Goals once qualified.....

[RMurphy195]

Skills Improvement:
Get some solid instrument experience, a rating (or whatever the word is) if I can, but at the least the experience will be good if I do get myself into a pickle. (Can't do a night rating - colour blind!).
Get some experience of flying over very hilly bits (eg North/Central Wales) with an FI on board, which at present looks a bit daunting, and from my Met studies has it's own problems, potentially.
Get some experience of other aircraft, esp a 4-seater (Training in a C152).

Fun:
Take my wife for a spin - hopefully she won't be too nervous!.
Take a friend (who is very supportive of my efforts) for a spin.
Explore the world (or the UK at any rate) from the air.
Maybe if we do get to the west coast of Canada again, rent an aircraft (and a local FI!) for a couple of hours.
And ...
and ...
and ...

[Iolanthe]

by weirdfish » Tue Jan 01, 2013 9:55 pm

Rob P wrote:
Lovely though the Cub is, this strikes me as a much superior way to learn taildragging

http://www.cambridgeaeroclub.com/training/tailwheel.php

Rob P


And you'll get no argument from me, but it does demonstrate a point you made on another thread about flying always costing slightly more than what is comfortable

I wouldn't say "no" to that either...but.... well, the Chippy was love at first sight, so it has to be that... unless I can get my paws on a Spitfire...hmmmm

[Genghis the Engineer]

In my opinion, going for additional ratings quickly is a mistake.

When you complete your PPL you are inexperienced, and have been given a set of skills you've yet to properly consolidate.

I think that the best ambitions for a newly qualified PPL are to use those skills properly. Absolutely take pax, but also do some longish trips, take an aeroplane into some interesting airfields you've not been to before. Challenge yourself a bit, and learn through using and consolidating the skills you used to scrape through your skill test. Best of all, do it soon, whilst the skills are still there to be consolidated, rather than forcing you into re-learning, or worse, inadvertently self-teaching bad habits that may then stay with you.

And most of all, enjoy being PiC. It's a great thing, and should be enjoyed.

G

[Rob P]

I wouldn't say "no" to that either...but.... well, the Chippy was love at first sight, so it has to be that

Do you have access to one?

I did a little checking and found Shoreham offering one at about £230 an hour + £24 a landing (A bit eyewatering for those of us used to our incremental costs of flying being sub £50/hr)

GtE makes some good points above also.

Rob P

[weirdfish]

I think that the best ambitions for a newly qualified PPL are to use those skills properly.



G

That's certainly my plan. Taildragger is just the next thing I'd do once I'm more confident with the skills I'm hopefully going to scrape through the test with.

[Iolanthe]

Iolanthe wrote:
I wouldn't say "no" to that either...but.... well, the Chippy was love at first sight, so it has to be that


Do you have access to one?

Indeed I do Rob, and cheaper than £230 ph! Plus it would be "at home" so no landing fees.

Best of all, do it soon, whilst the skills are still there to be consolidated, rather than forcing you into re-learning,

GtE,
Absolutely, and that is what I will of course do. I hope to have my licence in the spring/early summer whilst there is still plenty of good weather for just that consolidation, long trips and enjoying the freedom!

Its just that I am hoping to get some Chippy flying alongside my formal training, so when qualified, I can convert asap and fly the Chippy whenever available.

[Genghis the Engineer]

Its just that I am hoping to get some Chippy flying alongside my formal training, so when qualified, I can convert asap and fly the Chippy whenever available.

I'd recommend not, and I like Chippies too.

Get one aeroplane right, pass your test in that - then do things that are different. There's a significant risk that the Chipmunk flying at this stage may well increase the hours needed to pass your PPL skill test.

G

[Rob P]

..... in the spring/early summer whilst there is still plenty of good weather for just that consolidation, long trips and enjoying the freedom!

And your posts are normally so sensible.

I'll put it down to positive thinking!

Rob P

[Iolanthe]

And your posts are normally so sensible.

Like it Rob! But, well, one can be hopeful that we may get a warm dry summer

G - Hmm, I understand and take your point on board, my FI has also said that I really should stick to the same aircraft until qualifying. I have thought of that, but well, sometimes, we have to follow our heart and those who know me will know that I never do, my head always gets in the way!

So I guess this is following my heart....my FI is also a Taildragger instructor, and he's happy to teach me, and with oodles of dual hours logged already, a few more on the way to qualifying is not an issue!

[Genghis the Engineer]

So your FI thinks it's a bad idea too, but you're going to have him teach you anyway?

G

[Iolanthe]

Hmm, well, when he said that, that was before we were going to have the use of a Chippy and it was vis a vis the Firefly which I was indeed struggling with after about 30 hours on the Grob. I guess he knows that now 80 hours in and with a will to do both, it may not be so bad...

I know it must seem barking, and I may well have to admit that the "don't do it" advice is spot on! But I want to give it a go, and if my FI thinks its not doing my basic flying any favours, he will most certainly tell me.

Hmm, do people somethimes wish they hadn't started something? I certainly do now!

[akg1486]

I'm with Genghis and Paul on this one: fly yourself to new destinations, further and further away. If you can, bring a pilot friend rather than a regular friend on these outings. Take you first non-pilot pax only on flights where you are very familiar with where you are going. You'll feel when you are ready to go to unfamiliar territories without a more experienced pilot in the RHS.

My long term goal, which it turned out took about a year to fulfill, was to fly abroad. Again: going with an experienced friend lessens the load and increases the fun. That's what I did. In fact, we were a dozen people in four aircraft on that short holiday.

If you take non-pilots on overnight trips, prepare your passengers and (more importantly) yourself on the distinct possibility of not coming back as planned. It's easy to cancel an outward-bound trip due to weather, not as each to cancel the return leg.

[Rob P]

If you take non-pilots on overnight trips, prepare your passengers and (more importantly) yourself on the distinct possibility of not coming back as planned.

Not only overnight trips.

I always have contact lens paraphenalia (and a clean pair of grollies) in the flight bag even on a day landaway. It just relieves you of one small 'get-home-itis' factor.

Rob P

[Genghis the Engineer]

I'm with Genghis and Paul on this one: fly yourself to new destinations, further and further away. If you can, bring a pilot friend rather than a regular friend on these outings. Take you first non-pilot pax only on flights where you are very familiar with where you are going. You'll feel when you are ready to go to unfamiliar territories without a more experienced pilot in the RHS.

Ah, there I think somebody should sound a note of caution.

PPLs are taught to be single pilot operators, and if somebody is sat next to them and is a pilot, it's an instructor.

This is fine to a point, but what it does mean is that PPLs are not normally taught how to co-operate with other pilots in the same cockpit. Many problems have arisen over the years because one PPL did not respect the captaincy of another, or one PPL deferred inappropriately to another when he shouldn't.

If you're going to fly two PPLs together, make quite sure that who does/says/may-do what is made absolutely clear in briefings and you stick to it. If there's a friendly instructor around who is used to flying true multi-crew (usually but not always somebody who is, or has been, an airline pilot), then it would be a very good idea to spend a bit of time with them going through how to manage this environment.

G

[Rob P]

I was being charitable and assumed that "a more experienced pilot in the RHS" would indeed have been very aware of these issues and laid down the ground-rules before setting foot in the a/c.

The problem is more likely when two newly-fledged PPLs fly together.

I was lucky in this respect as I found an excellent buddy early on, and our flying school organised fly-outs and accustomed us to what was required.

Rob P