PPL Syllabus Beyond Solo Flight

This post is my notes on the second part of the PPL training syllabus that takes you through to the end of your private pilot's training course.

As mentioned in my previous post the exercises are planned in a logical order and develop and build on your flying skills as you progress. However don't be surprised to find that you don't do everything in the exact order as shown below.

For instance, I started my Instrument Flying work very early in my 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 or height.

Exercise 14 - First Solo

Which consists of:

• 14. First Solo

So you have studied for, and passed, your Air Law exam? Check.

And you have successfully passed your aviation medical? Check.

And your instructor has asked the tower for permission to send a student for their first solo flight? Check.

Then it is time for your first solo! Wow!

You will only be able to do this once your instructor has complete faith in your flying ability. Take it easy, stay calm, and you will find that those hours of circuit bashing come back to you and it all goes together wonderfully.

You even get to put your name in your flight log book as the commander of the aircraft - using 'Self' rather than your own name - don't make the same mistake as many others and put your own name there, unless, of course your surname is Self.

You will also now have taken the first opportunity to building the ten hours of solo flying time needed for your private pilot's licence.

Going solo is a milestone in your journey to becoming a qualified pilot. Although you could be going solo after thirteen hours there is no hard and fast rule. I took twenty hours before going solo but that was due to many other factors and not just ability - some days the weather wouldn't be suitable for circuit bashing so we would take the opportunity to do other activities further down the flight training syllabus.

The important thing is that you solo when you are ready - it is NOT a race or a competition. And enjoy it when it happens - at that point you are a true pilot, you and you alone have taken the controls and flown into the sky and returned to Earth. A fantastic feeling.

Now you have bashed the circuit to pieces, and you can fly solo, it is time to go and spread your wings. Err, no, sorry. You now need to consolidate once more and do hours more of circuit bashing but this time on your own. Perhaps up to four hours of solo flying to really, really get to know how to fly on your own before leaving the nursery of your training airfield and being let loose to fly to where ever takes your fancy - controlled airspace permitting of course.

In reality you will probably spend some flying time doing navigation and other exercises in order to relieve the boredom of continual circuit bashing.

However we shall put down four hours of solo flying in total towards your qualification. By now you will have thirteen hours of dual plus four hours of solo flying. Seventeen hours, so what do you have to do in the remaining twenty-eight hours? You can fly on your own, you are safe and confident, how can you fill the next twenty-eight flying hours before applying for a licence?

Exercise 15 - Advanced Turning

Which consists of:

• 15. Advanced Turning
• 15a. The Steep Level Turn
• 15b. Recovery from Unusual Attitudes
• 15c. The Steep Descending Turn

After the euphoria of going solo it is time to get back to reality, back to the flying exercises. Steep level turns are great fun if you like to look sideways and see the Earth 5000ft below you rather than seeing the horizon.

Oh, and the G-forces too. Pulling 2G for more than a few seconds can be fun but discomforting. It really makes you admire those high performance pilots who pull 5, 6, 7 or more G.

Spiral dives are fun too, especially for speed addicts, watch you don't exceed the aircraft speed limits. Expect to spend an hour on this with your instructor.

Exercise 16 - Navigation at Minimum Level and in Reduced Visibility

Which consists of:

• 16. Navigation at Minimum Level and in Reduced Visibility

Another couple of hours are spent learning to navigate in the air by following natural and man made features and then to fly at minimum height above the ground.

This gives you an appreciation of the speed you are travelling at and teaches you to be very aware of the perception of speed and the difficulty in navigating at low level when roads, rivers and railways go past very quickly.

It is also useful training when you might be running low on fuel, or the weather has closed in and you have to fly low and slow to identify a suitable emergency landing place.

Exercise 17 - Forced Landings

Which consists of:

• 17. Forced Landings
• 17a. The Forced Landing Without Power
• 17b. The Precautionary Search and Landing
• 17c. Ditching in Water

Remember all that slow flying, glide descents and low flying? This where it comes together where you practice your forced landings.

From 3000ft above the ground the instructor cuts the power and it is down to you to bring the aircraft safely to Earth. Go for it! Sometimes you might not have total power failure but the engine might be struggling or the weather closing in - you need to be able to fly slowly to find and review a suitable landing strip.

All this has been another two hours of lessons. Since your solo consolidation was completed you have had another five hours of flying lessons, twenty two in total. You are now almost at the half way mark of your flight training programme.

Exercise 18 - Pilot Navigation

Which consists of:

• 18. Pilot Navigation

You will begin your navigation training almost unawares as you fly around practicing your straight and level skills. Now it gets serious, you have to study hard and learn to read the ground below you and the chart on your lap.

You also need to be able to calculate the various aspects of your route such as headings adjusted for the wind, and timings taking into account any head or tail-wind components. You might be surprised that there is still no GPS satellite navigation during flight training. Here is the surprise - you learn to navigate and fly using dead reckoning and your stopwatch and the compass and nothing more fancy than that.

Your instructor might take you on a couple of one hour sorties, the first one over familiar territory, the other over an area you may not have seen from the air previously. It is then your turn to add another couple of hours of solo flying by repeating these two sorties on your own.

Following this, you may get more ambitious and have longer and longer sorties both with and without your instructor. By now you will be able to calculate all the aspects of your flight plan and fly far and wide from your home airfield. By this stage you will have added another eight hours of flying, four hours dual and four hours solo, bringing the total to thirty.

Take a break from visual navigation and spend three hours with your instructor covering the finer aspects of radio navigation - no this doesn't yet mean GPS and satellite navigation. You will be introduced to the delights of VOR, DME, ADF etc. and more acronyms that you can handle at one time. Don't despair, it all falls into place after a time and you will have no problems. Oh, and did I mention you needed to learn Morse code? Morse Code?!?. In this day and age of GPS and satellite navigation? Yes, I'm afraid so, you need to be able to identify the radio navigation aid that you have tuned into, and they use Morse code to identify themselves.

Don't worry though - it isn't so difficult. You will know what to listed to as the navigation aid identifier is on your chart, and you will have a handy Morse code lookup table in your kneeboard. Simply match the dits and dahs with what you expect to hear from your look up table. Watch up in awe as your instructor identifies the Morse code without even trying!

After three hours of acronyms and Morse code your brain will be fried, but keep your chin up, you now have thirty three flying hours under your belt.

Time to bring everything together again, including your newly acquired navigation skills. It is the qualifying cross country exercise (QXC). You will land away at two different airfields that are new to you. First time around you will do this with your instructor, perhaps two and a half hours of flying. Then, when you are refreshed, and the weather is on your side you will fly the same route on your own.

You will be judged by the air traffic controllers at each land-away airfield. They will rate your airmanship and flying skills when you go to visit them to pay the landing fees and to get the official stamp to prove you have visited the airfield. The dual QXC and solo QXC will take around five hours, bringing the total up to thirty eight flying hours.

Exercise 19 - Instrument Flying

Which consists of:

Attention UK Pilots!
This is the book that you need for this subject:

Radio Navigation and Instrument Flying: v. 5 (Air Pilot's Manual)

• 19. Instrument Flying

The exercises are completed with two and a half hours of instrument flying with your instructor. This will prepare you for what may be your next step in your flying career: an Instrument Rating (IR), or perhaps the less demanding Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) rating.

Before you take your skills test you will no doubt want to get some revision in on any part of the exercises listed above. Give yourself another two hours for this to focus on those aspects where you are rusty. Cover those areas that you know will be part of the skills test and that you don't get to cover in every flight: practiced forced landing procedure, steep level turns, slow flying and low flying, precautionary landing procedure, recovery from unusual attitudes etc.

The skills test will last perhaps another two and a half hours, taking you up to the magical forty five hour mark. If you successfully pass the test, which of course you will, then by now you will be ready to apply for your licence.

In reality it is difficult to gain your licence with exactly forty five flying hours under your belt - simply because there will be days when you are training where your flying lesson is longer or shorter than expected, you might have a few minutes here and there in an orbit pattern at a busy airport and in the UK the weather will determine just when and where you will be flying.

By the end of your syllabus expect to find your Trevor Thom Volume 1 as a well worn, well thumbed book. For the duration of your flight training it will be your primary source of reference for all things related to your flying experiences. The other books in the series may be read once or twice to get you through the exams, then dipped into over time to clarify a point. But Volume 1, the blue book, will be your constant companion.

General Flying Test - Part 3

Flying Hours Today 2:00, Total 53:00

P1 Flying Hours Today 2:00, Total 12:15

At this point the examiner took over the radio and it was time for the handling exercises. First of all to join the circuit at Sandtoft, descend dead side for left hand circuits on R05.

I descended fine, crossed over the threshold of R23, to join downwind. Although I solo'd at Sandtoft I've never been at ease there. I don't know why as I've landed at similar small strips and even grass strips. But I never feel that I can get the circuit nailed and was dreading that I was going to make a mistake and fail my skills test.

And my Sandtoft nemesis rose again. This time in the form of a black Jet Provost who also decided to join the circuit. Now those things can move, as I was lining up for downwind I saw her turning wide and fast to the right of me. As I was on downwind doing the pre-landing checks I could see her burning past me wide on my right to turn a military style curved approach. All good learning stuff to be in the circuit with such fast moving traffic but not on my skills test please!!

On base I lost sight of the Jet Provost, where had she gone? Then I saw her doing a low approach and going around. I was rattled and not 100% focussed. I made for a standard landing, touched down and was straight back up again, I've never liked touch and goes on short strips and the examiner did state in the debrief that I had landed a little hard but in my defence I said it was probably because I was focussed on getting us back in the air before we had even touched down.

So we went around again, my heart pumping, feeling that I had really messed up.

Hearing the Jet Provost R/T and talk of approaching on R23 - the opposite runway? Did I hear correctly? There was no wind so why not? But I was active in the circuit for R05. I don't know if I heard this or not but I certainly didn't feel comfortable to be in this circuit pattern.

As we approached the turn for base I was told this would be a glide approach and I was to reduce power at my discretion.

Base leg 1000ft up, power off, glide approach and in, but I was too high, too fast.

I realised this early and said I was going around. The examiner asked me to complete as far as I could. I flew lower and lower and then we pulled away. The point here was that I could have landed, but it would have been a full stop landing and not a touch and go hence my reluctance to complete.

The examiner gave me another thumbs up for good airmanship for making the decision not to land if I didn't feel confident. I also had inadvertently ticked another check point on the list: the go-around procedure.

With the Jet Provost still buzzing around, and no offence mean't to the Jet Provost team - I'd love to go up in one some day, we switched to plan B and moved on to Doncaster for further handling.

I climbed out of Sandtoft at the best rate of climb (Vy 79kts) - you need to know your Vy and Vx speeds and routed for the short hop to Doncaster.

We flew abeam R20 with the airfield already lit up even though there was quite a bit of daylight left. A really impressive sight.

I was then asked to fly straight and level at 60kts and hold that speed. Another of my 'tricky' manoeuvres as I'm very wary of getting onto the back of the drag curve.

But it went fine, I was then asked to climb another 500ft at this speed and then level out. Again, fine, no problems and it was fun to fly so slowly overhead a big airfield.

Then a bolt from the blue. The examiner called Doncaster ATC and made request to do the PFL using Doncaster as the target field. ATC went away to ask someone important if this could be done. In the meantime I did my first steep level turn to the right.

Doncaster ATC came back on the radio: PFL approved.

The examiner cut the power. I put carb heat on. Then he asked me to land us in an appropriate field. I identified a particularly wide long black 'field' to my left where the number '20' is.

Wow, this was going to be fun. I was overhead the runway and had to get myself aligned for a PFL to aim at a very specific point and in a left hand circuit which had been active as we had waited for clearance.

OK, into the full PFL activity. Glide speed and trimmed, check fuel etc., at 2500ft I'm at the end of R20 looking at my landing strip. The W.O.S.S.S.S.S. check: no wind, no obstacles, the shape of the runway was good, perhaps a little narrow as a field, but good, surface good, size good, under and over shoot good, slope good, sivilisation good. Hey, this international airport makes a good selection for a forced landing.

Downwind at 2000ft and descending, practice mayday call, 1500ft and first stage of flaps, turning for base, don't think I'm going to hit the numbers but will definitely make the field. Second stage of flaps at 1000ft. Prepare the passenger for crash landing - unlatch the door (and he does!).

Final approach. We are committed to land. Third stage of flaps. Looking for a slow speed touch down, flare and round out and do it slowly, slowly and finally touch down.

Excellent. Flaps down, full power, carb heat off, and back in the sky. So that was the PFL and the glide approach covered in one. As Doncaster is such a long runway we practiced the fanstop on the climb out. Nose down, look either side for a field, but straight ahead is still more runway - I'd choose that. Looking back, the one thing I didn't do in the PFL was the power checks at each 500ft descent, but not to worry in this case.

Back up to 3000ft using best angle of climb to get us there quickly and time for the left hand steep level turn. This wasn't as good as the first, I lost about 100ft, but managed to recover and get us back on our heading and level.

And now time for stalls. Following a H.A.S.E.L.L. check we started with a clean stall. Power back, keep the height, wait for the warner, then the buffet then the examiner to state 'Recover'.

Nose down, power, climb away. Onto approach configuration: two stages of flap, turning and stall by raising the nose. Recover at the warner - nose down, wings level, power. Finally three stages of flap as if on final approach, stall warner, nose down, power, climb.

On to VOR tracking. Tune into Gamston and listen for the dah-dah-dit dit-dah dah-dah Morse identifier for the GAM VOR. Using the morse code table on my kneeboard to decode the signal.

Then I was asked to track us towards Gamston (EGNE).

OK, turn the dial until the VOR arrow aligns with deviation indicators. This would put us on the 120 radial. Turn to 120 heading and follow the track. No problem. At this point the instructor took my chart and covered the windscreen. I've just entered cloud and need to turn 180 degrees to get out.

I made a forgivable error here. I looked to use a 1 minute rate one turn. Firstly I turned too sharply so was over rate one, then couldn't decide whether to use my watch or the aircraft's clock. Settling on the clock I held the rate one turn for one minute then levelled off. Good procedure if done correctly but I had been sloppy on the entry.

I also notice that our 120 heading was to the right, I had turned too far, we should have been heading on 300 after a 180 turn. Brain fade I guess, so I then made use of the HSI to get us heading to 300.

I'd now used two instruments and was disappointed, but again I had shown good airmanship in identifying that my rate one turn hadn't been good and that correcting by the HSI was quite correct.

The examiner also asked why I had done it the hard way - I don't know, something I must have read somewhere about doing a 180 degree turn using rate one turns...

All that was left to do was the unusual attitudes. The examiner took control and put us in a climbing turn near the stall. Nose down, wings level, power. Then onto a spiral dive, power off, wings level, level attitude, climb away. And another couple of similar attitudes before it was time to head back home to Sheffield.

An uneventful landing, taxi, park up and shut down then a big congratulations. I had passed. Fantastic!

We had been going for 2 hours, if felt more like ten minutes. Back at the office I was exhausted mentally and physically and also quite calm. I would say that in terms of elation I would have to put the solo QXC first, then the first solo and then the skills test.

In the office there was lots of paperwork to complete: skills test certificate, licence application, R/T licence application, medical, log book review and stamp, etc.

I didn't have my passport with me but will need to copy it and get it signed and stamped by the flying school before I send off my application. That should take a couple of weeks and I can't go flying as a PPL until the licence is received.

Then it will be time to take friends and family into the air and to move onto other types. The flying school's Diamond Stars do look tempting!

General Flying Test - Part 2

Flying Hours Today 2:00, Total 53:00

P1 Flying Hours Today 2:00, Total 12:15

As part of my revision I'd written up the various acronyms used during a flight and committed them to memory. The first one when ready to take off was Lights / Camera / Action, followed with the F.E.R.A.L. after take off checks.

I'd been told that you can fail the test before you've even left the ground if you fail to follow the basic checks. And remember to read check list actions and activities out loud so the examiner knows what you are doing.

As there was no wind I did my power checks at the hold point but explained that I would usually point into wind, every one of my actions was by deliberate thought and explanation.

Up and away out of Sheffield (EGSY) - over the M1/M18 VRP and setting course for Beverley on 050. Switching smoothly from Sheffield Radio to Doncaster Approach (EGCN), clear and precise radio calls with no rush.

Explaining to the examiner my thought processes as we climbed, levelled off and tuned radios. There was some haze at 2500ft making slant visibility that much worse so I explained I was climbing to 3500ft, much better.

I made a note of the ETA over Beverley, the racecourse to be precise, and throughout the short 40nm leg continued to recalculate the ETA.

As we approached Beverley it became obvious that we had drifted just a few degrees off track so I flew visually to the racecourse and explained the drift due to some wind that must be present at this level.

Down below it was obvious from smoke stacks that a very slight westerly was blowing and this had taken us a few degrees off course. We were overhead bang on time, to the minute. That felt good.

It was time to change heading to Louth, remembering to Twist/Turn/Time/Talk and also adding a 5 degree into wind correction angle to get us along the next leg. Minutes later we were over Hull and the diversion happened.

Divert to Sandtoft, from the North bank of the Humber. I spanned the route on the chart using my thumb and forefinger then, keeping this fixed position, moved to the VOR indicator over Gamston to read off a heading - basically using the VOR as my compass rose.

Adding in 5 degrees into wind to cover the wind correction and then estimated distance of 25nm using my thumb. At 100kts this would take 15mins, with a slight headwind lets call it 18mins and I planned this into the next ETA.

Using 18 mins was probably a bit too long, 16 was the actual, but it didn't count as a fail as I had taken a good guess and made correction for wind. The heading was spot on.

During the navigation exercise we had stayed with Doncaster the whole time. The airspace was quite literally buzzing with microlights, other PA28s, Cessnas and the Jet Provost out of Sandtoft stating intentions such as passing 3000ft, climbing to FL100. Quite a sight to see this small black dot moving at such pace.

The route to Sandtoft had the sun directly in our eyes and made forward visibility difficult. Listening hard on the radio all the time and building a mental picture of activity around us. I was also flying by tracking the surface below us on the chart as distant forward visibility was zero.

At one point we heard of unknown traffic nearby and at our 11 o'clock. We couldn't see it so I stated I was making a right turn to give a better view. Looking out before turning and then as we changed heading the Cherokee became very visible below us a couple of miles ahead. A silhouette against the haze.

I made a call that I was visual with the traffic then turned back on the heading to Sandtoft with slight correction for the turn we had just made. I was given a thumbs up from the examiner for showing good airmanship there.

General Flying Test - Part 1

Flying Hours Today 2:00, Total 53:00

P1 Flying Hours Today 2:00, Total 12:15

It's been over 18 months since I wrote my first blog entry, so I think this is a good time to review some facts and figures that I've notched up during those 18 months...

• One Medical
• One R/T Theory Exam
• Two Flying Schools
• Two Aircraft Types
• Seven Exam Papers
• Seven Different Aircraft
• Eight Instructors
• Eleven Text Books
• Ten Different Airfields (Grass strip to Class D ATC)
• Dozens Of Take Offs And Landings
• 51 Flying Hours, 10 Of Them Solo
• About £7,500 In Cash
• A Number Of Scares
• Even More Highs

I've been ready for my skills test probably since my 45th hour. There comes a time when it all starts to fit into place and the individual skills and actions become one.

I'm thinking here of the precise and skilled flying in the circuit, the overhead join at a distant airfield, the R/T dialogue with various station types, flying the aircraft by 'feel' rather than following the numbers on the instruments.

As the test date drew closer I found myself reading and re-reading the CAA documentation on the test: "CAA JAR FCL Notes for the Guidance of Applicants taking the PPL Skill Test (Aeroplanes). Standards Document 19."

This is a must for any of you preparing for the test as it documents exactly what you will be tested on. One of the test objectives is for the candidate to demonstrate recovery from a spiral dive - I don't recall this in my training so read up on it in the flight training manuals. And yes - it did come up in the test! I also found myself revisiting "CAP 413 Radio Telephony Manual" for a brush up on MATZ and controlled airspace terminology.

The weather this week has been fantastic for flying. There was no way that my Saturday morning appointment could be cancelled, even on Tuesday the long range forecast showed Saturday to be fine, bright, sunny and cold. Perfect weather for a skills test. However on Friday I received a call from the flying school. Could we move the test to the afternoon? Phew! no problem. Afternoon might actually be better as any early fog or mist will have burned off, I would also have extra revision hours.

I was up early to start my revision and after checking NOTAMS and weather charts took a look at the TAFs and METARs for the area of my test. Just looking at these gave me the biggest grin. Could I ask for better weather for a skills test?

TAFs
DONCASTER FINNINGLEY : EGCN 190907Z 191019 24003KT 6000 NSC BECMG 1013 CAVOK
EAST MIDLANDS : EGNX 190902Z 191019 VRB03KT 7000 NSC TEMPO 1011 3000 BR TEMPO 1016 CAVOK
HUMBERSIDE : EGNJ 190907Z 191019 24003KT 3000 FEW020 BECMG 1013 9000
LEEDS BRADFORD : EGNM 190907Z 191019 27007KT CAVOK

METARs
DONCASTER FINNINGLEY : EGCN 190920Z 30003KT 7000 SKC 00/00 Q1033
EAST MIDLANDS : EGNX 190950Z 27002KT 5000 BR SKC M00/M01 Q1032
HUMBERSIDE : EGNJ 190950Z 24004KT 3500 BR FEW010 00/M01 Q1032
LEEDS BRADFORD : EGNM 190950Z 28005KT CAVOK 02/M00 Q1031

Just before I set off for my 1400hrs appointment I checked again, it was getting better - look at the wind on the METARs for Doncaster and East Midlands!

TAFs
DONCASTER FINNINGLEY : EGCN 191205Z 191322 27003KT CAVOK
EAST MIDLANDS : EGNX 191201Z 191322 VRB03KT 9000 NSC TEMPO 1316 CAVOK BECMG 1922 4000 BR TEMPO 2022 0200 FZFG VV///
HUMBERSIDE : EGNJ 191205Z 191321 VRB03KT 4000 HZ FEW060 TEMPO 1318 6000
LEEDS BRADFORD : EGNM 191205Z 191322 26006KT CAVOK

METARs
DONCASTER FINNINGLEY : EGCN 191150Z 00000KT 9000 SKC 05/03 Q1033
EAST MIDLANDS : EGNX 191220Z 00000KT 9000 SKC 04/01 Q1032
HUMBERSIDE : EGNJ 191220Z 23003KT 3500 BR FEW010 04/02 Q1032
LEEDS BRADFORD : EGNM 191220Z 27006KT CAVOK 05/02 Q1031

I arrived at the flying school at 1330. The examiner was out flying so I took the note he had left me: plan a route from the M1/M18 VRP to Beverley then Louth and back to Sheffield. Not a problem.

A beautifully drawn up route with the closing angle error lines, the safe altitudes, times, expected fuel burn, etc. etc. was produced. For the first time in all my planning the wind vector was 0/0. No wind correction factor to consider at all. I was slightly disappointed in this as I wanted to be able to demonstrate that I knew how to apply the correction factor with the whiz wheel.

It was at this time that the other pilots coming in and out of the flying school were repeatedly talking about how brilliant the weather aloft was. They also commented on how busy it was - my R/T would have to be sharp and on-the-ball today.

I completed the other paperwork, weight and balance check etc. and presented this and my route plan to the examiner on his return.

All was in order and he briefed me on what we would do and how we would do it, for example during the navigation exercise he would act as a passenger, during the handling exercises he would handle the radio.

We talked about a diversion that would happen and other areas I would be examined on. He explained that he was testing me against the CAA criteria but was also looking for those intangibles such as good airmanship and handling of the aircraft - his rule of thumb: would he let a non-flying member of his family go flying with me as one of my passengers.

After the briefing the examiner sent me out to check over the aircraft and joined me after five minutes. This is when the test began properly. The examiner was friendly and talkative and simply followed me into the aircraft and sat down.

It was a bit like play acting to talk to an experienced pilot as passenger but I explained to him how to close and open the door, how to insert his head phones, how to buckle up. I explained the emergency drill and his responsibilities. Pointed out the fire extinguisher and first aid box etc.

This actually worked better than expected and I began to feel in control. Reminiscent of being on a solo cross country flight but with a passenger.

It was down to me to do all the checks, start up and then call the tower for airfield information. I did get the examiner to take control to test the brakes - something drilled into me. Although this is a skills test I would still want to ensure that we are flying as safely as possible.