they can fly a 747, and therefore any other aeroplane, because thats what they played with on the sim can be a real pain.

Basically use of simulators to learn "solo" is bad and will cost more time and money in the long run. Simulators to practice something already well understood from proper teaching - is good sensible practice.

G

Was it just me who misread this that you started off French controlled pleasantries with a swear word? ;-)

Well I tried writing "P-o-i-t-i-e-r-s" but it got filtered out ;)

G

The radio bit will come with practice. You will that a standard procedure is use for most calls - Who you are, where you are what you want. You will them be told how to get what you want. And if they speak too fast, you are ask in plain language "Please speak slower" and they will.

With regard to instruments, learn what you need to know from the syllabus used for your licence. When you are flying hopefully you will be taught that the best "instrument" is the one out of the window (the clocks inside are rubbish and a poor representation of the real world, the one outside your aircraft). Your ears will tell you how hard the engine is working and the noise of the airstream will tell you how fast you are flying. Your hands, feet and bum will tell you if you are doing a good job.

If you have spare time, brush up on mental maths. Your tables are worth learning off pat.

And that's about it.

PM

My take would be learning by yourself in a simulator without someone directing you means firstly you will probably be very instrument focused rather than getting your main attitude references from outside the aircraft.
To the uninitiated it would seem obvious that flying using instruments to give you information on the aircraft's behaviour would make you a better pilot but in fact if a pilot relies on instruments early in their training it is a great hinderance. I think the ideal aircraft for teaching ab initio pilots would be one with minimal instrumentation and great visibilty. A J3 Cub comes to mind - seriously.

Secondly you will work out by trial and error how to get the aircraft to do what you want to do. Which will work most of the time. However it means you will not really have developed a strong grasp (and may have misconceptions) of how the controls individually act on the aircraft and behave under different conditions - understanding that gives a strong foundation for developing good hand and feet skills (and a deficiency here may come into play quite early - eg when learning to land the aircraft, particularly in more challenging conditions).

Finally any bad habits you pick up teaching yourself, (eg how you control descent profiles, landing technique, speed control, engine operation, trimming etc), having been learnt first, often are difficult to dislodge (something called "primacy" - what you learn first often has a strong hold over subsequent behaviour, particularly when you are under stress which is why instructors aim to install good basic skills from the start of training - having a good instructor during the first phases of learning to fly can make a big difference in how quickly you progress later on).

This doesn't mean I am saying you will be a bad pilot if you learn on a sim, simply it is not really the best way to learn to fly a real aeroplane and may be a hindrance (at least when learning to fly the current generation of GA aircraft)

Stick and rudder skills are best taught in an aircraft rather than worked out by yourself on a computer. Use your pre flying time to learn the theory - it will really help when you get into the aircraft.

All this is in my opinion of course - feel free to ignore it :)

Complete agreement, and just as I did not assume before my first PPL lesson that my MSFS hours would make me a better pilot, I do not believe so now either -- they just made me a pilot in the first place ;).

Hi... I am just wondering what our resident Instructors think of Model Aircraft Fliers, especially those that can perform aerobatics such as Spins, Avalanches, and Rolling Circles, with their 'Arising Star' models.


There are also Glider Pilots (and/or Model Glider Pilots.) who must have picked up some habits along the way.
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The two words that were like magic to me when I was a student pilot: say again.

Every time ATC gave me way more information than I could process, those two words made them condense it into something far more concise and understandable. :ok: