Category: PPL Training Page 2 of 6

The weather hasn’t cooperated lately but today things seem to look good.  I had my instructor scheduled for our weekly dual session but she suggested that I go ahead and fly my first real cross country solo.  I have been trying to get it in but the days I have scheduled have been less than ideal. Today I’ve got that pilot feeling!

I performed all of the navigation calculations and headed to the airfield.  Now I have to say, I haven’t flown in over a week and before that it was a couple of weeks, I didn’t have any butterflies.  I was focused on the mission.  When I arrived, my instructor looked over my calculations and my plan, listened in while I got the weather/filed my flight plan and we quickly discussed some procedures.  After this, she ushered me off reminding me that I need to be back before the next reservation and also to remember to close my flight plan upon my return.

I walked out to my machine looking it up and down as I walk, making sure that nothing obvious is out of place. I make a thorough pre-flight to make sure she is ready to carry me aloft.  Everything checks out but there is one last thing.  Bathroom break. It wasn’t nerves, I don’t think, just nature calling.  As I said before, I was pretty relaxed all morning.

Back in the cockpit, I was ready to go.  Started the airplane, went through the run-up procedures and taxi’d to the runway.

My Turn so I taxi onto the runway.  Heels to the floor, throttle full, green green green, airspeed alive, rotate and away I go floating above the earth on a cushion of air.

Once on course, I call up flight service to open my flight plan.  Next, Fayetteville approach for my flight following.  I am making radio calls, climbing to cruise altitude, beginning my navigation way-points and completely at ease.  It wasn’t too long ago that I saturated my workload capability and had to have my instructor help out.

Once I reached my cruising altitude, trimmed out and performed my cruise checklist.  At this point I realized that the plane was trimmed and flying hands off and the air was glass smooth.  I was able to sit back and enjoy the rest of the flight to my round robin destination.

Since it was so smooth and everything was under control.  I broke out the camera for some pictures!

Once I landed, I taxi’d over to the fuel pumps and filled up.  This is the first time that I have fueled the airplane unassisted.  Even though, there was a gentleman on site that made sure that I didn’t do anything wrong.  We had a nice chat.  The aviation community is good like that.  Part of flying is just going to little out of the way areas and meeting others in the aviation community.

On my way back, I was cruising a thousand feet lower and was rewarded with a shear layer.  This means that I am paying for my smooth trip down by a really bumpy trip back.  On the way I heard military traffic over the approach comms.  Looks like Pope was running some maneuvers with Jets in the restricted area 30 miles east of my track.  It was pretty cool, you could definitely tell the fighter jocks because their masks were causing a muffled affect on their audio.

I returned to TTA and made one of my better landings.  I really think the short and soft field work improved my landings.  I landed around the time that I predicted and plenty of time for the next reservation.  I chalk that up to good planning! Haha

It was a good day.  Mostly because even with the cockpit management and workload. I felt completely at ease.  I felt under control.  I felt like a pilot!

So back in the air after a nice weeks vacation in the Caribbean.  While I was away, two things rattled around in my brain as I sipped mixed drinks by the ocean.  One, my landings have been crap lately.  I have been transitioning too high, bleeding off speed or floating and dropping to the runway with a thud.  The other was my previous experience with advanced takeoff and landings, Soft Field and Short Field.

If you read my previous entry, Weirdly frustrating day… you would know that I scared myself during gusty soft field take offs.  That has haunted me ever since.  Well.. winds were light and variable so we tackled soft field and short field today.

First up, soft field.  My instructor showed me how it is done and again it felt weird as a passenger as she expertly maneuvered us around pattern. As expected, she did a wonderful job.

Now was my attempt.  To say I was nervous was an understatement.  I felt like this was my first take off ever.  I dropped 10 degrees of flaps and pulled the yoke to my stomach and started my slow taxi onto the runway.

I advanced the throttle and soon the front wheel was off the ground.  This time, I released some back pressure as needed to keep the front wheel from getting too high.  Now this was key, because in my first attempts, I had full back pressure and we lifted off quickly and I struggled to find the ground effect with a stiff crosswind pushing us off the runway.  Today, I felt under control.  I felt the plane lift from the ground and I held steady in the ground effect to accelerate.  As I reached my Vy speed of 65 kts, I retracted flaps and performed a normal climb.  Easy Peasy.  To reinforce my feeling of joy I hear from the right seat, “Text book soft field take off!”  Yay me!

The landing was not all that soft but the approach was good.  And it was a site better than I have been doing as of late.  Two more times around the pattern for soft field take offs and landings.  The second landing was nearly perfect, except as the wheels kissed the earth, for some unknown reason, I pulled back on the yoke, lifting us back up a couple of inches before settling down.  The third landing was pretty decent, could have been softer but I have the technique down now, just need to practice.  All of the landings were far far better than I have been doing in the last month, so that felt good.  Along with the confidence of soft field, I felt really good.

Next we moved on to short field take offs and landings. Once again, I let my instructor show me how it is done.  We didn’t get this far last time, so I didn’t have too many worries.. err expectations.  It seemed much more straight forward so when my turn came, I was feeling at ease.  I went through my lights, camera, action pre-takeoff checks and dropped 10 degrees of flaps.

As I taxi’d onto the runway, I was trying to hug the edge and when I turned… I was not at all lined up with the center line.  More like 10 feet to the right.  No big deal, but sloppy and I would definitely pay more attention to the turn next time.  Feet on the brakes, full power…. as the engine fully develops the power, I release the brakes.  Airspeed alive…. 50, rotate and climb at 55 kts.  Once I reach 50 feet above the runway, I lower the nose and accelerate to 65 kts… retract flaps. Not too bad.

As I turn final, I drop 30 degrees of flaps and slow to 55 kts.  The controls at this speed are pretty mushy but I have trained in slow flight at the edge of a stall and we weren’t nearly at stall speed in this configuration.  I was aiming to land on the numbers so I aimed for a dirt patch just before the runway.  As I got closer, I adjusted throttle and pitch to maintain between 55-60 kts.  As I crossed the threshold and the wheels touch down right on the numbers.  Whoo hooo!!

The second time around the pattern, I missed my target and I think I was longer than the 200ft margin that I have available to pass this test.  The third time around the runway, I missed the numbers, but set down right after and was well within the 200ft.  YAY!!!

Overall, I had a fantastic day. I haven’t flown in nearly two weeks because of weather and my vacation, so this was definitely a confidence boost.  As I said before, my worst landing today was silky smooth compared to my landings over the past month.  It felt great, and most of all, I really felt like I was the master of my machine.  I felt like a pilot!

Lessons have been cancelled for about a week due to high winds in the area.  We had a few tornado warnings… yuck.

That did not spoil my day today!  My family and I are going on vacation for a week and I really wanted to get a solo flight in before we departed.  The weather cooperated and I put together my flight plan for a Round Robin trip from KTTA -> KSOP.  Not quite a cross country trip, as a cross country trip is defined as a flight to another airport with a distance greater than 50nm.  The trip from KTTA to KSOP even via the SDZ VOR is only about 43 nm.   It’s baby steps leading up to my real cross country solos and I happen to be taking these trips solo in the order in which I took them with my instructor.

I arrive at the airfield and go over my flight plan with my instructor.  Everything checks out and I get her advice on using the engine preheater.  It is around 36F outside so not cold cold but still chilly.  She advised that I try to give it a shot and if it doesn’t start right away, grab the heater.  As I was preflighting, I listened to two other students having a hard time starting their planes, so… I grabbed the heater. I think it helped because I had no issues starting my ride.

As I perform my run up, for some reason everyone is in the pattern landing with a 6 kt tailwind.  Even when there was a pretty decent break in traffic, the next incoming aircraft still landed with a tailwind.  This led the two planes in front of me to take off on said runway.  I’m still new to the pilot game but this was annoying.

I takeoff and get setup on course with no troubles.  As I climb I tried to radio Fayetteville approach on 125.17.  No response.  I try again.  No response.  I then hear another try with out getting a response.  I am just a lowly student and not really prepped in this area.  I decide to try the southern Fayetteville approach frequency 127.8 to see if I can talk to them.  If not, then I am turning around because I have radio issues or something.  I called up approach on 127.8 and got a response, so I requested a flight following.  Once I was in the system, I hear another pilot say, “Do you guys know that something seems wrong with 125.17?”  Approach answers that they were unaware.  I was asked by approach to do a radio check on 125.17 and get back to them.  I complied and after trying a few times I returned to 127.8 and told them negative results.

The rest of the flight to and from SOP was pretty uneventful.  The flight back was quite bumpy.  I wasn’t able to take pictures as I planned.  I did get off a few but not any good ones.

Returning to TTA, I call for an advisory.  There was one plane that had landed, none in the pattern.  Awesome, let’s land on the right runway!  As I was getting ready to make my 5 mile radio call, I hear a freaking Cirrus taking off on the runway with a tailwind again.  WTF!!!  Windsock, AWOS, Common freaking sense!!!! aghh!  Then I hear two other approaching aircraft chime in that they will be landing on said runway.  I mean, the AWOS clearly indicates around 5-7kts of tailwind on that runway.

I don’t like landing with a tailwind, I tend to float and that is exactly what I did today.  Great trip, crappy landing.  At least I got this trip in before my vacation.  I had a lot of fun and felt like a pilot.  Next, my instructor advised me to plan a real cross country to KRCZ and also try to get some time scheduled for a night cross country to KVUJ.  Sounds like fun, can’t wait!

Watch my flight on CloudAhoy -> Clicky Clicky!

Last time, I flubbed the flight plan due to a miscommunication between my instructor and I.  She wanted me to plan direct but I didn’t get the memo and planned it through a VOR that happened to be out.  No worries, still stoked for a cross-country flight!

This time, I have everything planned, checked over and signed off.  So we prep to fly direct from TTA to EXX.  As I was walking out to the plane I chatted with one of the other instructors who said it was beautiful up there, smooth as glass.  We would learn that it was smooth no longer.

As we departed TTA and turned on course, I felt a little bit of overload.  We didn’t think we could trust the DG (Squawk said so), so I was bouncing all around, trying to fly by the magnetic compass and at the same time open up my flight plan and dialing up Raleigh approach for a flight following.  I flubbed the frequency at first by calling Fayetteville approach thinking it was Raleigh approach… ugh. Need to make sure that my frequencies are correct.

.  After flying in the wrong direction for a few minutes after my goof, I got us back on course.

The bumps smoothed out as we reached our cruising altitude of 4500.  Didn’t last long as we were handed off to Greensboro approach and was immediately directed to descend to 4000.  500 feet was a huge difference because we bounced around the rest of the flight to Lexington.

As I approached the halfway point, I had the Greensboro VOR dialed in because I knew that I should be on the 162 radial dead smack over the city of Asheboro.  My instructor pulled out her portable GPS and I felt good since I was right on the magenta line.  She seemed quite pleased.

I checked off the way points and setup for the approach at Davidson Co airport.  Pretty uneventful landing.  We taxi’d back and after flubbing the takeoff call (Saying Moore Co instead of Davidson Co.), we were back in the air.

Made the flight following radio call and feeling good about how I am managing the radio.   The rest of the way back was quite bumpy and tiring.  We chatted about our upcoming vacations.  It was nice.  Would have been nicer if it was smooth but you can’t have everything that you want.

When we got back to TTA it was pretty crazy.  Several inbound aircraft from different directions, a plane in the pattern, and a guy who stayed on the radio ranting about hearing someone say right traffic when the pattern was left traffic.  I mean, it wasn’t busy enough?

Made a pretty uneventful but ballooned landing due to giving a little power to stop sinking toward the end of the approach.

As we taxi’d back, my instructor commented on how I did.  She said I did really well with the planning and execution of the flight plan.  Only pointing out my initial flub to approach that got me off course at the beginning.  She then commented on how she noticed that even with all of the turbulence that I held my altitude with deviation no more that +- 75 ft and that she was really impressed.  It is odd because I was kind of upset that I didn’t hold it better, but it felt good.  It was pretty bumpy and I fought it most of the way there and the whole way back.

It was a good day flying.  Next I need to try to plan my night cross country and solo cross country.  Making progress!

It all started out innocently enough.  A simple cross country from TTA to EXX.  Last night I did the planning  TTA -> LIB -> EXX.  This morning, I got the weather and winds, and finished my wind drift calculations, Visual checkpoint times and fuel burn.  All was looking good, I was ready to go.  Then I hear from the briefer, “Looks like LIB Vortac is out of service today….”.  Damn it.  Also the weather was showing Few clouds all around hanging out at 4000 ft.  I wanted to cruise at 4500.  Not that big a deal because they are quickly moving out the area and will probably be no factor… but that Vortac being out of service puts a crimp in my plans. In a word, frustrating.

I arrive at the airfield and start my preflight while my instructor finished up with her current student.  Preflight went well and my instructor started going over my navigation log while I finished.  She asked me to do another quick weather profile as she finished with my calculations then I hear “Stop,  looks like you used LIB Vor.  I wanted you to plan direct.  I don’t think I told you that and with LIB out, this is no bueno.”  Welp, best laid plans….

Plan B, Advanced landing techniques which include soft field takeoffs and landings and short field takeoffs and landings.  And since we have the airplane for a good bit today, we will do some hood work.  I am still short 2.6 hours.  We spend the next 20 minutes going over the techniques that I need to employ for short field and soft field work.

As we taxi up to the runway, my instructor takes the controls and begins to demonstrate a soft field take off.  10 degrees flaps, yoke all the way back power smoothly input.  As the front wheel comes off the ground, she release a tiny bit of back pressure then the mains lift off the ground.  I notice the crosswind feels much greater than we had numbers for.  I shrug it away and pay attention as she takes me around the pattern. This in itself was a weird feeling, she hasn’t taken me for a ride in a long time.  It was kind of peaceful.

As previously reported by one of the other pilots, it was pretty bumpy.  I sit there as she completes the pattern and demonstrates a soft field touch down in a crosswind.  As expected, she did wonderfully.  I thought, ok, not so bad.

As I taxi on to the the runway, full swagger in place, reality comes crashing inward.  As I try to copy what I just saw, I had to have help on both the rudder and the yoke.  I haven’t had this much help in a long time.  It seemed like a lot went sideways, literally, very quickly.

As we turned onto final, I had everything setup nicely.  As we approached the runway, I added 1200 rpm like I was told and tried to hold the float.  As we plopped down on the runway in a less than graceful fashion, She commented that we probably just got stuck in the mud.  We discuss things as we taxi back and she remarks that with the gusting/variable winds it probably isn’t a good day to be starting this training for the first time but I convince her to let me try one more.

This time things went even worse.  Stall horn blaring, sliding quickly to the right side of the runway, trying to correct, feels like we are syncing and thoughts of ending up as a pile of aluminum were front and center on my mind.  My instructor quickly helped correct the situation and at that point we decided… let’s go do some hood work.  Normally I might groan, especially with the turbulence but I was all for it at this point.

The hood work was the only thing I did well today.  Considering all of the turbulence, I kept us within standards for altitude and heading.  I was able to complete 360 degree turns and even VOR work.  I did slip up at first on tracking the inbound radial after tracking the outbound radial.  I understood what was going on in my head but didn’t actually change the VOR Dial to track the inbound.  As I got about a third of the way through the turn, I realized it and made the correction and got us turned and tracked.  My instructor commented on that part of the failure but seemed pleased with the rest of my hood work.  I did have to be prompted a few times about our airspeed getting close to the yellow mark.  With the turbulent air that we were flying in, that would be a no no.  The point was well received and overall felt pretty good and oddly comfortable under the hood.  Maybe that is a good sign for my instrument rating after I tame the PPL beast.

So we head back to TTA to make a couple of crosswind landings.  My first landing, the slip was terrible and needed help. The landing sucked.

The second approach was much better but as we touched down, I landing on the downwind wheel which could be disastrous under the right circumstances.

I learned a lot today, especially about my abilities.  Honestly, the short field takeoff scared me.  This means I have a lot to work on and hopefully we can try again with out the 10 to 15 kt gusts with nearly 12 kt crosswind.  Right now I am blaming the the wind.

Even though it was a relatively bad day of flying for my ego, I still got to fly.

It has been two weeks since I last flew and during that flight, I went up for pattern work for the first time solo.  I figured I would have a few more dual lessons before my next solo flight but because of the weather, things didn’t work out.  Also, my instructor was on vacation most of last week so no chance during the week.  Today we got some decent weather, and I was able to complete my first solo flight to another airport.  Good thing too, because we have more snow coming tonight.  ugh…

I woke this morning hopeful for the weather but I needed to analyze the area forecasts.  My student solo limits are set at no greater than 15 kt winds, with a 6 kt crosswind component.  2000 ft ceilings in the pattern, 3000 ft ceilings in the practice area, and 4000 ft ceilings for cross countries.  Technically, this isn’t a cross country flight but I will be flying a bit further than the practice area so 4000 ft ceilings apply.

The winds are pretty variable all over the area but nothing breaking my crosswind maximums.  All checked out good, so I headed to the airfield.

I met with my instructor for a few minutes in between her lessons to go over a few things including, how will I navigate, what are the runway lengths, pattern altitudes, radio frequencies, the Five C’s of getting lost,  overall weather in the area.  Everything checked out and she signed my logbook to visit KSCR.  As I started to leave, I asked “You’re the best source of info on the current conditions, how is it up there?”  She replied, “Bumpy… really bumpy today”.  Great, two weeks without flying, even longer without dual.  Oh well, I can handle it or she wouldn’t let me go.

Preflight, run-up, everything went smoothly.  I taxi’d to runway 3, made my radio call and away I went.  As we gained speed, the wind cradled the wings and with one smooth motion, we lifted from the bonds of earth and climbed like a rocket.  Not only because I was solo but during my weather gathering, I noted that the area density altitude was -2500 ft.  The cold weather made the air really dense, thus better climb performance.  I was at 900 ft msl before I knew it, so I made my cross wind turn, made the radio call to depart the pattern and I locked in on my first visual waypoint, the 3M plant.

Just before I reached the 3M plant, I was at cruise altitude so I performed my cruise checklist.  Oh yeah, it was really bumpy.  I had a hard time keeping my altitude of 3000 ft and busted my planned altitude up to 3200 ft at one point. I could hear my instructor telling me about it.  I got it corrected and my deviation for the rest of the trip was around 50-100 ft.  It was not the easiest with all of the bumps but I think I did ok. Once I was passed the 3m plant, I setup between US 64 W and some power lines that would take me all the way to Siler City.

I made an advisory call when I was 10 miles away from Siler City and the nice gentleman at the FBO let me know that winds favored Runway 4 and no other traffic was inbound.  I set up for my descent and entered the pattern downwind.  Pretty uneventful, except on final, the FBO called and asked, “012, are you from the flight school?”  I replied, “Yes sir, I am”.  “I guess you’re not going to need anything then.”  I replied, “No sir, just a full stop and taxi back for takeoff”

Now this isn’t a big deal right?  But looking back on it, I was on final approach at an airport that I’ve only been to a few times, all by myself and I was able to handle the radio and keep a stable approach without having to really think about it.  I think that is pretty cool.  It almost seemed second nature.

Not going to bore you with the rest of the flight because it was pretty uneventful.  I returned to KTTA and talked briefly with my instructor on the ramp as she was headed out to fly with another student.  All in all, it was a successful flight.  Even after two weeks off and being my second time solo.

I captured my flight with cloud ahoy if you want to check it out here ->  Clicky Clicky!

Today I embarked on my first solo practice.  It was pattern practice but it was special because this was the first time that my instructor had other plans.  Well, she was instructing other students and since I am signed off for solo practice… it was all good. So up and up and round and round i go.

I figured for my first solo practice start to finish that I would keep it simple and just practice my take offs and landings.  I scheduled the plane for 2 hours which should be plenty of time.

I nervously watch the winds as my solo limits are 15 kt total w/ gusts and 6 kt crosswind component.  Winds seem to be swinging around 9kts in the area so I watched the crosswind component like a hawk.

All seemed to be good when approaching my flight time and the winds were tracking nearly right down runway 21 at 6 kts.  So I went ahead an preflighted this beauty.

It was a weird feeling seeing my instructor busy with someone else and just a quick exchange of hello’s.  I went about my business and got my chariot pre-flighted and ready to go.

As I went through the start up procedure I was sure that I would have trouble getting it started.  It really hit me that this was the first time that I have been all alone at this stage.  It was cool but a little eerie.  I was taken aback when it started right up.

After a brief puzzlement of seeing two airplanes landing in the wrong direction, I make the call that I am taxiing down to runway 21 and was prepared to defend my choice to any other aircraft trying to land with a 6 kt tailwind.  All seemed to be right with the world and I was on my way.

I made the radio call that I was departing runway 21 left close traffic and made my way onto the runway.

Lined up with six thousand five hundred feet of pavement, I put the pedal to the …err knob to the firewall and away we went.  As we picked up speed, my steed yearned to fly.  As the air slowly cradled the wings we began to ascend into the blue.  This is where an airplane wants to be. Gracefully we ascend to pattern altitude.

Even the rough air of thermal turbulence wouldn’t ruin our time together.  It may have only been 7 trips around the pattern,  7 Take offs and 7 Landings, but it was much more to me and my journey.  The only thing out of the ordinary was a navaho on a gps approach that made some odd distance calls but I handled it well.  My instructor was also in the pattern with one of her other students.  I made sure to stay sharp with my radio calls and precision flying.

I talked briefly with my instructor before I left and she said that I did well with the radio and overall seemed please. Before I left she said, “Make sure next solo practice that I see you in person.  I am sending you to Siler City and I need to endorse your logbook”.  Well, I guess I know what I’ll do next solo.

All in all it was a success.  I got to fly today…. All By Myself!

The title doesn’t quite describe how the conversation went but I need 6 more night landings and the plan is to do 4 in the pattern and then 2 more during my night cross country.  You know the old saying…. “The Calm before the Snow Storm”.  That is how the conditions played out.  Perfect weather with very light winds, clear skies and bright moon.

I performed the pre-flight, then we got strapped in and performed the run up and taxi to runway 3.  First trip around the pattern, I blew the pattern altitude by about 800 feet.  The air was dense so it doesn’t take much power to climb.  On the second time around I adjusted and nailed 1200 ft, pattern altitude.  As I was getting ready to descend, my instructor pulled the throttle and said “Engine failed, what do you do?”.  I went through the ABCDE checklist and prepared the aircraft for a full flap, engine out landing on the runway.  Pretty uneventful but my first night time engine out so that was cool.  As we taxi’d back to Runway 3 for our 3rd takeoff, it was now late enough to start logging night landings.

Four more very pleasant trips around the pattern, culminating in one of my worst approaches and landings so as they say…”Good to end on a bad one”  No… that isn’t what they say but… hey at least I was flying.

Now that the blizzard is upon us… no flying for the next few days.  Still looking to schedule my first solo practice.

“It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill.”

— Wilbur Wright

My instructor had told me that for the next few flights, plan A would be my third and final supervised Solo and Plan B would be hood work.  Can you guess which one I would rather do?  The weather seemed perfect except for the airplanes arch nemesis. Frost on the wings in a below freezing situation.  It was supposed to be cloudy all day with little chance that the frost would melt off without the temperature increasing or sun shining.  However, about 30 minutes before my scheduled flight the sun came out and made the evil frost go away.  Plan A it is!!

Not a whole lot of new stuff here.  I went up with my instructor and we performed 3 touch and go landings.  The wind was either calm or gusting about 6 kts with about a 3-4 kt crosswind component.  Not a big deal but it was quite turbulent all the way around the pattern.

After the third landing my instructor asked “Do you want to go by yourself or is the air too bumpy?”  I replied, “I am comfortable with it if you are”  So off I went.  Nothing exciting to note other than a big bump that caused my wing to dip and I made the comment to myself that “No one is here to save me now”.  It was a moment of hesitation but then took care of business.

After my final landing, I picked up my instructor and she said that I am now signed off to fly the airplane by myself in the pattern or to the practice area and gave me my limitations.  I am super excited and it is a milestone on the road to my license. I still have a lot to learn and luckily I am a member of a fantastic club full of experienced pilots.  I know that even though I am safe enough to fly by myself, that I still have a ton to learn about the art of aviation.  I will continue to absorb as much as I can and sharpen my skills.  In the mean time… going to schedule my first solo session!  Yay!

Every once and a while I get asked “What should I look for in a good flight instructor?”  This is a pretty complicated question because each student is different and each student is looking to get something different out of the experience.  I can sit here and tell you with flying, like anything else in life, you get out of it what you put into it.  There is truth in this statement but there are also efficiencies involved.  You can put a ton of effort into learning to fly but if your instructor is not a good match, it is going to be a harder road that could end in quitting or other more tragic consequences.

When I was looking for a flight instructor I contacted our club CFI and told him that I want to be the best and safest pilot ever and I want an instructor who would be tough on me to fly safely and with precision.  There is also a schedule and body size component that is taken into account when matching students with instructors so I was hopeful but understood the parameters may not give me exactly what I wanted.  I was introduced to my current instructor and was told that if it doesn’t work, we can try to match to another, no hurt feelings.

I, personally, think I have the best instructor out there.  She is extremely organized, firm in her teachings and a joy to learn from.  She has a ton of experience in flying and teaching, so I try to absorb as much as possible.  Another thing that sets her apart is that she is willing to do whatever needed to help her students.  She didn’t have to fly with me the other night.  The rules say I have to give 24 hours notice in scheduling, I think I gave her three.  She goes the extra mile in communication even days before a flight.  Constantly evaluating conditions to help me learn what is acceptable and what is a bit too much to handle.  Above all, there is no need to take unneeded risks.

She works very well for me but maybe not for others.  Our personalities work well together and I think we are making great progress because we are on the same page.  I ask questions no matter how stupid I think they might be.  Even if I am pretty sure of the answer, I find that in the response I glean a bit of new insight.  I can see how her school teacher style and firmness may not work well with others but it works for me.

I think that you need to figure out what you are trying to get out of learning to fly.  Do you want to be a career pilot?  Do you want to become a CFI?  or like me do you just want to fly family and friends around the local area and maybe take some short trips about.  That will determine a starting point for the type of instructor that you want.  Next is all about teaching style.  Ask the instructor questions about how he would deal with certain situations.  IE.

How do you deal with:

Student struggling to figure out stabilizing approaches,  Pitch for Speed, Throttle for altitude

Struggles with flair height

Struggles with Stalling

Struggles with steep turns

Struggles with coordination

These are some of the things that you can ask to get a sense of how they deal with issues that are common to learning to fly.  Also ask what their passing rate is for check rides as well as what is the average hours for students to reach check ride.  If an instructor says most of his/her students get to check ride around 40 hours…. They are either the greatest instructor ever or there are going to be some fundamentals that are just good enough.  If you’re like me, you don’t want to be just good enough.  On the other hand, if it takes most of the students over 100 hours, there may be some issues in translating fundamentals to the students.

The national average is around 70 hours to finish PPL training.  There are a lot of flight schools that claim they can get you through in the minimum 40 hours but that is very suspect and I’m willing to bet, most take around 70 hours.

The FAA says that you can solo in as little as 10 hours.  I solo’d at 27 hours with extreme confidence in my abilities as a pilot. I was given high marks from several instructors including the chief flight instructor for my flying abilities.  This is due to spending the needed time in the four fundamentals of flight and putting them all together with precision and safety.  To put it in perspective.  When you solo an aircraft, this means that the instructor and flight school has complete confidence that you can fly an aircraft in reasonable weather with competence and safety.  After you solo, you are working with your instructor on pilotage/planning, ATC communications and night flight as well as oral prep for your checkride.  You will solo to the practice area to work on the precision of your maneuvers.  All by yourself, no instructor…. just you, an airplane in the great big, sometimes, crowded sky.  Do you think that with as little as 5-8 lessons, you would be ready for that?

My ground school instructor introduced me to the concept of primacy of Learning.  I had heard of this before but dismissed it because of associations with things like Soccer or Football.  Basically the deal is, in any situation where you are stressed or scared, you revert to what you learned in the primacy of your training.  This is a very important concept in flight training because if you are trained incorrectly, then when a situation arises, even though you have learned better later, you will revert to your original primary training.  You want to make sure that when your engine goes out, that you revert to the correct primary training.

If you want to fly, it is more than likely because you have a natural passion or curiosity.  You want to be as safe as possible, so it is very important that you find an instructor who will train you the right way.  If you ever feel like they are short cutting, find another instructor. Above all, ask questions about everything.  Never make assumptions because some things in flying are counter intuitive.  It is an amazing experience with big challenges and satisfying rewards.  At the end of a hard flight I always think, “I got to fly an airplane today!”, and that is pretty cool.