PPL Preparation

If you are thinking of becoming a PPL student with the aim of becoming a qualified pilot, for business or for pleasure, then you no doubt will have some questions on what exactly is involved.

• How long will a flight training course take?
• What do I have to read up on?
• What do I learn?

The PPL flight training syllabus consists of a number of exercises. There isn't a fixed, prescribed order to the flying exercises and ground school that you will cover, nor is it mandatory that you will cover everything documented in the syllabus pages, I know that I certainly haven't!

What the flight training syllabus will cover is enough practical activities to ensure that when it comes for your final examination you will be able to pass with flying colours.

You need to have at least 45 flying hours before you can be issued with your licence. The 45 flying hours minimum is mandatory in the UK, so even if you are the greatest pilot in the world you will still need to have 45 hours under your belt before your licence is issued.

In addition to the 45 hour regulation you must also demonstrate that you have 10 hours of flying solo, completed a solo cross country navigation exercise of some distance - at least 140nm I believe, flown at least 2 hours at slow speed and have practiced spin awareness and avoidance.

If you are flying intensively then the 45 hour mark may be achievable, however if you spread your learning over a period of time there will be inevitable revision exercises which will add to the total flying hours you have before you take your general flying test.

In the UK you may also find yourself flying to a training area away from your airfield. This might only be 10 minutes flying time but these minutes add up over your flight training programme.

For my personal flight training I had the great British weather to contend with which did impact how much training I received from each hour in the air.

You may get in the sky only to find that the planned exercise is cut short due to poor visibility and so you return to the airfield and have to repeat the exercise again.

Attention UK Pilots!
This is the book that you need for this subject:
The Air Pilot's Manual: Flying Training Vol 1 (Air Pilots Manual 01)

The exercises in the flight training syllabus that I followed are based on those documented in Trevor Thom's Air Pilot's Manual, Volume 1: Flying Training. Although Trevor Thom's book provides the structure and framework for a JAA (Joint Aviation Authority) flight training course it still has a lot of merit in other jurisdictions and is still useful for those learning to fly under FAA regulations.

Trevor Thom's book, or others like it such as the Jeremy Pratt book, refer to the same exercises. So when you are with your instructor you can both refer to an exercise number and understand what will be covered and what you should be reading up on before your flying lesson in order to make maximum use of the time you are in the air.

The exercises are planned in a logical order and develop and build on your pilot skills as you progress. However don't be surprised to find that you don't do everything in the order as shown in the syllabus. For instance, I started my Instrument Flying work very early in my flight training. It was a miserable day with low cloud so the instructor took us above the cloud and I practiced flying by instruments with the white cloud tops below me giving no indication or bearing, height or location.

The flight training syllabus is quite lengthy so I've split it across two pages: the first part which takes you to solo flight and the second part to general flying test.

The syllabus is taught to you on the ground and in the air. There is a substantial amount of to get through and you can find more about ground school here,  which is supported by this post covering the examinations you'll have to sit.

For the record I took my skills test after exactly 51 hours of flying. The two hour test took my total hours to 53 and at this point I was issued with my licence.


No gain without the pain. There is a lot of work, and fun, ahead of you.