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United States24513 Posts
I'm taking flight lessons and working towards a Private Pilot License for single engine land-based airplanes (see my previous blog). I have logged a total of 5 hours of dual instruction in the airplane and can confidently state that any attempt for me to fly solo at this point would result in me dying. Hopefully I will be more confident after 10 hours of dual instruction are complete!
I'll point out a few things that stand out for me:
- If you are not that comfortable on amusement park rides (like me), you will need some time to get used to the queasiness associated with bumpiness, practicing stalls, and the like.
- The multitasking associated with flying can be overwhelming at first. With practice I'm sure it gets easy, but trying to worry about multiple things at once, especially while trying to remember where everything is within the cockpit, can be challenging.
- The most tricky part is landing. As you slow down (e.g., 60 knots), the plane starts to twist in every direction and you need to keep the plane on line while worrying about your approach angle (are you too high? too low? wrong engine rpm?). You need to level off just before contacting the ground, and then 'flare' the plane to bleed speed before you touch down with the main wheels. My attempts so far would either have had me descent directly into the runway or flare while way too high off the ground, which would have the unfortunate result of me falling directly into the runway.
- The rudder requires a lot of finesse to control.
- Other planes are really hard to spot.
- At first, trying to navigate is really difficult. There are no signs telling you which way to turn so you have to rely on landmarks on the ground.
- Talking on the radio requires you to learn various language and I have not yet done that.
Despite those challenges, I'm seeing rapid improvement. The academic side of the training has been pretty easy by comparison (it's really not bad for those with a technical background). By the time my student pilot license arrives in the next few weeks, I should feel close to ready to solo the plane (a requirement before you take your tests for the real private pilot license).
If you have any questions about flying small planes, licensing, or the nature of the cosmos, post below.
  
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On September 04 2016 10:02 micronesia wrote:
7. Talking on the radio requires you to learn various language and I have not yet done that.
I've not flown, but I've spent a lot of time around planes and OMG yes, I totally know what you mean here. Took me ages to get comfortable about talking to ATC, even for simple things.
Landing is the hard part.
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Don't be like JFK Jr. and crash the plane (he had 300 hours). You need to have this stuff down pat, one mistake and it's geegeeeee
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United States24513 Posts
On September 04 2016 11:08 Korakys wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2016 10:02 micronesia wrote:
7. Talking on the radio requires you to learn various language and I have not yet done that.
I've not flown, but I've spent a lot of time around planes and OMG yes, I totally know what you mean here. Took me ages to get comfortable about talking to ATC, even for simple things. Landing is the hard part.
I'm listening to my airport on http://www.liveatc.net which is KHEF, and even just sitting here it's hard to make out half of what they are saying... I guess understanding half of it is a good start.
On September 04 2016 17:47 riotjune wrote:
Don't be like JFK Jr. and crash the plane (he had 300 hours). You need to have this stuff down pat, one mistake and it's geegeeeee
Understand, I will not be like JFK Jr. Also, I will try not to crash the plane.
In all seriousness, I think the key lesson here is to not underestimate the danger associated with flying or landing in a condition you are not well practiced in. I don't know how many nighttime over-water approaches JFK Jr. had performed before the accident, but clearly he wasn't well enough practiced with all aspects of it. Frankly I think intentional flight through poor visibility conditions should be reserved for the professionals, and I do not expect to become one.
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Hong Kong9148 Posts
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I'm interning at an airline, but after stepping into the airplane simulators I have new found respect for autopilot. If I tried to fly a plane, there wouldn't be enough time to say your last words.
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Snet
United States3573 Posts
What a great thing to get into. Do you have a plan for access to an aircraft when you finish? A lot of people I know co-own planes. Good luck!
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United States24513 Posts
Did not know anything like that existed... I'll have to check it out, thanks.
On September 05 2016 03:48 MysteryMeat1 wrote:
I'm interning at an airline, but after stepping into the airplane simulators I have new found respect for autopilot. If I tried to fly a plane, there wouldn't be enough time to say your last words.
With some practice I'm sure you could do it :p
On September 05 2016 09:41 Snet wrote:
What a great thing to get into. Do you have a plan for access to an aircraft when you finish? A lot of people I know co-own planes. Good luck! I don't currently have any specific plans. At a minimum, I can rent a plane for personal use the same way I'm renting them for lessons (just no instructor of course). There's not much point in me planning out plane access until I have a firmer grip on what my overall life situation will be, such as where I will be living, who I will be with, my job, etc.
Or I could just build one of these: https://www.vansaircraft.com/public/kits-qb.htm
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Your first attempts to get to space are always best-guided. Hopefully this will work out better than rocket models as a kid.
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Sweet man, keep it up i'm sure you will be an awesome pilot one day. I could most likely never be a pilot as I hate flying in general, shit scares the hell out of me lol.
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Snet
United States3573 Posts
On September 05 2016 20:52 micronesia wrote:Did not know anything like that existed... I'll have to check it out, thanks. Show nested quote +On September 05 2016 03:48 MysteryMeat1 wrote:
I'm interning at an airline, but after stepping into the airplane simulators I have new found respect for autopilot. If I tried to fly a plane, there wouldn't be enough time to say your last words. With some practice I'm sure you could do it :p Show nested quote +On September 05 2016 09:41 Snet wrote:
What a great thing to get into. Do you have a plan for access to an aircraft when you finish? A lot of people I know co-own planes. Good luck! I don't currently have any specific plans. At a minimum, I can rent a plane for personal use the same way I'm renting them for lessons (just no instructor of course). There's not much point in me planning out plane access until I have a firmer grip on what my overall life situation will be, such as where I will be living, who I will be with, my job, etc. Or I could just build one of these: https://www.vansaircraft.com/public/kits-qb.htm
As if being a new pilot wasn't a pucker factor enough, building your own plane.. Haha. ^^
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How's the flying going?
I love talking airplanes. Have CFII-MEI, ATP with 6 types. There isn't a better career than flying and it's a great time to be a pilot.
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United States24513 Posts
Due to weather, schedule conflicts, etc, I have only done a couple more flights since I made this blog. In my last lesson I did a little simulated IFR with the goggles, which was probably good practice for actually using my gauges more. I'm slowly marching towards being able to solo, but I'm still shaky on landing and haven't done radio communication so I'm not there yet.
As awesome as flying is, I'm not sure how much I can buy into the claim that it's the best career. You need to shell out a lot of money early on and spend many years of working up to the point where you make good money. On the other hand, if you are going into it primarily for the money, you are doing something wrong.
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What's shaky about your landings? Floating, centerline control, hard? What kind of runways are you practicing on(just pavement, how long)? Have you begun doing touch and goes (like an entire lesson just doing T&G's?)
I think I saw you were listening to ATC on the scanner. That's a good idea. ALso, have your instructor write down the scripts you say. Like what your first call to Clearance Delivery/Ground would be, Tower, or CTAF calls from the ramp and throughout.
Are you 61 or 141?
It's expensive but not as much as Lawyer, Doctor or Dentistry. Now the regionals have upped their starting pay to around $60k. Once you get about 2500 hours you can get picked up by the majors and make sick money. Delta is in contract negotiations and it's looking like the pilots are getting a 40% pay raise. Which will be insane. Checkout airlinepilotcentral.com for salaries. But yes, you have to love flying to do it for a living. There is a fair amount of downside to it.
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United States24513 Posts
Tubesock,
So far, the problems I've had with landing are that I have trouble keeping the plane pointed in the correct direction until the last second, I have trouble staying completely centered on the runway, and I have trouble timing the flare so that I hover just a few feet off the ground (basically everything, lol). They are all slowly getting better. We have done some touch and go lessons on days when we didn't have time to fly out of the DC SFRA to the practice area and so we just stayed in the pattern.
Regarding radio, I'm actually in the process of putting together a couple of scripts myself. I'm going to have my instructor verify it's correct and make edits, but it should work out similarly to how you suggested.
I believe I'm Part 61 (the 40 hour requirement vice 35 hour requirement), but my school does both.
For perspective, I'm not looking for a career change to professional pilot (probably a bit too late for that lol) but am interested in continuing my certs and possibly doing part time stuff in the future (e.g., instructor). I have a friend who is a pilot and he seems very happy and comfortable with his life. Like becoming a lawyer, doctor, or dentist though, I don't really know how you would become a pilot without a fair amount of money in the bank and a fair amount of borrowing potential :p
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Italy12246 Posts
That's awesome. When i was a kid a friend of my dad's had a flight licence, so we would go flying around the Alps in a Cessna 172. I always loved it, even though the back seats are uncomfortable as fuck and i was too short to really see much when i sat in the front.
Out of curiosity, how expensive is it to get a licence and maintain it, just for leasure flights, on average? It's something i always thought i might do with enough money and time.
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On October 22 2016 21:16 micronesia wrote:
Tubesock,
So far, the problems I've had with landing are that I have trouble keeping the plane pointed in the correct direction until the last second, I have trouble staying completely centered on the runway, and I have trouble timing the flare so that I hover just a few feet off the ground (basically everything, lol). They are all slowly getting better. We have done some touch and go lessons on days when we didn't have time to fly out of the DC SFRA to the practice area and so we just stayed in the pattern.
Regarding radio, I'm actually in the process of putting together a couple of scripts myself. I'm going to have my instructor verify it's correct and make edits, but it should work out similarly to how you suggested.
Sounds like you're experiencing perfectly normal progression. If you become frustrated my suggestion would be to change the location of your T&G's. When I instructed we would swap students when they would have troubles getting landings down. With them, I'd take them to a short gravel (2000') strip and make them do short approaches and mix things up. I then also made them tell me where their eyes were focused on. That plays a huge role as well. You'll get it.
I'm a huge fan of 61. 141 is stupid rigid and it seemed that students would get hung up on say steep turns but because of the syllabus we couldn't progress them past lesson 3 until they were proficient. Really dumb. Although, VA only pays for 141 I think. (Course this information is 15 years ago haha).
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On October 23 2016 00:35 Teoita wrote:
That's awesome. When i was a kid a friend of my dad's had a flight licence, so we would go flying around the Alps in a Cessna 172. I always loved it, even though the back seats are uncomfortable as fuck and i was too short to really see much when i sat in the front.
Out of curiosity, how expensive is it to get a licence and maintain it, just for leasure flights, on average? It's something i always thought i might do with enough money and time.
Hard to say for Europe. Europe isn't General Aviation friendly.
Once you have your license, it's not too expensive to keep it "current". For one, your license never expires but every 2 years you need to fly with an Instructor for 1 hour and do an hour of "ground school". It's not really pass/fail but it basically is pass fail since the instructor won't sign you off if you scare them. In order to fly passengers you have to have 3 take off and landings, and if you want to fly passengers at night you need 3 take off and landings at night. Night T&L's count for daytime ones.
If you rent a plane it's probably 150 euro an hour. (I'm making that up, but it's probably somewhat accurate). To be safe you should fly at least every other month and that's assuming you only just go on joy rides in great weather.
In the US I think Private Pilots licenses are running around $5-7,000. But Micro would be better able to tell you. Avg hours to get your license is about 50-60 even thought the minimums are 35/40 depending on the school type.
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United States24513 Posts
In 'cheaper' parts of the country you can probably get a license for 5k in the smaller planes... it could easily be over 10k in a 4 seater at a more expensive airport. I'm doing it in a C-152 for about 6k based on a package I got and a price mistake lol
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EPT
