Lesson 1: Yippeeeee!

Well finally after over 2 weeks of waiting. I managed to get up in the air in a Piper PA-28 Warrior 2.
Weather was a big of the dodgy side, fairly low cloud but over 10km visibility 13 knots wind at 210 degrees gusting to 25 knots - so it was a bit bumpy.

We went through the basic of control, ailerons, elavator, rudder, secondary effects of controls, power, and propeller slipstream effects.

We had to a bit of cloud dodging, circling around a nice bit of blue sky over Alfreton, over to Kimberly, and Hucknall, then back home to East Midlands, apparently i did quite well (those 5 lessons 8 years ago came back to me) so much so the instructor (James) got me to land the plane, he talked me through it, and he did the power, but it was my first landing and it was really smooth.

Apparently we convered upto lesson 4.1 but looking in the book we did a bit more than that, as I did the Taxying in too :)

So all in all im well pleased today, had a big grin on my face for the rest of the day.

Also made a couple more purchases from the club, the Air Law, Op Procedures and Comms book and a new log book as my is lost.

First Lesson - Not!

Yet again the weather let me down. It was touch and go, so i went down to the flying club just in case. I also wanted to have a look around and meet the folks down there and make some introductions as id never been there before.
The people are really nice and friendly and professional, im more than happy to continue on with them. Had about 1.5 hours of ground school refresher stuff covering:

A little bit of PPL basic, requirements etc
Basic Flight Control
Primary and seconday Effects of Controls
Seconday controls
Aviation law - covered the basic classifications of the flying zones and areas.

After all this we went out to have a quick sit in the planes,as the instructors suggested i might be better off in the PA 28 - Warrior rather than the Cessna 152 due to my height (6ft 4"), and they were right. I sat in the Cessna and it was so cramped the control column hit my right knee on a turn, and my left hell hit the plane structure when applying right rudder!
A quick sit in the Warrior revealed a far, far more comfortable position and size, so we will be going with that for the lessons. Its a another £10 per hour more as its a 4 seater, but that will work out well when ive finished and want to take passengers etc.

Booked in a load more lessons in the hope that one of them will be fine and i can get air born at last. The instructor also recommended i buy the PA 28 pilots Guide book, to help familiarise myself with the plane and its controls, so i did. So some more reading for me :)

Flight Simulator Software

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004

Well its been a few years since i had my initial lessons (oooh at least 7) and the flight simulators (MS Flight Simulator in particular) seem to have progressed very nicely. I decided that it would be a worthwhile investment to go and buy the 2004 version to practice some of the techniques and procedures learnt in my lessons. I know it doesn't feel anything like flying but it does help in remembering and learning what to do when and how.

So i picked up a copy of MS Flight Simulator 2004, and also a copy of VFR scenery discs for the local area (midlands and in particular East Midlands airport). These discs are great, a little blocky at low level, but you can certainly fly along the major roads and spot your house. The downside is the airport isnt that well mapped, the basic layout is ok, so ive managed to order a copy of British Airports for the central area. Im hoping to load this later and get an ultra realistic East Mids airport - at least thats what it says on the box :)

The Yoke:

Have you tired flying a flight sim with the keyboard - arghh! No good, i dont have a joystick either so back on the internet to pick up a decent yoke - CH USB Flight yoke, looks very similar to the Cessna control column.
Has all sorts of controls on it, three throttle type controls on the top, two toggle switch on the front of the base, and a whole host of buttons on the column.

The training software:

Another purchase of software - can you tell im desperate to get up in the air :) Heres hoping these will all help me and i dont just keep them on the shelf after loading them once.

Welcome to my Private Pilots Licence (PPL) blog.

This blog is going to be a diary of the trials and tribulations of me obtaining my PPL here in the UK.

My first lesson is on Sunday 7th November 2004 with East Midlands Flying club based at Nottingham (East Midlands) International Airport, just outside of Derby, UK.

A bit about me: Im a 31 year IT Contractor (dont laugh), married with a 2 year old son, and live here in Derby. Ive always had an interest in flying and as a child wanted to be a fighter pilot, but since ive grown to a height of 6' 4" and my right eyesight is alittle poor theres no chance of that. So here I am finally with the time (ish) and the money to obtain my PPL.

Starting at this time of year (November) is probably not the best time of year to learn to begin flying as lessons are limited to those weekends where the weather is acceptable enough to fly, and theres no opportunity to do evening flights as its now dark at 4pm - its such as joy living in sunny Blighty!