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

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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1858580
It's coming good then!

No way I could do an exam on the same day as circuits. I have to get in the zone ( pardon the pun), like an elite athlete before a race :lol:
I was shattered yesterday afternoon so couldn't have done an exam afterwards either.

It'll be worse after tomorrow's lesson - landing, landing, landing......
when the margins are smaller and the assistance gets
a) less,
and / or
b) more shouty

:mrgreen:
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1858650
I've had my nose stuck in 'Making Perfect Landings' by Ron Fowler all evening :D .

I am looking forward to tomorrow's lesson in that perverse way we students come to know, ie, a triumph of hope over experience.

It won't be as good as the last lesson, which was a definite breakthrough, but it's another fascinating step on the journey :mrgreen:
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By tr7v8
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1858651
T6Harvard wrote:It's coming good then!

No way I could do an exam on the same day as circuits. I have to get in the zone ( pardon the pun), like an elite athlete before a race :lol:
I was shattered yesterday afternoon so couldn't have done an exam afterwards either.

It'll be worse after tomorrow's lesson - landing, landing, landing......
when the margins are smaller and the assistance gets
a) less,
and / or
b) more shouty
:mrgreen:

One of the other guys at Rochester did it. Providing I have a clear revision session I'm normally OK afterwards. I wouldn't have done it the other way around though.
The cafe has reopened so revision is normally in there, my wife has no concept of "Leave me alone I am revising"
I struggled at first with Flight Performance & planning but seem to be getting EasyPPL 17 or 18 out of 20 now. Some of the questions are a bit evil though.
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1858654
Do what I do when revising, find spouse's favourite genre of film on whichever streaming service, make popcorn and point them towards the sofa. They get to have film night, we get to be pilots. A win win situation :lol:
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1858806
Today was interesting. After I got to the airfield the wind got up. I watched a couple of challenging landings and pondered my chances.
Anyway, it was declared too gusty to give me a fair go at landings so we were going to do steep turns instead. Yikes! Obviously I hadn't prepared for that lesson.

So a crosswind TO that needed full aileron at first. It was my best one so far but there was a bit of bouncing around on the climbout due to the gusts, although I trimmed more efficiently despite that :D

Briefing was given mid-air then good demos but I felt a bit out of sorts during the demos. As soon as I had my turn that feeling passed.

I messed the first one up, too late with enough rudder, not enough back pressure, and the words spiral dive were muttered :shock: . Oddly, because it was September when I practiced recovery from spiral dives, I remembered what to do if it happens, so power to idle, wings level, slowly raise nose. See? No drama... :roll:
I was impressed that my Instructor was very relaxed about it, assume because he knows if he gets shouty I'll get nervous and that's not gonna help?! There followed a quick lecture on AoA :mrgreen:

Try again.....well turning left is easier with clockwise rotating prop, isn't it, so I went left and that was fine. In fact I enjoyed it.

My Instructor did another demo of right 45° bank but followed it through into 60° :shock: . Cor, that felt really steep!
I took back control but asked for a minute to get my head back with it. Not queasy at all, just disconbobulated for a moment :)

After 2 more to the right and 1 left I felt much happier with the whole thing. I wanted to try 60° bank but unsurprisingly 'not this lesson, we'll save that for another day' :lol:

A quick revision of flying different climb / descent speeds and then an overhead join. Circuit was OK, approach wasn't as good as it could have been but my Instructor let me take it to the numbers, even though I was a bit high and it was gusty, but he assisted the landing. He later said I could have landed it from that approach but he'd thought the crosswind was a bit challenging. Tbh I've done much better approaches so I was happy for the help!

There were 2 big learning points on the ground, one off the back of someone else's mistake, the other was my mistake.

1) As I was doing my walk round another aircraft taxi'id nearby, towards Hold. It stopped short, the canopy opened, and the pilot shouted over to me. He pointed to his pitot tube COVER still in place and asked me to remove it. Blimey! I'm not saying anything to ID anyone but this was no run of the mill a/c.

2) I finished my checks, noting that the creep mark had moved a little on one tyre (apparently this had been checked and noted earlier, not yet an issue). I climbed in and pulled the seat forward :D . My Instructor strolled over and pointed out that I'd left the inspection panel open after checking the oil!! I am meticulous with this, or rather I have been till now. After being interrupted I had failed to start that bit of the inspection again and had moved on. Uh huh. Won't do that again.

So that was 2 of us learning why we do checks and that we all make mistakes.

I was disappointed not to do circuits (who ever thought I'd say THAT???), but all in all an interesting and worthwhile day.

And like @bladerunner911 said, aren't we lucky to be doing this?!
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By tr7v8
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1858807
@T6Harvard Sounds like you learnt a lot, including pre-flight inspection. Control lock & Pitot cover is the first two items on the 172SP checklist.
I used to do pre flights when I was an apprentice & then just after for an AP700 so used to doing it. Probably more detailed than some judging by what I see, There are 13 duel drains to check on the 172SP with three under the nose, which is a pain if the grass is wet!
Worked out I'd done 110 take offs & 108 landings whilst doing circuits so you have plenty of time :-(
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By bladerunner911
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1858824
Thanks for the report T6, great read as always!
It's the details in these posts that I find most helpful, it's all getting absorbed into the newly created 'flying dept' part of my brain's filing system :D
Sounds like you are doing great and I'm happy you are being easier on yourself, you've got this!
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1858829
@bladerunner911 Thanks for the kind comment.
There were moments yesterday that I was frustrated but I'll revise the theory and next time these are thrown at me I'll be fine.

The first time I ever experienced a 45° turn, early on in training as Instructor repositioned, I was, er, surprised, shall we say. Can't say scared, because I've never been in the least bit nervous in the spam can, but it is not something you do everyday is it??!
Now I've done a few I'd be happy to do plenty more to get it consistently right, because it is a fun thing to be able to do :mrgreen:
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By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1858838
T6Harvard wrote:The first time I ever experienced a 45° turn, early on in training as Instructor repositioned, I was, er, surprised, shall we say. Can't say scared, because I've never been in the least bit nervous in the spam can, but it is not something you do everyday is it??!

Well, not every day, but certainly every flight when returning to base, nearly, anyway :)

Now I've done a few I'd be happy to do plenty more to get it consistently right, because it is a fun thing to be able to do :mrgreen:

Yes, but don't stop at 45 degrees. Learn to fly it at 60 degrees, and in the turn, lift the arm you're not using on the yoke and move it around a bit.

Feel the additional weight - a 60 degrees banked level turn is exactly 2g.
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1858846
The arm I'm not using? It's on the throttle all the time atm :D but seriously, I take your point and it's one of the reasons I loved Physics at school.
As an aside....
The thing that really sold me on physics was finding out that 2 sounds waves of opposite amplitude cancel each other out. No idea why that was so fascinating, perhaps because at first mention it seems unlikely but is perfectly logical given a moment's thought.

Same with negative numbers - they are fun and fascinating. Miss Wright, our maths teacher, gave a super lesson I can still picture it, but sadly many classmates eyes glazed over. I loved it. <weird>
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By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1858856
T6Harvard wrote:The thing that really sold me on physics was finding out that 2 sounds waves of opposite amplitude cancel each other out. No idea why that was so fascinating, perhaps because at first mention it seems unlikely but is perfectly logical given a moment's thought.


We all (well, many of us!) use that in our ANR headsets these days.

T6Harvard wrote:Same with negative numbers - they are fun and fascinating. Miss Wright, our maths teacher, gave a super lesson I can still picture it, but sadly many classmates eyes glazed over. I loved it. <weird>


What about imaginary numbers? Square root of -1 and all that...
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By editmonkey
#1858860
Sounds like a really good lesson @T6Harvard and I have flying envy that you've got to do some steep turns! I remember my first medium turn and *that* felt discombobulating at the time :lol:

I discovered the importance of checklists last week when I realised there was still some flap left in on downwind - I've never been complacent about them, but I don't think it's until you actually catch a rabbit off that you *really* realise their importance.

An yes we are so lucky to be able to do this. And slightly mad I often think. :) My pals are in absolute awe of my flying.
By MidlifeCrises
#1858875
Just wanted to say that I am enjoying following your progress, T6Harvard! Your instructor sounds a meticulous chap and not the easiest to impress, I am sure you will be a better pilot for it.

I'm told that I'm now around the halfway point in my own training and the feeling of "sipping from the fire hose" has yet to subside. Today's lesson is pencilled in for practicing forced landings, cloudbase allowing.

Regarding the exams, they are rather strange compared to what I remember from school or University days. A fair bit of material, tested with a scatter-gun approach. Inevitably, large sections of the material aren't tested at all, and I've even had two questions testing the same thing in a single exam.

I've found that booking the exam in first (say, two weeks in advance) focuses the mind nicely on getting the revision done :lol:
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