Any pilots here?

[Dynix]

Wish I had got my act together last summer when I had a break and did the remaining exams then. We ended up doing all of the navigation flights within the space of about 3 weeks through November/December - those 15 or so navigation hours go really fast so shot myself in the foot a bit then the 4 months break this year hasn't helped. There's another chap who has a week of ground school booked to do all of his exams so I'm tagging along for 3-4 days for the ones I need - should be fun!

Any plans for post-PPL? Doing it as a hobby or going for the CPL? Any additional ratings? My plan is a few months of pleasure flying in one of the 4 seaters (we have a Piper Warrior, Arrow and Cirrus SR20 in the school), IR(R) perhaps at the end of summer, finish my night rating off when night flying starts then at some point look to start ATPLs, will be distant learning with BGS. I'm really interested in aerobatics at the moment and there's an airfield not too far away which does the course so that will be something I'll be looking at also.

 

[SupraWez]

Your plan for after PPL sounds pretty similar to mine, just doing as a hobby with a plan to complete night and instrument ratings and also possibly looking into aerobatics, not for competition or anything but to learn more about aircraft at their extremes, should be fun. I remember my first spin, was a shock as wasnt expecting it

 

[Dynix]

Fun aren't they Went up today and we did some refreshing: PFLs, steep turns, stalls then various circuits (glide, PFL from overhead, EFATOs, ...). Felt a bit rusted but the instructor was happy. Booked in again on Wednesday and next week but not sure what the plans are yet.

 

[SupraWez]

Nice flight overlay, what did you use for that or is it direct from flight radar?

I managed to get more flight time at the weekend and completed another cross country, now the weather is looking better I am hoping to cram in a few more hours over the coming weeks.

 

[Dynix]

That's CloudAhoy: https://www.cloudahoy.com/

It's a fantastic app - you start it on your phone before you set off and it hums away in the background. It allows you to debrief every part of your flight and does a best-guess at what you're doing at a particular time I introduced it to my instructor and he now uses it for every flight

I've just got back after another maintenance ferry flight - I've logged 3 hours dual and 2 hours solo since Monday which is pretty good going! Weather is beautiful albeit a little bumpy.

This is the navigation refresher we did, after the first leg we started playing around with diversions which I haven't yet been taught - we did 3 of those then headed back:



One leg of the maintenance flight I did today, the other didn't log for some reason:



I was sat around Leicester for 5 hours waiting for them to finish the maintenance which was quite boring and not great in the heat!

Next week I'm guessing we'll be looking at the solo QXC (finally). I'm up to 47 hours now (39 dual, 9 solo).

 

[SupraWez]

Wow, great progress, nice work

 

[Dynix]

There wasn't really anything else we could've done other than my solo QXC today. Cloud base was quite bad this morning - the airfield was covered in mist and fog until 9, Birmingham and the other aerodromes in the general area were only 1000ft but rising slowly. By the time I got to the airfield, the cloud base was good enough to go. So, after 6 cancellations due to bad weather through December/January then 4 months away, I can finally tick this off!





170nm, 2 hours 50 mins flight time and a QXC form filled out by each aerodrome later, it's finally done. One of my landings was actually shocking, not sure what I did

Next week it'll be hopefully finishing the last lot of exams off then mock skill test and prep.

 

[SupraWez]

Great progress

Yesterday I popped along to the AeroExpo at Wycombe Air Park, was great chatting to people at various stands and checking out some aircraft, also had a good look round the new Piper m600, inside and out, very nice bit of kit but at £3m I guess it should be

Picked up some new sun glasses too as the training aircraft tend to have most sun guards missing which can be an issue if its a bright day

 

[thingemajib]

Got a spot landing competition at North Weald today, sat at the cafe waiting for my turn in G-NWFC:

Beautiful day for it, with the exception of a moderate crosswind, wish me luck!

 

[Dynix]

Awesome! How'd you do?

I, too, need some new sun glasses. I've managed to scratch my ray-bans many times getting in and out of the aircraft and dropping them on the hard apron and they're a bit rubbish for flying due to having thick bands!

Got my head very much on the exams so hopefully I can get all if not most of them done this week.

I had hoped to go to Cosford this year (especially considering we live almost next to it!) but we're away that weekend.

 

[SupraWez]

Got CloudAhoy configured, will try it on my next flight

 

[Dynix]

Awesome Be sure to share if it works!

 

[Gixer]

It was indeed a fantastic day for flying today. I won't celebrate just yet as my flight track is yet to be analysed to check I didn't violate any airspace during my flight today (99.9% sure I didn't!). If that passes today I completed my silver duration with a flight duration of 5hours 30mins in a club Discus. It's a much nicer glider to fly than the Grob 102. Now just to get my Nav training finished so I can do my Silver distance!

Flight track to follow hopefully. It'll be another spaghetti jumble as I was only flying within range of the airfield again.

 

[thingemajib]

Awesome! How'd you do?

Think there were about 20 people having a go - put myself down for three attempts at a tenner a pop, did three of the worst landings in my life and yet:

Spoiler

Genuinely surprised on that one, had to ask the judge which of my bounces he counted!

Full results here:
https://www.facebook.com/northwealdairfield/posts/1212360645558059

 

[Dynix]

Great job!

I've ticked off 3 exams this morning, so have 3 remaining overall now. Hopefully get another done on Monday then the remaining by Friday. Each exam only took me about 5 minutes? The questions were pretty straight forward and most appeared in the revision books I have. Having a day off from reading/revising given that's all I've done all week! Really wish I had done these sooner, bit of a pain in the backside.

EDIT:

Passed the 4th, Principles of Flight, what a wally of an exam. Not looking forward to POF once I get to the ATPL level. Two left to do.

Also spoke to another student today who is doing intensive training right now, he's at 30 hours, starting navigation exercises and still has 7 outstanding exams. I do feel like this is something my flying school should pick up on - intensive students need pushing more towards the exams sooner, especially once they hit the navigation exercises as the hours fly by.

 

[Dynix]

Been having a read of skill test posts on the likes of Flyer/PPRuNe and noticed I've not been taught one part of the requirements yet - position fix with the use of radio aids. I can track a VOR easy enough and as my aircraft only has a VOR fitted, that's what I'll have to use. Downloaded a flight sim last night to give it a try, took off from my home airfield, got airborne, flew in a straight line for 10 minutes then used 2 VORs to do a position fix. Plotted it on my CAA chart then compared to the in-game map and they matched - dead easy!

 

[Gixer]

A few weeks ago I completed my Silver Duration with a 5.5 hour flight still flying local to my airfield. My flight track shows I flew this with little direction however. During this flight I was still getting used to the Discus and try to learn to centre in thermals better and when to make the decision to move on from a poor thermal to a better one.

Spoiler

" "

Monday gone I decided to change my flying without direction and set a short course around my airfield. 1st attempt around failed as I hit sink to the South and didn't feel comfortable with the angle so headed back towards the airfield and started again. 2nd attempt I almost got around but chickened out on flying out to Popham. 3rd and 4th attempt I made it all the way around. After those last two laps I could have easily made it to Popham and back on the 2nd attempt. Training the brain to trust what a high performance glider is capable of is a mission in itself. I took a lot of climbs (thermals) completing these laps but that is as rules for flying local are I should always have enough height to make it back to the airfield. I'm happy with my attempts on Monday and now feel ready to take my Nav test and then I can set about flying away from the airfield!

Spoiler

" "

I had booked to fly on Tuesday too however even though I drank several litres Tuesday, had sun cream on, a hat, glasses etc 3.5 hours gliding in that sun / heat did something to me and whilst I went to the airfield on Tuesday my head was still pounding so I made the call to not fly as it was another scorching hot day and didn't think it worth the risk of making me feel worse than I did.

 

[LeMson]

Yep... I wanted to join the RAF.... sight problems, bye dream! then I thought hang on maybe you can fly helicopters for navy or something.

Oops.... bad eyesight.

RIP me....fail. Other options such as commercial licence are just too expensive.

Wanted to be a pilot since 4 years old, colourblind, told no chance, damn, same with train driver :'(

 

[CREATIVE!11]

Wanted to be a pilot since 4 years old, colourblind, told no chance, damn, same with train driver :'(

Yeah dude it blows, especially if it was something you were dead set on. I just wanted to be flying something.

 

[Gixer]

Yeah dude it blows, especially if it was something you were dead set on. I just wanted to be flying something.

Get yourself in a glider then! It doesn't have to be massively expensive. If I decide to carry on and fly the club gliders I'd have to pay club membership @ £474 a year and then £9 a winch launch or £35 an aerotow. Gliders cost between 56p and 69p a minute to hire and max charge is for 2.5 hours. So my 5.5 hour flight off the winch in a club discus cost me £99!! I don't think you can fly for much cheaper than that. If however you want to be able to fly to Europe etc that does change things but if you really just want to fly and cheap gliding is an option. The other is paragliding but myself I prefer a rigid wing.