Advice for a prospective new pilot
 

Growing up in Dayton, Ohio, aviation and flying are pretty much hammered into your psyche from Day 1. Between the Dayton Air Show, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, and childhood tours of the Wright brother's home/shop, it's easy for an impressionable young man to develop an attraction to flight. So now, after almost 50 years of dreaming, I hope to soon begin the quest for my Private Pilot's license -- time and money permitting. I've purchased several books and started getting familiar with everything that will be required of me as a student. I've even started listening to ATC chatter on the scanner to try and get comfortable with that aspect of flying. I hope to start the process within the next 12-18 months if everything goes as planned.

For those of you that fly or are currently working towards your license, what do you know now that you wish you knew before you started flying???

Oh....and I already know about the cutting up of the shirt after your first solo flight!:)

There are a couple of extensive threads on this already, one is just a year or two old, I think. Do a search.

Sorry, will do.

I don't have the time to come here every day, so I guess I missed it.

I think this may have been the one that I was thinking of, but I think there are several others as well. Do a search for threads from dmcummins with pilot in the thread and you'll find a bunch of threads that you should find interesting. He's had several thread throughout the process of getting his license and after.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/637235-flying-lessons.html

Attention to detail. Flying is unforgiving of human error.
Be sure to do stalls.
Simple aerobatics are a real confidence builder.
There is a lot more.......

Thanks masraum, good advice in that thread.

How expensive it can get.

What benefitted me was I tried to do a lesson and a half if I could every time. I was committed to going every weekend. Believe it or not I picked up the flying part rather quickly due to having a lot of RC plane experience. I think I only missed one or two weekends due to weather. Doing it this way I was able to get my license in around 6 months and 44 hours. I believe averages are year and a half and 70 hours. I recall it cost me around $5,000 so it's best if you already have this set aside so you don't have to wait for funds to become available to do your next flight.

On the downside - I haven't flown in 4 years. My disappointment is there are few places I can fly to in one hour, land, get out and be in the middle of something fun to do. I can financially handle a $75 flight (ballpark one hour rental) out and back = $150. Once you start flying 2 hours out and back it starts to add up quick= $300. OR, you find yourself flying for an hour in the pattern or going for the famous $150 hamburger. If money is no concern for you this may not be an issue.

I keep thinking about taking up aerobatic lessons. That way, my $300 is balls to the wall fun.

Good luck with your training. Keep the wheels pointed down.

6 months and 44 hours -- that's pretty good!

It's funny you mention the $150 hamburger. When I ran this whole thing by Mrs. Noney the first thing she said was, "That's great, but where are you going to fly to?". I had to admit, I hadn't actually thought about that part. I could envision myself flying the plane, I just forgot about the landing at the distant airport part.... DOH!!

Don't give up or beat yourself up when you have a bad day in training. Deal with failure by learning from it and applying what you learn. (Line from "Top Gun" that is quite good.) Pilots who say they don't make mistakes are liars and probably will get you killed. Humility will keep you alive as a pilot. Ask questions of your instructors and the pilots you know. Many pilots are blabbermouths and braggarts but you can learn from them too--learn how not to behave in and around airplanes. A Cessna 172 can kill you and so can an F-22. That is, if you fly it poorly and don't respect its capabilities you can die in it.

In USAF pilot training we had what was called the "Six Ts." When you hit a navigation fix you did Time (hack the clock), Turn (into holding or on the procedure turn of an approach), Throttles, (adjust speed as required), Twist (a new course or nav freq), Track (the instrument procedure you're following), Talk (report your position to air traffic control). We also had the "Six Ps." Piss Poor Planning Promotes Poor Performance. (That occurs in all phases of our lives, not just airplanes!) Plan ahead, stay ahead of the airplane, learn to stay as far out in front of the airplane as possible. Anticipate and avoid problems. Most of all listen. Listen to more experienced pilots and ask plenty of questions of them. (Learn who the idiots are and don't ask them anything.) Last of all, for now, you will never know it all. After 15,000 hours in jet transports I still learn stuff from the guys I fly with and from the things we encounter. Write it down, make note for the next time, tell your buddies about it.

Ed Rasimus, who was a young F-105 pilot early in the Vietnam war, wrote about the proper application of aggressiveness in the cockpit. He said that it didn't matter whether you were in an F-105, a B-52 or a C-130 you could be properly aggressive in getting your mission, your flight, accomplished in a highly effective manner. An aggressive pilot plans ahead. He (she) gathers as much information (and weeds out the chaff) as is available, goes over it with the crew, and has a sound mental image of the day's mission. Aggressive doesn't mean yanking the controls around and making everyone airsick, it means know what the hell you're doing today and do it as precisely and as effectively as possible. In a KC-135 tanker it means get the fuel where the receivers need it and when they need it. In an airliner it means find smooth air, don't blab on the PA, try to get there early and make a smooth landing. It's easy to be a lazy pilot, believe it or not. Approach it with a healthy level of focus and aggressiveness/proactive planning and once you have a good amount of flight time in your logbook it starts to become an extension of your mind and body.

Read Ernest K. Gann, especially "Old Number One' from his book "Ernest K. Gann's Flying Circus." Gann disdained the lazy, arrogant pilot. "Runways of the world are dented with his landings."

This!

I have 3 friends w/planes. I jump in from time to time but they whole flying around for no reason is boring. If you do it for work, then great but

The old saying' is true, if it floats flies or f___, rent it.

It's been about 3 years since I started taking lessons. I ended up having 50 some hours in the 172 before I took the check ride. It took me about 6 months from when I started and I tried to have a lesson 3 times a week. But weather made that hard to do at times.

I think the 3 times a week was good as you didn't have to relearn anything from a layoff.

Where are you located in Florida? Im always looking for an excuse to go fly.

It just depends on what you want. Some just like to fly, some like to go places, some just like to sit around the hangar and piddle on an airplane.

We had some friends visiting for a couple of days and we flew down to Everglades City for an airboat ride and lunch, no way we would drive that far. We can fly to the keys in a little over an hour, it would be over 4 hrs driving.

When I lived in St. Louis we use to fly to Chicago to meet my son for lunch, it just made visiting so much easier. It meant we didn't feel like staying for the night and we were not tired from driving.

Now we live in SW Florida so a trip back to Mo. Takes about 6 hours, but sure beats driving. And I just enjoy it. We Pretty much fly if it takes more than two hours to drive.

But it is expensive. And I wouldn't do it unless I could afford to own my own plane. I started out looking at less expensive planes that would have been great for short hops, but we wanted a traveling plane that could haul 4. So we ended up with a high performance complex single.

Take your physical a long time before you intend to start flying. If there's anything the FAA doesn't like it can take a long time to get it straightened out. Have it done by a doc who actually flies.

My wife will not just go flying around the patch. But she loves going on trips. She was the one wanting a traveling plane. We have been as far north as Chicago, south to San Antonio, west to Hot Springs, and east to Ohio. Not to mention several trips from St. Louis to Florida before we moved.

We will be heading north come July. I'm thinking Wisconsin. And we will probably make a few stops and detours along the way.

I was a flight instructor for many years and had quite a few students, some very successful and some not so much. The characteristics that were common to the successful students was keeping appointments; enthusiasm; taking advantage of "challenging weather opportunities" (meaning not canceling if you think the conditions are beyond you - believe me, your instructor will not take you up if it's too bad for flying, this is how you gain confidence in your abilities); doing your homework, meaning doing the readings and having a good comprehension of the lesson; be prepared for setbacks, meaning some things come easier than others. Some students have a little trouble with radio work, getting tongue tied, some have trouble with spatial orientation (awareness of where you are), some are a little slow with navigation, etc.
I remember students having trouble getting ready to solo in the pattern, maybe having a case of PIO (pilot induced oscillation) on short final. Then one day, bingo, they get it and shoot 3 great patterns and landings and me telling them to taxi to the ramp and getting out, leaving them solo.
The big thing to remember is you get out of this what you put in. Oh, and if you don't like your instructor, get another one. I used to enjoy the early dual cross-country flights, that is when the student really starts to put it all together.
We used to figure the cost for a private license was about equal to the cost of a semester in college, I don't know if that is still true. Obviously, how rapidly you get to the check ride has a bearing on cost. The guys that took the longest were usually the ones that had gaps in their training, so the lesson here is stick with on a regular schedule.
Good luck with your goal, it is a very worthy thing to do.

Ya don't want to work at it for a living these days. Be a hobby flyer........You'll like it a whole lot better. Promise ya. All the best.

I'm in Hollywood, so my home airport is North Perry (KHWO). If you ever want to head this way, lunch is on me.SmileWavy

This is the advice I seem to come across the most, and it makes the most sense. I have heard from more than one source that your career as a pilot is really cemented during your time as a student, so the instructor is of critical importance.

Point well taken!