Learning to fly, or thinking of learning? Post your questions, comments and experiences here

Moderator: AndyR

#1519712
Feels like I'm getting on to the home straight now and I've been trying to ratchet up the lesson frequency. I managed to get three lessons in this week and two firsts:

Monday saw my first (dual) land away to Sywell. Low cloud held us off for a couple of hours but we got there around lunch time. There was a massive tail wind on the way there (ground speed of ~170MPH!) which made for an "interesting" crosswind landing, but I think it went OK. It felt amazing to be able to actually fly out somewhere rather just buzz about then land back at home, and we got in just before the Blades went up for some aerobatic practise, so we got a free air show over coffee!
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Tuesday was second land away, this time to Conington. A bit murkier and the same strong crosswind, but I think it went OK and it was again great to visit somewhere else. It was my first trip to an airfield with A/G radio and (perhaps ironically) I found it quite intimidating after being used to full ATC at my home airfield.

Then today I did my first solo nav! I haven't flown solo for ages, and my nav back from Conington didn't go great so I was a bit nervous, but once I got onto my first heading everything seemed to click into place and go smoothly (save a couple of minor slip ups on the radio and for some reason I was kept veering +/- 100ft off my altitude). The landing at the end was one of the smoothest I've done for a while, and apparently ATC commented to my instruction on how good it was 8) !

If the weather behaves I'll get another three lessons in next week, including (if all goes smoothly, fingers crossed, etc etc etc) my QXC!
riverrock, T67M, pjl953 and 3 others liked this
#1519770
Well done Max. Amazed you got three lessons in this last week. The weather didn't look too good from Newmarket. I recently did the same as you, passing my skills test in WK on the 20th Jan. Will say hello if I see you at the club, assuming you're at Cambridge Aeroclub?
#1519834
Thanks! I was indeed lucky with the weather - too bad for solo flying at the start of the week but luckily I had the dual land aways to do then by Thursday the wind had calmed down enough and was coming from a sensible enough direction on the ground to make solo possible.

I am indeed at Cambridge Aeroclub - I'll look out for you! Congratulations on passing your skills test! Any tips for the remaining stuff?