I want a PPL - cui bono?
Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2016 2:08 pm
It's rather barren in here, so I hope that my tale of woe will pad things out a little.
Growing up, a few of my father's colleagues had their own aircraft. One of them actually gave up his lucrative day job to become a full time pilot, flying floatplanes for a living. He took me up a few times in conventional aircraft and I was hooked.
But then Life got in the way. Study, then love and then a career. One day, I was waiting for my flight back to Sydney when someone came over in the lounge and told me they had very few smoking seats in Business, would I consider a non-smoking seat in First instead? I acquiesced. Rather later the captain came around and asked if I'd like to sit in the jumpseat for takeoff and landing.
So these three aircrew came around to collect me. One of the FOs and I had a quick fag on the way to the aircraft and then we were off. I was hooked again. As I flew a fair bit for work at that time, I knew that I could ask for the junpseat and my request would be granted.
By this time I'd acquired a yacht and was trying to pay my mortgage so private flying was not in scope. The GA airfields in Sydney were a long way from where I lived.
Fast forward a few years to a different country. I was given a flight from a well-known airfield NNE of London. When I arrived, the lady at reception took one look at me and said I'd need something bigger than a 152 and it would be £20 extra. Well, the £20 didn't bother me but I did wonder if I looked fat (I'm not). Off we went and I was hooked.
So I sat down with the facts and figures. I knew I'd need more than 45 hours - I reckoned with 90. With bits and pieces I decided that it would cost around £20,000. Fine. I can afford that, I thought. So I located a flight school nearer me with a good reputation and paid for my first three lessons up front (being wary of the misfortunes of others seeking to save money by paying for the lot at once).
I started in Winter, scraping ice off the wing with a credit card, but at least the skies weren't too busy. Because of my sailing, I was very apprehensive of a collision - in fact I was a panic merchant. Any reflection from the ground (e.g., the Sun reflecting from a conservatory) made me call out traffic. Dumb.
Anyway, I settled down with one instructor for a while. He's a tremendously nice chap, but he's as tall as I am (6' 2") and heavier than I. The cockpit of a 152 is cosy enough but this was rather limiting. Also, I tried to do the figures. So if I'm 16 stone, that's 224 lb, and if he's 17 stone that's 238 lb, so that's 462 lb. This made me a little nervous when we topped up before flying (although I did ask if it was strictly necessary).
I was an extremely poor pilot. Because I was so terrified of missing traffic I didn't scan properly and drifted off altitude. That was probably because I wasn't trimming properly as well. My landings were dreadful. No situational awareness whatsoever, I was just aiming at the tarmac but not trying to put the bloody thing down. The only things I managed to get right were the preflight and 'fingertip' as opposed to 'white-knuckle' yoke control. These were techniques drummed into me by my father's colleague all those years ago.
There were a few assumptions I made before I started out that were wrong.
1: I can do this on Sundays (the only day available to me) How many consecutive CAVOK Sundays can you count? Towards the end I couldn't sleep on Saturday nights having not drunk anything, done as much reading as possible and worrying about the weather.
2: It will 'click' and I'll be a natural
3: I've been with this instructor for some time and I don't want to insult him by asking for someone else. He missed one day and I went with a different FI. He said "You do the radio calls". "Who, me?" "Sure. I'll help if you get stuck". I really enjoyed that flight.
4: I can use a PPL. See point 1.
So that's it. I've asked about flying in Australia when I'm back there but there's a lot of paperwork (and it's only a holiday) If my next career move takes me to the USA, things might move on. Until then, I'll just whore myself around looking for right-seat rides where I can.
20R
Growing up, a few of my father's colleagues had their own aircraft. One of them actually gave up his lucrative day job to become a full time pilot, flying floatplanes for a living. He took me up a few times in conventional aircraft and I was hooked.
But then Life got in the way. Study, then love and then a career. One day, I was waiting for my flight back to Sydney when someone came over in the lounge and told me they had very few smoking seats in Business, would I consider a non-smoking seat in First instead? I acquiesced. Rather later the captain came around and asked if I'd like to sit in the jumpseat for takeoff and landing.
So these three aircrew came around to collect me. One of the FOs and I had a quick fag on the way to the aircraft and then we were off. I was hooked again. As I flew a fair bit for work at that time, I knew that I could ask for the junpseat and my request would be granted.
By this time I'd acquired a yacht and was trying to pay my mortgage so private flying was not in scope. The GA airfields in Sydney were a long way from where I lived.
Fast forward a few years to a different country. I was given a flight from a well-known airfield NNE of London. When I arrived, the lady at reception took one look at me and said I'd need something bigger than a 152 and it would be £20 extra. Well, the £20 didn't bother me but I did wonder if I looked fat (I'm not). Off we went and I was hooked.
So I sat down with the facts and figures. I knew I'd need more than 45 hours - I reckoned with 90. With bits and pieces I decided that it would cost around £20,000. Fine. I can afford that, I thought. So I located a flight school nearer me with a good reputation and paid for my first three lessons up front (being wary of the misfortunes of others seeking to save money by paying for the lot at once).
I started in Winter, scraping ice off the wing with a credit card, but at least the skies weren't too busy. Because of my sailing, I was very apprehensive of a collision - in fact I was a panic merchant. Any reflection from the ground (e.g., the Sun reflecting from a conservatory) made me call out traffic. Dumb.
Anyway, I settled down with one instructor for a while. He's a tremendously nice chap, but he's as tall as I am (6' 2") and heavier than I. The cockpit of a 152 is cosy enough but this was rather limiting. Also, I tried to do the figures. So if I'm 16 stone, that's 224 lb, and if he's 17 stone that's 238 lb, so that's 462 lb. This made me a little nervous when we topped up before flying (although I did ask if it was strictly necessary).
I was an extremely poor pilot. Because I was so terrified of missing traffic I didn't scan properly and drifted off altitude. That was probably because I wasn't trimming properly as well. My landings were dreadful. No situational awareness whatsoever, I was just aiming at the tarmac but not trying to put the bloody thing down. The only things I managed to get right were the preflight and 'fingertip' as opposed to 'white-knuckle' yoke control. These were techniques drummed into me by my father's colleague all those years ago.
There were a few assumptions I made before I started out that were wrong.
1: I can do this on Sundays (the only day available to me) How many consecutive CAVOK Sundays can you count? Towards the end I couldn't sleep on Saturday nights having not drunk anything, done as much reading as possible and worrying about the weather.
2: It will 'click' and I'll be a natural
3: I've been with this instructor for some time and I don't want to insult him by asking for someone else. He missed one day and I went with a different FI. He said "You do the radio calls". "Who, me?" "Sure. I'll help if you get stuck". I really enjoyed that flight.
4: I can use a PPL. See point 1.
So that's it. I've asked about flying in Australia when I'm back there but there's a lot of paperwork (and it's only a holiday) If my next career move takes me to the USA, things might move on. Until then, I'll just whore myself around looking for right-seat rides where I can.
20R