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 1)

So this lesson was more of the same but with an added twist. I am however writing it about a month later and back dating the post as it took me three days to finally get the energy to start writing up the lesson and then promptly lost my file on it.

I figured I may as well get this whole circuit thing nailed and feel at ease whilst doing it rather than just doing a lesson and moving on to the next so I booked in for three hours. How hard can three hours of circuits be? I had forgot how tiring one hour was last time.

So if you have read Lesson 7 you will know the drill by now, checks, taxi, takeoff, circuit, land etc. However this time there was a 17kt crosswind which is pretty hard work to say the least, firstly it's a case of remembering to alter your bearing to take into account the crosswind so you head straight. The first few times I wavered left and right and finally started to stay on a constant heading.

Landing in a crosswind was another thing altogether! It's hard to explain but think of it as sliding slightly sideways towards the runway and then straightening up at the last moment for the landing, it's not quite that simple though. As you come in to land just over the threshold you kick the plane straight using the rudder and flatten out with a touch of elevator until you feel the sink and then flare, all the time attempting to keep the wings level while being blown around. It's interesting to say the least landing with one wheel on the ground first. Most of the first attempts were a hazy mess of flaring too early, completely forgetting to level out and some very bumpy landings. However I started to get the hang of it and I was doing well until Matt asked how confident I felt, "very, I'm feeling great about it" and with a sly grin he (as I found out later) made a radio call to tower, which I couldn't make out and told them I was feeling confident and to have some fun.

So this circuit as we were about to turn onto base I figured out what was going on as there was no traffic in the area and I was told to orbit until further advised. Round and round we went until we were told to continue. Then the next circuit I call "final Golf Mike Xray" and hear "Golf Mike Xray Continue"..... Continue????? Never had that one before, which as Matt explained meant as it says, just to continue, but it doesn't mean we have clearance to land so be prepared. Fortunately a few hundred feet away I hear tower call "Golf Mike Xray clear for touch and go runway two zero" Phew! and we carried onto another circuit. This time though I got a continue and never got a clearance, in fact a few hundred feet tower radios to tell me to go-around, and so began the tentative change in settings to climb away from the runway.

At this point I'm so engrossed in the whole circuit that what came next completely threw me. 500ft after take off Matt kills the throttle, locks his hand round it with a vice like grip and asks me what I would do if we had an engine failure. Now at this point my brain should be thinking that I should set-up for a glide approach and pick a field because I had read the emergency exercises the day before but for some reason I said "turn back" even though I knew we would just stall and die. Matt calmly spent what seemed forever explaining why and how and what to do. Sheep looked worried and I could see stickers on car windows by this point... Fortunately Matt released his Jaws like grip and instructed me to climb back into circuit so we could land and have a brew.

...... Tea break.

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 7: Ex 12 & 13

METAR EGCN 231250Z 20010KT CAVOK 09/05 Q1011

What goes up must come down, Take Off and Landings was the subject of today's lesson with an added and hopefully never will have to do again twist.

Firstly it has been a couple of weeks since the last lesson and during that time the idea was that I was going to study the rest of the PPL book, get the checks off to a tee and then revise air law. Unfortunately between a busy work schedule, having wisdom teeth pulled out and a bit of a crisis I never did get to pick the books up.

So starting off I thought that as we were doing circuits, they would be dead easy. My thought process being that repetition would be quite an easy thing. How wrong was I!

First we went through the usual brief which pulled all the other lessons into one. How to take off, power settings, rotation speed, climb speed, 300ft checks, 1000ft checks, downwind checks (bumpffpichhl [see below]), final checks, climbing turns, level turns, setting up for landing and finally how to get the flare right. Which to be honest, I never did nail the flare properly in the past. Fortunately I remembered everything from before and as it is nearly Christmas Matt changed the 300ft checks to Engine Lights Flaps ELF. How hard can it be to remember all that AND do the radio calls?.....

Well first of all we went to go cheer my business partner (Steve) up, earlier this week he had a heart attack and was now in the local hospital. We always joke about how one day I'll "buzz the tower" as in the movie Top Gun. So we set off towards town and flew towards the hospital waving the wings, Steve sent a text saying he saw us, so we circled around doing some tight turns, waving the wings etc until it was time to go as I got another text saying "stop showing off", which is where I took a moment to snap a pic of the hospital then changed back to Tower frequency and joined ready for circuits.

This time Matt demonstrated the entire circuit and all went well, until the moment when he did the downwind checks in what seemed a relaxed instant, but rather fast. We landed and as we were rolling Matt handed control and it was my time, and here's how it went.

Take Off went fine, rotated fine, trimmed in for the climb, got to 300ft, forgot the check, made a climbing turn left from the runway and levelled off at 1000ft. Within seconds it was time to turn onto the downwind leg, at this point I appreciated how quick you have to do all this in. Downwind is 2.5 miles, at a speed of 115mph or 100knots and in that time it was a call to tower for downwind, then the checks. By which time I had drifted off course slightly and took too long over the checks so it was time for a level turn onto base and immediately after rolling straight it was time to trim for descent. Carb heat on, engine down to 1500rpm, 2 stages of flaps when in the arc and trim. In less than a minute its a descending turn at 15 degrees angle of bank towards the runway and onto final.

By this time I am so stressed! everything happens so fast and its not like in other lessons where you can easily take a little longer. This time it HAS to be done at a certain pace and no less.

So final, I call final to tower, then read-back the response and put some power in as we are quite far away and too low. Back on course another stage of flap adds in some extra drag and I was a few hundred feet from the runway. Power off, over the numbers, pull her straight and wait for the sink, flare...... hold back...... hold back.... hold back, touchdown. Perfect! And relax..... oppps forgot the rudder and am now drifting right. Note to self, don't forget the rudder!

The rest of the lesson was the same but getting better and quicker, four take-offs and landings in daylight and two with the runway lights on. I finally got all the calls done and nailed the landing and Matt was right, I slept like a baby that night!

• Brakes
• Undercarriage
• Mixture
• Fuel
• Flaps
• Prop Pitch
• Instruments
• Carb Heat
• Hatches
• Harnesses
• Lights

PPL Lesson 5: Ex 10

How to fall gracefully from the sky at a rate of 1000ft per min and not realise it was the lesson learnt today!

Usual start to the lesson with a quick brief, running through HASELL checks.

• Height
• Airframe
• Security
• Engine
• Location
• Lookout

and the ins and outs of stalling. This does not mean switching the engine off as a few people have asked today, stalling in this case is the stalling of the wing when the resulting pressure stops providing lift and you drop out of the air.

This time round it was comms time with no cheat sheet and I felt more at ease with the radio calls, still a way to go but a mile better than earlier this week. Taking off with a steady 6kt wind was simple and a steady climb to 4000ft was done while turning out to the east towards Haxey and our lesson began. Firstly completing HASELL checks and then setting up for a clean stall (no flaps). I have to admit my first attempt on all of them went completely wrong, either incorrect recovery or just plain old wrong setup. The Final Stall was probably the worst, where I managed to hold the plane at such an angle that it had stalled, the stall warner didn't come on and we were plummeting at a rate of 1000ft per minute. Although there was a lot of buffeting which was an indicator of a stall but I was waiting for the stall warner still. Lesson learnt.... the stall warner doesn't always come on! 

PPL Lesson 4 (pt2), Ex 7, 8, 9

Carrying on from the last lesson the weather had now turned to drizzle and broken clouds with the odd bit of sunshine thrown in. This time it was turning in a climb and descent and an introduction to stalling.

So I start to climb past 2000ft and half way through Matt throws in a request to change heading by 40 degrees whilst maintaining the climb. That didn't go too bad but having to remember all the checks as well as what I was learning in the lesson was a but daunting.

Whilst we were up there Matt ran me through slow flight by flying on the drag curve and handed over to let me fly it with the stall warning constantly on. It's amazing how much control you loose on the wings at that speed.

Still, as the lesson went on it became easier and easier, this really was like learning to drive the car and I felt really confident by the time I got to the end of the lesson, so much that I orbited for a while to let an airbus through then called for landing clearance, flaps down, set the RPM, checks done and lined up to land. Final stage of flaps in, power off and flare..... touchdown, awesome. We taxi'd down to our spot behind an airbus which was kinda strange as you feel so small !


Lesson Over and back for a de-brief before planning the next lesson on Thursday which is slow flight and stalling. Fingers crossed for some good weather.

PPL Lesson 4 (pt1), Ex 7, 8, 9

EGCN 290850Z 23010KT CAVOK 09/07 Q1007

Wasn't sure what to expect from today, two lessons back to bank and the comms to do too. Needless to say I learnt my lesson from last time and I read and re-read the PPL book through until Exercise 11 so this time I wasn't going to miss a thing.

As you can see from the METAR it was CAVOK this morning (Ceiling And Visibility OK) which looked pretty great until half way to the airport and an unassuming black veil seemed to be moving down from the North which during the day turned from complete blue sky to broken clouds and rain showers for the rest of the day.

On with the briefing, first was a re-cap on my knowledge of previous which was to be expected really seems as I couldn't remember my name before! So a Rolf Harris-esque session on the whiteboard started and I mapped out an ascent, descent including where and what checks to do, FREDA and finally the rates and speeds expected. Apart from the speeds being a bit out I was surprised to see that I got them right, well... not so much surprised as thankful for all the reading I had done. Onto Matt's brief for this mornings session which was turns and turns climbing and descending, which seemed pretty straight forward (I remember that false sense of security before).

Paperwork done, checks complete and before I know it we are talking to tower, getting taxi clearance and sat waiting for the runway to clear so we can take off.... with a tail wind and slight cross wind. Now after a fair few hours this weekend listening to tower and traffic, the radio seemed pretty easy. That was until it was my turn and what seemed easy to understand was absolutely confusing, how come it seemed so easy to listen to and understand when someone else was doing it was beyond me. Straight onto the runway and off to a quick start due to an airbus about to land at any moment.

The lesson entailed lots of different turns to get used to having to use the rudder to stay in balance and also a recap on the last lesson which is where we ended up above the clouds in the lovely sunshine which was pretty awesome. We went up, down, left, right etc and I started to get the hang of it all including remembering rudder in the roll out AND everything from last lesson. However the comms were another thing altogether, flying the aircraft was becoming quite simple but combining it with listening to radar and tower etc completely threw me. I guess when the flying becomes second nature the comms will fall into place.

Before I knew it the lesson was over and we popped back out of the clouds over Haxey (above) and tracked back to the airport only to be told to orbit as we turned onto base. What happened next was a bit of a blur, I was trimmed in with flaps to start the landing and after a brief notice from tower that an airbus was on final Matt radio'd in to say that he could get us down before the jet and tower gave us the OK. At that point what was a relaxed descent turned into something from Alton towers, descending towards the runway at a fair old rate of knots and what seemed a god awful angle we touched down and quickly exit the runway.

Lesson over! Back inside for a quick pit stop and back out again.

I'd like to add at this point that when you have an instructor as awesome as Matt it makes flying a lot easier. It's not something I had thought about until today but I think Matt's attitude, the confidence he gives you as a trainee and also the way he handles the plane makes you feel much more at ease and makes lessons far easier than I had imagined.

PPL Lesson 3, Ex 7 and 8

METAR EGCN 251020Z 02008KT 9999 FEW012 SCT031 BKN036 11/09 Q1021

After numerous calls to check the weather suitability and constant monitoring of the TAF we finally got the break needed to get up there again. We had a warm front move really slowly up the UK at around 15knots which brought cloud base down to 200ft and the rest of it was pure fog and mist, which is great if you have autoland equipment but not so good if you need to actually see more than a few feet infront of you.

Matt gave the initial briefing, covering some of the theory behind what was to happen today, I figured that I was doing quite well as I could reel off what Vx and Vy was and when they are best used etc but thought it was a little strange considering the amount of reading that I had done when I didn't know that Power Attitude Trim is reversed on the exit to a climb. I soon remembered thinking to myself when looking at all the pictures of climbing and descending in the study book "PAT going up, yup understand that, aha all the other pictures look the same so I guess I don't need to read them" How wrong can I be! So during the practical it was highlighted by complete confusion at times over what I should be doing.

Sorted all the paperwork out, less tippex needed this time which has earned me the nickname of tippex, although I guess it is better than my nickname from my biking days which was killswitch (the switch that kills the engine) Onto all the checks, yup everything looks fine apart from the rear strobe was out. Checked the engine and fuel and started her up only to find that pulling the throttle back to idle stalled the engine..... didn't expect that. Must check that again on the power checks! That was it, I was off, this time doing everything except the comms which I was told to research before monday as that was mine to do too. 

Takeoff went well, held the center line and off we went, rotated at 65 and climbed nicely towards 1000ft only to realise that I had drifted half a mile off course already because I hadn't put any rudder in after rotation.... damn. Then into the cloud at 1500ft and a disorientating nav up to 5,000 ft.... nope, still cloud... this didn't look good, but then at 5,500ft I kicked myself as we popped out of the clouds which were at this point like really flat cotton wool and for the first time in weeks there was nothing but blue sky and beautiful sunshine. At this point I was figuring that it was pretty awesome up there, sunglasses on, thinking how dark and dingy it was back down there until we started the lesson. 

"Lets ascend to 6,500ft" said Matt "Pick a visual reference point outside the window and begin the procedure" ........ urm, it's flat cloud as far as the eye can see, and the only thing in the distance is a tiny bit of dark cloud, which at a guess would be moving. Anyhow, that was the least of my worries. We began, LOOKOUT, Power, Attitude, Trim.... nicely on the way up on a Vy climb, dipped the nose at 500ft, quick check for traffic and back into the climb. Then exiting the climb the whole Attitude, Power Trim (reversed) completely threw me and for the rest of the lesson threw me so much that I ended up forgetting direction and ended up off course a few times, I lie, it was the majority of the time. Managed to nail the last couple though and we entered a cruise descent back down towards VRP Haxey and join the downwind leg.

Time for landing, just over Bawtry it was power back time, flaps down two stages and we were all lined up, this time it seemed less daunting, I managed to hold the centerline with some fine adjustments and apart from being a bit ground-shy it all went well once I had put some belief into matt that holding the a tonne of metal at 80mph at some concrete more nose down than I thought was fine. I touched down! admittedly with a little bounce but still awesome and loved every minute of it.

Next is two hours on Monday to recap and run through slow flight, stalls etc and Comms, I've got some reading ahead!

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.

PPL Lesson 1

So after an hour in the air with H, Steve and Matt we had taxied back and parked up for a quick swap. Well, I say quick, there was lots of moaning and groaning coming from me trying to get out. Sat now in the pilot seat (left) I figured this was going to be dead easy seeing what Steve had done, I chose the flight out past Haxey VRP and a suggestion of a fly over the Humber bridge sounded awesome.... at least at the moment it did.

Matt handed me the checklists and asked if it was definitely something I was going to learn. "Oh Yes, no doubt" I replied, "Ok in which case you can do all the checks before we set off first and taxi out". Awesome I thought to myself and started running through checks, nearly missing a few on the way in excitement and soon Matt had started the aircraft. I have to admit at this point that I couldn't start the engine for love nor money and Matt helped out. So taxiing out to the runway we had our first hiccup, we had instructions to taxi out, only to be faced with a citation jet coming into where we were about to leave and where we were going was another aircraft. The power checks were then done in the tightest of spaces and god only knows how Matt got the plane to turn in that tight circle! Anyhow, we are now sat ready with clearance to take off, at this point I was cool steering it and was quite relaxed until I heard "Well, you need to learn everything so you take off and climb to 2000ft." What happened next was a bit of a blur, power on to full, compensate for the P-effect with rudder and pull back at 65 knotts and climb to 2000ft. Or that's at least what should happen. What really happened was power on, massive pull to the left, I don't press hard enough and all of a sudden we are heading off at an angle down the runway, 65knotts, pull up, turbulence.... wings wobbly and my arse going ten to the dozen. Wanting to in-still confidence I attempted to remain silent!

Then we climbed and hit cloud, and more cloud, and more..... In fact after calling for clearance up to 5000ft to get above the clouds and a good five minutes Matt took the decision to turn around, hand over and let me do some IFR, about the only thing FSX was good for! That was the steadiest I flew all the time and in zero visibility. Thank god I don't get to do that in a normal lesson. We soon popped out of the clouds and went through inputs and effects. Stalling with Flaps, putting the aircraft into a spiral descent using input and recovering and then finally trimming. Which after heading nose down to mother earth was a pleasant activity! Although Steve loved the whole spinning thing.... (adrenaline junkie)

After an hour of roaming around trying to get bearings and trimming the aircraft we three kinda figured Matt would be landing it..... how wrong. I was instructed to get into pattern, turn final, apply flaps, turn base (arse going ten to the dozen by this point) and "just aim to be central to the runway and touch down there" says and points Matt. Easier said than done when I have a vice like grip and the slightest breeze seemed like a tornado, still with a couple of adjustments from Matt we were over the runway, power off, flare..... touchdown.

Not the smoothest but HOW AWESOME! I took off, flew and landed all in one lesson. I'm hooked.

Booked in a couple of weeks, although offers of taking H and Steve up as passengers were quickly declined ( I don't blame them haha).

Trial flying session....

Not sure what to expect today when we all got there, my partner Steve (business partner, not the windy walks type) and myself decided; (actually I rail-roaded Steve) to take flying lessons, something I have wanted to do since a child. So we booked in a couple of back to back flights in a Piper PA28 and Invited Steve's daughter Helena to come along.

I have to admit that I have taken controls of gliders in the past a long time ago and other than flying radio control planes and messing about on FSX I have no real flying experience. Bearing this in mind we went to Doncaster Sheffield Flying School at Robin Hood Airport  and after half an hours briefing and some waiting around for the aircraft we went airside to the aircraft. Not as large as I expected for some reason! In fact sat inside the back of the aircraft it seemed much smaller than my defender, which thinking about it is probably true.

The first flight was with our instructor (Matt) talking through the ATC calls, some of the basic checks and taxiing out to the runway. Fortunately a 14kt wind head on was all we had at that moment and some cloud cover. Steve chose to fly out from EGCN towards VRP Warmsworth and on to Leeds airspace to fly over H's work. Matt took off, talked for a bit, although I do admit by this time I could attribute the flight to something like being on a roller coaster, small aircraft don't half get thrown around in turbulant air and I was shaking a bit. Actually that's a lie, I was shaking a lot, or at least I was when Matt said Steve Could take control.  The control freak in me was having kittens by this point and it seemed to get a lot bumpier, although I am sure it wasn't really as Steve did a great job.

We circled around Leeds over Helena's work where there was lots of guessing where it was, finally found it and headed back to EGCN where Matt took over and set us down smoothly.

Great first flight which left me a little unsure, maybe when you are in control of the aircraft it is a little different...... How right could I be, time for my turn.