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

Moderator: AndyR

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 25
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1842136
editmonkey wrote:How does that work in, say, the US? If I did a flying lesson in the States, does that count towards my logged PPL hours with it being a different aviation authority? I imagine not...

Indeed, but don't let that stop you.

Get yourself a US logbook and maintain them separately.
User avatar
By Morten
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1842137
I just contacted them and asked if I could go up with an instructor. It sometimes took a bit of searching to find a place which had interesting aircraft and mostly I had to settle for a Piper/Cessna*. After a few phonecalls which were sometimes awkward (time difference, asking for something unusual and a British English accent making them giggle) I ended up mostly arranging things by email. The time cannot count towards the 45 hour minimum, but it is certainly time you can put in your logbook (as PUT) and time which will count towards your total flying experience. Same sort of approach got me a couple of flights in the US, Australia, Israel and back in Norway; some with passengers, some just with the FI. As a result I had 55.5 hours when I did my skills test of which only 47.3 counted towards my PPL...

It does appear to be an unusual thing to ask for but if you explain that you are just looking to get some airtime and not to actually 'learn' anything under the syllabus, they are happy to take your money and, once they've seen what stage you are at, to let you take the controls.

Another thing you can ask your FI for is to fly somewhere interesting on your cross-countries rather than the same old same old. I took my FI for lunch from Elstree to Compton Abbas and we also did a cross-channel trip before my skills test. :thumleft:

(*) no slight intended...
Last edited by Morten on Thu Apr 22, 2021 4:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
T6Harvard, Flyin'Dutch' liked this
User avatar
By editmonkey
#1842149
Sure my FI will be well up for that, he's great.

He did his QXC for the CPL (or maybe his MEP) across to Ireland and said it was ace - I think he's up for going nice places outside of the usual. :)
Last edited by editmonkey on Thu Apr 22, 2021 10:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
T6Harvard liked this
User avatar
By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1842155
Definitely get a flight with an instructor abroad if you get the chance! OK, so you can't count the hours for PPL but it's all flying and you get to sight see from aloft. I have friends in the Caribbean and last time were there (Feb / March 2020, just made it home before you know what) I booked with a renowned instructor. I explained I had only one experience flight under my belt so I wanted a beginner's lesson, inc pre-briefing and walk round, and could MrT6 come along for the ride (and to take photos). All arranged by email.

We had a great time. I got to experience an International Airport and all that entailed, had a really useful lesson that did benefit me a lot, flew anticlockwise round a beautiful island, inc over the sea, and had the presence of mind to take my logbook for the FI to complete. MrT6 took some cracking photos, too :mrgreen: It was no more expensive than a flight-seeing trip and I got plenty of tips that helped my first UK lessons.

So basically, YES, you know you want to!
editmonkey liked this
User avatar
By leiafee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1842161
editmonkey wrote:(That little T-tail wobble in slow flight is, apparently, a thing to be afeared :))


Na... it’s fine. It’s the aeroplane playing fair and giving you due warning.

Any aeroplane will bite if mishandled close to the stall, and you’d have to be very distracted or overloaded indeed to not notice that a Tommyhawk is trying to get your attention.
WelshRichy, editmonkey, JAFO liked this
User avatar
By WelshRichy
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1842186
The Tomahawk is a delight to fly except of course the heavy trimmer simply taking the load off the yoke, you’ll see what I mean when you start flying other types, like a Beagle Pup!

Anyway, yes stalling does tend to drop a wing, I found to the right during my training. Probably to the left if I were to stall one now with lockdown tummy. However, it is true to form, definitely gives you plenty of buffet before the stall, quite an honest aeroplane.

Many years ago there were a few nasty accidents during spin exercises which is how it gets its undeserved reputation.

Love being able to land and keep that nose wheel off until extremely low speeds, all good fun. I really do need to find one up here and go have a go one day, for memories sake.

When it comes to spinning, although it isn’t in the syllabus I would wholly recommend having at least one lesson. You will be taught to recognise the incipient stage but try and do some fully developed spins if you can, I had a couple of spin lessons in a C150 during my PPL. The first was what the &£#@ happened there, second was a little less frantic and by the last I was loving them!

Sounds like you had a great second lesson, enjoy your third! :D
editmonkey, JAFO liked this
User avatar
By editmonkey
#1842267
Yeah it is a LOT of fun to fly isn’t it? Not that I have anything to compare with yet! I am finding myself reading lots about the aircraft and... dare I say I’m becoming very fond of it.
T6Harvard liked this
User avatar
By JAFO
#1842270
I initially learned to fly in Tomahawks - loved them to bits. We did a lesson of spinning, I never reached @WelshRichy's level of competence and they were all "what the &£#@ happened there" to me.

I even flew one in the hover over the piano keys at Cardiff on a windy day.
User avatar
By WelshRichy
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1842308
I'm sure if I had a spin lesson right now it'd be a "what the %^^& happened there" again as its been a number of years! Not sure how I'm going to be able to teach a spin to the examiner when the time comes, I could just about see what way we were spinning back then and put the correct correction in to recover. :lol:

@JAFO, someone else who learned to fly at Cardiff I see... :D
User avatar
By editmonkey
#1844090
Lesson #3

Wow!! That was amazing. So I'd been watching the synoptic chart for the past few days with a sinking heart. Until last night there was an occluded front just out over the North Sea moving towards us and a trough plonked right over the airfield. Between Tues and last night the front shifted southwards but the trough remained stubbornly in place. Then this morning is disappeared, and the forecast changed from overcast with rain, to scattered with showers.

My FI called to say he was going up to check the conditions, and at 12.30 I got the okay and blazed down for the lesson. On the drive down there was all seasons and a worrying battalion of CBs circling from the North all the way round to the SW. But they stayed put and didn’t follow me south. I checked in and received my almost new pair of Senheisers I'd bought from a friend of one of the FIs. Christmas in April! First headset, officially a pilot in training.

FI asked if he could do the externals so we could get up quickly before the weather closed in. It'd been 10 days since my last lesson and there were a few confusions on the way out. I forgot which pedals were the rudders and which were the brakes - this is tripping me up every week and it's bloody infuriating - I can't get used to the way my feet have to sit. I was allowed to to the take off clearance this week which felt great as I've been itching to get on teh radio, and I did the takeoff again which was awesome and largely uneventful, other than forgetting to rotate because I was concentrating so hard on keeping it centred. We lifted off slightly faster than 55, but it's a long runway and only hour 3 so... hey.

And then the fun began. The air up there was, let's just say it was vibrant. Tres gusty with a healthy scattering of cotton wool of various heights. So the aim of the game was to practice climbs and descents while remaining in VMC, which we of course did.

This proved to be incredibly enjoyable and we headed out over the coast where it was a little clearer. I've really gotten the hang of trimming, so I managed to keep all of my cruise and best-rate climbs within the IAS limits my instructor gave me. It still took quite a lot of thinking to remember my PAT and APT but definitely easier than last week and I only missed my target altitude once, after take off, when I was focussed on keeping the airspeed at 70kts in the gusts and overshot slightly. I kept getting lots of little heart stopping moments during takeoff - there'd be a gust of wind, the IAS would suddenly drop from 70 to 60 and the stall warners would blare, apparently a quirk of the aircraft, but I found it a tad unsettling!

My FI gave me the choice of descents each time. Glides are definitely my favourite, they feel very natural and it's nice to just trim her at 70 knts and let gravity do its work. I had more trouble with the powered descents this week, remembering to use yoke for airspeed and throttle for rate. I found myself going a little too slow, at a little too high rate of descent at one point and couldn't figure out what was going on. Was a simple matter of being 'just' below ideal RPMs but in the moment it was another patting head and rubbing tummy moment. We did some descents at different stages of flap which was fun - and I was very suprised at the nose down attitude required at full flap.

Practiced lots of turns this time, mostly to avoid clouds, but I feel like I'm little bit more prepared for the actual turning exercises that we'll begin next week now. I was much more conscious of my rudder this week too, and tried to step on the ball a bit more often, although more often than not I was chasing the ball because of the turbulent air.

As a final suprise my FI let me fly into the circuit join. He told me I'd be setting up for the glide to approach and I'd be doing the landing with him following, and helping out with the flare. Woop! He talked me through the turns, asked my to fly parallel with the runway, told me when to turn base, turn final. It was a super tight circuit to get us in quick due to a jet taxying out. I'd trimmed to 80 knts, lined up beautifully with the runway, PAPIs all good... and then ATC asked us to leave the runway imemdiately after the threshhold to allow the Embraer to leave.

My first landing had essentially become a short field landing, so my FI took the controls and I lost my opportunity. Bloody jets. Never mind - hopefully next week. But what a flight. :thumleft:
Last edited by editmonkey on Fri Apr 30, 2021 8:49 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Morten liked this
User avatar
By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1844102
A great lesson there, @editmonkey !
I wasn't allowed to do most of that until my post-lockdown lessons in the last few weeks (I had to re-do a couple of my early lessons due to being heavy hand and then chasing the instruments :roll: :roll: ) .

So, what I'm saying is we are going to fall out soon when you overtake me :lol:

Seriously, you did well and you had a great time so what's not to love?!
User avatar
By editmonkey
#1844104
Was absolutely lush up there, if a little white knuckle at times! Thanks T6, but won’t be overtaking you just yet, I’m still in that honeymoon/comfort zone of only really having to deal with one or two things at once. Ask me to talk on the radio while turning and Id be utterly stuffed :lol:
T6Harvard liked this
User avatar
By editmonkey
#1845603
Will try and keep this one shorter.

Lesson #4 - Medium Turns

This one had my nerves jangling. Arrived at the aerodrome expecting the worst. The weather forecast was heavy showers, 4K vis, broken cloud. FI looked at me and smiled: "Perfectly flyable. Will make a better pilot of you".

Cocky me, went straight into the checklists while my FI chatted with a colleague. Cocky me did the internal checks and was totally satisfied. Cocky me did the pre-taxy checks and started up the aircraft. Throttled up, didn't move an inch.

Lesson 1 for today: don't miss out the chocks in full view of the flying school and the mechanics fixing a bizjet over the taxyway. :oops:

So up we went into a sky that looked as if it had had the stuffing ripped out of it by a terrier.

Take off was spot on, and I instinctively trimmed the climb out and took us out of the zone without much instruction. That's all feeling very comfortable and second nature now, as are the decents. I turned onto a bearing so as to avoid a large CB and headed out over the sea where there was, apparently, some clearer air.

We levelled at 1800 to stay below the base, a base which became considerably blacker, and which suddenly began throwing hailstones at me, giving my FI the opportunity to teach me how to look out for wing icing. Thankfully the hail didn't stick. "Looks like we're in hyperspeed doesn't it?" my FI smiled, as I recalled a section in my Met book I remember stating: 'NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, FLY THROUGH HAIL LEST YE BE TOAST'.

What really unsettled me was the updraft from the cloud. I glanced at the VSI to see that we were rising at 1000 ft/min and nothing I did to the stick would level that off. It felt like being sucked up. The airspeed was steady, and my FI told me it was fine, just ride it to the other side. It's the first time I've felt *totally* at the mercy of the elements and I have to admit to being scared. But he was cool as a cucumber and never touched the controls, so I had faith that I was in fact in some control. It felt like we were riding white water.

We got tho the other side, climbed up to 4K and found a clear patch between clouds to practice turns over the blue sea. This is by far the hardest lesson I've done. Vis was great between the showers but there was virtually no horizon and 30 degrees felt massive! Had to really force myself to fight the survival instinct and bank it over. I could see the sea, the cliffs, and the rocks below my wing but because I had no horizon datum I was relying on the AH too much and fixating on the VI to hold height. My instructor covered up the VI and it became easier when I stopped chasing it. First few turns I lost 100-200 ft. Then when I focussed on not losing height I kept missing the heading, or forgetting what heading I was heading for. By the end of the lesson I was only losing 20ft or so, so he was happy. But I felt massively saturated. Still haven't found the headspace to kick the rudders in yet, or retain any kind of situational awareness as to where we are!

The flight home was much clearer and the turns, with a better horizon, were MUCH easier, and I had more of a sense of when the nose was slipping down or rising. I flew the headings home, even got the chance to relax and enjoy the view for 10 mins, which was gorgeous and dramatic and reminded me why I love this. I did the circuit join (with FI calling out the headings) and trimmed and flew the approach all the way down with me on stick and my FI on throttle. He reckons I'm a couple of lessons away from doing my own landing. Fingers crossed.

I feel absolutely battered now. Makes me chuckle when I see the Pooleys manual refer to the horizon - four hours in and I think I've only seen this elusive beast once. Great fun though :)
T6Harvard, bladerunner911 and 1 others liked this
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1845631
editmonkey wrote:The weather forecast was heavy showers, 4K vis, broken cloud. FI looked at me and smiled: "Perfectly flyable. Will make a better pilot of you".
....
my FI told me it was fine, just ride it to the other side. It's the first time I've felt *totally* at the mercy of the elements and I have to admit to being scared. But he was cool as a cucumber and never touched the controls, so I had faith that I was in fact in some control.
....
My instructor covered up the VSI and it became easier when I stopped chasing it.
...
I feel absolutely battered now.

I'm liking your instructor. :thumright:
editmonkey liked this
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 25