PPL - where and how to learn?

I thought I would write a quick post on my thoughts and own opinions of the places to learn etc as I have had a few emails from people asking about it.

Aircraft:
I learn in a PA28, it's a 4 seater touring aircraft and the sole reason I learn in that is because we had a taster lesson in it and then seeing the difference between the smaller C150 and the PA28 I figured wanted more room inside, plus I was told it's nicer to fly. Which to be completely honest after the hour in a 150 I have to agree with, the PA28 gets thrown around less but is also less responsive. Each to their own though, it is only my own personal preference. I know for a fact Steve would have loved the C150. Not my cup of tea though.

Airfield / School:
I learn at Doncaster Sheffield Flying School which is based at EGCN (Robin Hood Airport) and has a two mile (or there about) runway, class D airspace and a fantastic tower service. I was asked the question about landing fees as I pay around £5 per lesson, however now I have flown into airstrips with less service and a lesser airspace I would hate to be the other way around. Don't get me wrong, if you are going to do a lot of flying in smaller airfields then that's great, but there are things you do miss out on.

When you have the traffic that Doncaster has you end up with passenger jets stacked up for departure with you, having to take into account wake disturbance as they take off etc. The radio calls are less for a smaller airfield, even to the point that some you end up talking to yourself when they have no service at certain times. I'm not sure how confident I would be learning solely in a small airfield and then coming into Class D with full service.

PPL Lesson 8: Ex 12 & 13 Again! (Pt 2)

Feeling ever so confident the next hour and a half we went for a trip out of Doncaster airspace. First popping over to the Hospital to wave at Steve (still not been let out at that point but at the time of writing this has made an awesome recovery and just spent a great Christmas day out and about).

So Matt decides that we are to go onto Radar and call for a transition across to Gamston. Now this whole transition thing I haven't done or read about before and it was being right back to square one on the radio, having to make what seemed like a huge sentence and call to radar, to this day I still can't remember how the conversation between me and Doncaster radar was. I do however remember she sounded quite hot, well as far as you can tell over a radio! I digress....

We carried on across fields, over villages and down to Gamston airfield so I could practise short field circuits. How hard can they be, it's all the same isn't it? Forgetting one minor detail.... it's quarter the size of Doncaster's runway which means the circuits are much shorter, plus the crosswind was now a tailwind on the downwind leg. It's amazing what you learn from the different types of airfield and towers, something which I will touch on in the next post so as to answer some questions I had on email.

All in all 15 take-offs and landings and one very tired me! I think circuits are well and truly etched into my brain.

PPL Lesson 2: Exercise 6

EGCN 121350Z 24017G28KT 9999 SCT037 SCT045 13/06 Q1004

Today's exercise was number 6, Straight and level flight which wasn't quite as straight forward as you might think! One thing to point out is lessons 1 to 5 was all taken care of in the first few hours last week which involved airmanship, effects of controls, taxiing etc. The difference this time is there was a PPL Course book available to go by and everything dropped into place. I also picked up the PPL Air Law book due to wanting to step up the amount of lessons, at the moment I am doing a one hour lesson each week, sometimes two hours but in November will be doubling up to two or three hours each week. With this in mind, solo flying will come around sooner and to fly solo you need to have passed the Air Law exam, and to pass the Air Law exam...... There's a lot of reading!

So lets start with the weather, at the top is the METAR readout from midday ( I couldn't get the historical data for the time I flew which was 16:30 Zulu )

METerological

Aerodrome

Report

It's a whole subject on its own but above shows that there was a 17knot crosswind gusting to 28knots with greater than 10km visibility and some scattered clouds plus a few things more which I'll leave for now.

This time it was time for me to do all the checks on the aircraft which involved climbing in and out a few times and an arm full of aviation fuel. Tip: don't push really hard on the fuel drains! Fortunately all nuts and bolts were secure and everything within range and working fine, time to get wired in and start up, this time managing to start the engine the second time around rather than not at all last week. We made our way out to the runway, held short while a Cessna 172 took off in front of us and when cleared made our way onto the runway. At this point with a crosswind I assumed that I wouldn't be taking off, I'm finding out that assuming never goes the right way, it was time for my first crosswind takeoff. Ailerons fully to the right, power to full, bit of right rudder to compensate for the prop wash and then flatten out the ailerons as airspeed increases and rotate at 65. Surprisingly it really was that simple and once we had got to a thousand foot it was very clear and calm.

Matt took over for a short while to catch up with the Cessna (photo above) and when in formation we broke off and  started the straight and level lesson heading towards VRP Haxey, Gainsborough and then onto Gamston (EGNE) .

Straight and level.... wow that was a strange one, there is so many variables to take into account, Power Attitude and Trim we flew with the pane out of trim at different power settings right from 75knots up to 130knots and different inputs, such as flying slow, and then applying one stage of flaps so that the nose came down and we can see where we are going. What was surprising was the ability to travel in the same direction at the Attitude and angle that Matt had us, which was near enough nose high going sideways through the air, although we still tracked straight and level. That must of looked pretty strange from outside.

By this time the sun was setting and we went for a quick stop off at Gamston, which was pretty cool as that shows as another flight in my log book. A short stop and we were taking off and tracking back past Gainsborough with a little bit of turbulence over the power station. On the way back we practised some descending ready for the next lesson. By this time we were nearly at official night time and calling for clearance to land we were number 3 with an A350 on a final and the Cessna we passed earlier just turning onto base while we were coming downwind. You soon see how disorientating night flying can be as we turned onto final and Matt settled the aircraft onto the runway explaining how hard it is to judge touchdown in the dark.

Fantasic flight, loved every minute of it and cant wait for next week. Two hours booked next time to run through Excercise 7 and 8.