Try Not to Crash

Navigating Your Path to the Pilot's Seat: Insights into Starting Flight Training

• Wayne Allen • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Have you ever dreamt of touching the clouds and commanding the skies? Your journey to the captain's seat begins here, as I help to unfold the map to your flying aspirations.

 The runway to the skies is paved with crucial decisions—starting from your trial flight to selecting the right flight school. With a blend of personal experiences and not an expert advice, I navigate through the essentials of financial preparedness, and why a heart-to-heart with your potential flight instructor could make all the difference. If the sky's the limit has always been your mantra, let's turn that into a flight plan!

Brace yourself for a captivating exploration of the vast skies as I try to dissect the intricacies of flight training options and the financial nuances of getting in the air. Discover how to strike the perfect balance between passion and practicality, ensuring your time in the cockpit is both exhilarating and economically sound. I'll share some of my tips to try to safeguard your investment in flight school and reveal how to find harmony with your instructor for an optimal learning experience. It's not just about the destination; it's about relishing the climb. Fasten your seatbelts and prepare for takeoff into the world of aviation, where your dreams of flight are cleared for departure!

I'm a UK based private pilot (PPL(A), who started to learn to fly in my 50s. I passed (just), but every flight is a learning experience.

I currently own 1/5 of a Cessna 172 - but I am not sure which bit is mine.

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Wayne:

Hello everybody. It's Wayne here from Whiskey Alpha Pilot, and today I'm going to talk about the first steps that you need to take when you want to learn to fly. Why do you want to learn to fly? Do you have aspirations to fly like the birds, or do you aspire to fly in the cockpit of a big jet flying around the world? Either way, you need to start somewhere. For normal PPL training here in the UK, you need to be at least 14 to start and I think you need to be at least 17 to be able to go solo In the US and other countries. It's pretty similar. Flight training around the world tends to be, particularly at the start, pretty similar. I'm also assuming at this point you actually have some funds to pay for it, because learning to fly is not cheap. There is no such thing as a rich pilot. We have spent it all on flying lessons. You can get a loan for flight training, but listen further to find out some of the pitfalls of paying in advance for flight training. You also need to be reasonably medically fit. I will mention medicals in a little while. There is no issue if you're wearing glasses, providing your vision can be corrected If you have a disability that doesn't prevent you from learning to fly either. In that situation here in the UK, I would suggest having a chat to an organisation called Aerobility. That is what they specialise in is getting disabled pilots into the air, and they have a lot more experience and knowledge on the subject than I do.

Wayne:

Before you spend any money and start to plan your dream career, the first thing you need to do is to find out do you really like it? You need to find yourself a plane and get on something called a trial or discovery flight. Now, I don't mean you pop down to the local international airport, grab an airbus, jump into seat 21A and fly into a new country. I mean what you need to do is to find your local aerodrome Google is your friend here find a flight school and ask for a trial or discovery flight. They are effectively the same thing. They should be able to offer you a flight of 30 minutes to an hour with an instructor, get you in the pilot seat and get you up in the air. Yes, I said in the pilot seat. That's the one on the left with the windows in the front. Most schools will even allow you to log this as time under instruction, so your flying journey is already on the way.

Wayne:

How do you find a flight school? Well, as I said, you need to do a little bit of research and Google is your friend. Literally go to Google type in flight schools and see what comes up. Try and find one that's relatively local for you. You don't really want to spend three hours driving to your local flight school, because if you ever decide to actually continue your training and use that flight school, three hours there and three hours back is going to take a big chunk of your time, when you could actually be flying in the air On the day of the trial flight.

Wayne:

You may be asked to call a school before you travel, as they will need to check the weather and they also need to check things like availability of aircraft. The weather is something that was going to come up every single time you fly and you'll soon become the world's greatest expert on weather. You'll be looking out at the weather even days that you don't go flying. You'll be looking at the weather going I could fly today or look at the weather and go. No, I'm staying on the ground.

Wayne:

Don't forget to arrive at the Aerodrome in plenty of time. Your flight school will probably tell you what you need to bring Normally it's ID and payment and then they'll take you through the whole process. I'd suggest you wear normal, comfortable clothes. Don't wear high heels. They're quite difficult to control an aircraft in. Not that I know of these things I've never tried it but I'm told that's the case.

Wayne:

Learning to fly is difficult and can be complex at times, but it is fun and it's so rewarding. So initially you might find it all completely overwhelming, but your instructor is there to explain and help. Don't forget to ask as many questions as you possibly can and enjoy it. Normally they'll get the plane started, they'll take you out, they'll do a takeoff, you'll fly around the local area, you get to look out, you get to see how the airplane responds to the controls. They'll do some basic handling and then eventually you'll get to come back and they'll probably landings. Hopefully, when you've landed you want to go straight back up, but if you don't, don't worry. It does take a few days sometimes for it all to sick it. If you get travel sick, don't worry. It's not unusual. For most pilots. We have had it at some point in time. For me it was during acrobatics, but things do get easier and after a while you'll find that you just relax and you fly. So you've had your trial flight and you've decided to carry on.

Wayne:

You can continue to use the flight school that you've just used, but you are allowed to change. You can chop around. How do you choose a flight school? Well, I chose a flight school that was reasonably close, but you have to balance how close it is with how busy and how expensive it is. If it's slightly further away, then it might be a bit cheaper, but you're gonna spend more time traveling to and from the airport. That's gonna cost time and fuel. So you need to have this balance In terms of how busy a flight school is.

Wayne:

If there's lots of students, lots of people around, that tends to be quite positive because it means potentially they're more organized. If they've got more aircraft, there's more availability. If there's more students, you can chat to other students. My particular flight school had a students room where you could sit around and chat to other students, have a coffee, talk about how they're training, talk about instructors. That's always a good one. Having a busy flight school generally tends to be a good thing If your flight school is one person in a shed in the middle of a muddy field, in the middle of nowhere? In terms of training, that might be equally as valid, but in terms of availability, what happens if that instructor goes off on sick or is on holiday?

Wayne:

Equally with aircraft, if they have a reasonable number of aircraft. One of the benefits of having a fleet is aircraft every so often have to go in and be checked mechanically Normally 50 hours, 100 hours. In a flight school, those 50 and 100 hour checks are recurring on a regular basis because they're plowing through the hours. So the plane that you normally fly that week might be in maintenance being looked over. So if they've got a reasonable fleet, you should be able to jump into another aircraft, the aircraft that you're looking for.

Wayne:

Whilst on the subject of aircraft, there are hundreds of different types of aircraft, but in the UK for basic PPL most aircraft come down to one of two types Cessnas or Pipers. How do you tell a difference? Cessnas tend to be a little bit smaller and tend to be high wing. Pipers tend to be slightly bigger and are low wing. Why would you choose one or the other? Well, the first question is what's available, what does the school have and what does the school suggest you use Cessnas two seat or four seat. I'm quite a large chap and the idea of getting me into a Cessna 152 with an instructor and enough fuel to actually go and do a lesson is a bit of a joke, which is why I went for PA 28s. So I did most of my flight training in Piper PA 28s and in fact then I went to buy a share in a Cessna, although the Cessna I bought a share in is actually a 172, which is a four seat Cessna, so I have a little bit more room.

Wayne:

The other thing that sometimes pops up is how do you choose an instructor? And sometimes people go. I can't choose an instructor, I'm just given an instructor and initially the answer is yes. But if you don't get on with your instructor, please, please, please, please, please. Firstly talk to the instructor because it might simply just be their way of teaching. They do something in a certain way. It's not jelling with you. Don't initially go. I hate this instructor.

Wayne:

If you do feel that you want to change instructors, talk to the flight school. Most flight schools will have more than one instructor. Most flight schools are quite happy to try and match instructors to students because at the end of the day they want you to pass. It looks good on their record. So if you're not getting on with a particular instructor, talk to the flight school and ask if you can change or try another instructor. Try not to have too many instructors. In my training I had one main instructor and a couple of extras who really just covered extra parts of the curriculum as well as having some mock testing and final flight test. Obviously, the final examiner isn't your instructor. That would be very dubious and dodgy. In your normal flying you're going to see two or three instructors. Sometimes it's quite useful to have that mixture of instruction, purely and simply because it gives you a different outlook on the way something is being taught.

Wayne:

Something else to consider is when are you actually going to train? Flying is a commitment. You have to spend considerable amounts of time in the air a minimum of 45 hours, and that is a minimum. Most people these days seem to be between 60 and 70 hours, depending on who you ask. I was over the 70 hours mark. In fact, I was way over the 70 hours mark, but then I was training during COVID. Sometimes you could just go flying, but you couldn't do other parts of the curriculum. When you're thinking about when are you going to train.

Wayne:

Can you train during the week? When you train at weekends? Weekends tend to be a little bit busier. Most people seem to have a standard nine to five job. It's quite difficult to train during the week. You have to train during daylight hours generally, so they tend to train at weekends and because of that, weekends tend to be busier. So if you want to try and get better availability for instructors, better availability for aircraft, then scheduling time during the week tends to be easier. Also, initially, when you're training, don't attempt to do large blocks of training on the same day or even the same week. I found that I could do probably two lessons back to back, but that was hard and I was very tired when I finished the lesson. So if you're suddenly, if you're going to go, oh, I'm going to do everything 45 hours, so that's what 30 hours a week I can do, that it's like no, it doesn't work that way. Probably minimum of one lesson a week if you can afford it. But again, it's one of those things you really need to talk to your flight school and your instructor. As you get further down your training You'll find that you will actually be doing longer hours, particularly when you hit things like the cross countries because they take longer than an hour.

Wayne:

On the subject of hours also, you have to ask how the school actually charging for flight time. Our flight time is what you're actually getting charged for. Some schools charge it in different ways. Our flight school actually charged for engine on to engine off, but when you actually went and booked it you would book an extra hour. So you ended up with a two hour slot with an hour's flight time. This effectively meant you had time for a briefing at the beginning, time to check the plane out, hours flight and then you had time to do a debrief afterwards and you would pay for an hour.

Wayne:

Another thing to ask is what are the additional charges? With our flight school, we had a yearly membership fee which covered the ancillaries in terms of things like the annual barbecue. But equally ask are we going to be charged landing fees? A lot of airfields will charge you for landing and if you're doing circuits, that's going to soon mount up. I was lucky the airfield that I flew from been charged landing fees for locally based aircraft, so I didn't have to pay any landing fees. I had to pay landing fees when we started doing landways, which is part of the buildup to cross country, and, of course, when you've got to cross country, you have to pay landing fees there. So things like that all add up and they are all questions that you should be asking the flight school before you actually sign on the dotted line.

Wayne:

Coming to signing on the dotted line, rule number one of flight school training, never, ever, ever, ever, ever, pay big chunks of money up front. The number of flight schools that have folded, with students losing thousands of pounds, is quite worrying sometimes. So if a school turns around to you and says you need to pay everything up from, walk away. Find another flight school. Paying up front for a small number of lessons in order to get a discount is going to be down to you. Bear in mind this could be money that you lose If that flight school goes bust and some of these flight schools had gone bust literally overnight. They were taking bookings for flights the day before they announced that they were going bust and that money is lost. You are at the bottom of the tree when it comes to retrieving money out of a flight school, way before tax man and everyone else. So if you're going to put any chunk of money into a flight school, first the user credit card, because it gives you some protection under something called Section 75 here in the UK I'm not sure what the protection is in the US or just accept the fact that if you're going to pay a chunk of money in, you could lose it all.

Wayne:

Most flight schools actually allow you to fly for a lesson and then you pay at the end of the lesson, and that's what I did. We briefly talked about aircraft testiners or pipers. Again, it's down to what the flight school is offering. There are a few other aircraft that are beginning to creep in. Even electric aircraft are now beginning to appear on the training regime for some schools, but I'm not sure how that's going to work when my average flight was about an hour and those things only seem to fly for about 40 minutes before the battery lights come flashing on, and I don't really want to be flying an electric aircraft with flat batteries. Try not to chop and change between aircraft types too much, so if you're going to fly one day in a 152 and the next day in PA 28, which is a piper, you might find that your muscle memory and all sorts of things go a little bit squiffy. Once you've actually passed your PPL, then things change a little bit. As I say, I learned in piper PA 28 and I now have a share in a Cessna 172, which I love. I love my little Cessna. So you've done your trial flight, you're starting to look out spending the money and actually starting your training.

Wayne:

The next thing I would suggest is go and get a medical, particularly if you're looking at any form of commercial training in the future. If you want to be a commercial pilot, you must have what they call a Class One Medical. Class One Medical in the UK 600 to 700 pounds. We'll probably find it cheaper in various places. But you need a Class One Medical to fly commercially. You need to have a medical to fly solo, which in the UK minimum of a Class Two. The criteria for a Class One and the criteria for Class Two are different for obvious reasons.

Wayne:

The main thing is get your medical done sooner rather than later. Because if you're gonna spend lots of money let's say, for instance, you've done 20 hours and now you decide to go and get your medical and something crops up on that medical which basically says you cannot fly and these things do happen, then you've spent all that money and you're now stuck. You now need to go through the process of getting your medical reviewed and eventually they might say, yes, you can fly, but you might be in a position where you can't fly, and there are quite a few reasons that may occur. I'm not a medical expert, but get your medical done before you spend large sums of money, otherwise you could just be wasting your money. Unfortunately, learning to fly isn't all sitting in an aircraft and twiddling a stick.

Wayne:

There is also a number of exams to do and unfortunately, some of those exams will come up sooner rather than later. There are time limits for the exams. In the UK there are currently off Tom, I had nine exams that you have to do, one of which, which is air law, generally tends to be the exam that they require you to do before you fly solo. So you have to do at least that exam before you fly solo. And then I believe there is a two year time limit between the time you do the first exam and the time you do the last exam. So if you don't do all your exams in that two year time limit, then you've got a few problems. In other words, you've got to do them again, which is not great.

Wayne:

Exams is something to talk to your flight school about. They probably do ground school as well, which will help you. There are numerous apps out there which will give you some idea as to contents of exams. Do not try and just memorize the question banks. Some of the older exams, particularly old paper ones these days everything is electronic but some of the old exams they were effectively a question bank and there were websites set up to give you all the questions. I'm told the new question banks are 13,000 questions long, so you're not gonna memorize all the questions. Try actually learning the subject so when the questions come up you can actually apply what you've learned. That's the general idea of the exams.

Wayne:

So we looked at exams, we looked at medical. Next thing is equipment. Don't buy any equipment yet. Your flight school will advise you what you need to buy. The minimums that you tend to buy initially is you need to buy a up to date chart. Yes, they're called charts and not maps, and they expire once a year and you are legally required to carry a chart with you in the aircraft. You'll also need the same chart for your planning. You'll use the chart quite a lot.

Wayne:

The other thing I would consider purchasing at some point is a set of headphones. The school will probably have headphones you can borrow. Most students find after a while, particularly when they're getting into their training, that buying a set of their own headphones is quite beneficial. Headphones can be very, very expensive. The top of the range, bose A20s although they're now A30s, which are noise reduction headphones are around about 1300 pounds. But they do last quite a while and people sell them on eBay, if you can avoid the scammers, for 8,900 pounds.

Wayne:

I own a set of A20s. I love my A20s, as long as you remember to switch them on, because they are noise reduction. They have a battery inside them. You flick a little switch. Number of times I've actually taken off and suddenly gone. It's a bit noisy in here. Oh, flick the switch. Oh, it's gone. Really quiet, that's really useful. You'll find that you'll get tired when it's noisy. So having noise reduction headphones cuts down that external drone and if you ever take your headphones off whilst you're in the aircraft, you'll realize why we wear headphones all the time because it is noisy in there.

Wayne:

The other thing I would say is do not buy headphones, particularly Bose A20s or A30s from places like Facebook Marketplace, purely and simply because 99% of them are scammers. They use pictures of the headphones and they'll try and get you to send the money, and I'll send it to you. If you're gonna do that, arrange to me. If it's at your local airfield, even better. Literally arrange to me. Hand them over. Hand the money over Much better idea. Unfortunately, scammers have got onto the idea that Bose headphones are a really good way to make money and they try and scam people out. So don't get caught out. If you're not sure, don't buy any. The DIST ROT НОВ СУМ. So I've talked about payment. I've talked about exams, I've talked about medical, I've talked about equipment. The last thing I really need to do is to say get out there and do it.

Wayne:

The biggest hurdle in any pilot's life is the start. Is that first point of going? Oh, I'm not sure. Maybe I'll start in the summer. No, start now. I don't care the weather, it's summer, winter.

Wayne:

Incidentally, learning to fly during the winter is actually quite beneficial, although you're gonna have problems with the weather being a little bit worse If you learn to fly. Let's say, for instance, you learn to fly, you start in February, then you qualify October, which is a reasonable timescale for a lot of people. That's great, but you've never flown in the middle of winter, when the weather's crappy and it's cold, because you're sort of on the tail end of February when you just started, so you don't have that experience of what winter weather is like. That's gonna be a bit of an issue when you actually go to fly for real. So start now. Don't worry about oh, I'll wait for something.

Wayne:

Start now. That's gonna be the start of your journey and hopefully you'll enjoy it. At the end of the day. The rest is gonna be up to you and your instructor. Whatever you do, remember this is supposed to be fun. If you're not enjoying it, talk to your instructor the day after. Hopefully. You've now reached a point where you're thinking about starting on your journey. So my advice is stop right now. Get Google out. Stop listening to this podcast. Get Google out. Type in local airfields into Google trial flights and go and book your trial flight and go and try it. Then you'll realize what I'm talking about. Then you'll realize how much fun it can be. And this is gonna be the start of your journey. But whatever you do, please, please, please, enjoy it, be safe and have fun, and thanks for listening to my podcast. Bye.

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Wayne Allen

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