I have read some great insights on here, but does anyone have any specific things I should do or ask for during this phase of my flying?

TxAgfisher,

Don't mention my name or do anything I teach.

Contact

Fly as much as possible. Stop often, and think through everything, what you need to do better, how you can improve.

And find people that have done all the flying there is to do, like contactflying, and ask them questions to get them talking. Then just drink it in.

Fly as frequently as you can. I was only going every other weekend for a bit due to plane availability, and it was impossible to get a rhythm going. I finally found an instructor willing to get out of bed early, and I'd fly every morning at 6am before I went to work. Calm weather, no traffic, it was smooth sailing from then on.

Fly as often as possible. I tried to fly three times a week. Took me 3-1/2 months and 54 hours to get my private. Too long between flying sessions and you'll have to spend time relearning old stuff instead of learning new.

Try to spend time around aviation even when you're not flying. Hang out at the pilot shop, airport café, or people's hangars. Join the local EAA chapter and/or local pilot association. Immerse yourself in aviation.
Read aviation magazines & websites. There's a lot of bullshit out there but soak it all in, you'll be able to sort it out as you go along and learn more.

Echo: fly often, at least twice a week, preferably more. Don't try to cram in all your flights on the weekend; it's the gaps between lessons that will adversely affect you.

Make sure you have the funds available to go all the way through without stopping. A big break while you earn enough to continue will set you back significantly.

Study hard between lessons, so that you're ready for the next lesson. When I was instructing, it was a bit frustrating to give homework assignments and find my students hadn't even cracked a book when we got together for the next lesson. That will set you back, too.

As I used to tell my students (both flight students and college students), "My job is to teach, your job is to learn. I will do my best at my job, but you have to do your job, too, or it won't work."

And get the written out of the way as soon as you've absorbed enough from your "book l'arnin'". You don't want to be that guy whose instructor says you're ready for the checkride, but you haven't yet taken the written. Most people agree that your ground schooling will mean more if you're also flying, but don't let yourself get behind with the ground schooling to the extent that the written isn't done on time.

Cary

There is something to be said for taking the written early on, but I did the opposite. I waited until I was just a couple weeks away from my checkride, that way all the nit-picky stuff would be fresh in my mind.

hotrod180 wrote:There is something to be said for taking the written early on, but I did the opposite. I waited until I was just a couple weeks away from my checkride, that way all the nit-picky stuff would be fresh in my mind.

That's what I did too. I think it helped to minimize the time between the knowledge exam and the oral exam.

I took 8 months to complete my Private, flying only on weekends, mainly because I was working and paying as I went. I couldn't really afford it at the time, but I did it anyway, paying cash after selling my motorcycle. Just took a little rearrangement of priorities. This was in the early 2000's.

I took my checkride at 40.4 hours logged. I chalk that up to a savvy instructor who helped me make the most of my time in the aircraft to satisfy 61.109. We killed a few birds with one stone on several flights. He didn't solo me early either, I think it was 13 hours. He is a great guy and was passionate about aviation and I was his first student to complete the certificate. Overall, I felt it was a successful training experience.

I totally screwed up the short field landing for the DPE on the checkride. He instructed me to landing prior to taxiway whatever, and his instructions went in one ear and out the other as I was so focused on flying the pattern-- it was the 120/140 association fly-in at Santa Ynez that weekend and it was super busy! He made a comment to the effect that he thought taildraggers were obsolete and silly. Haha.

The would never say that flying often isn't good advice, but I think what's more important is a good post-briefing and analysis of every flight. You have to make them count and glean all the knowledge of any particular flight so you can stew on it in your off-time. Immerse yourself in the study of all things flying. Don't play-- use your home PC flight simulator and make it as real as possible in your mind. Fly some cross countries on the thing with all the same prep you would on a real flight, do some IMC flights and improve your instrument scan. It'll actually improve your situational awareness too because it's hard to have a field of view like your do in a real cockpit.

Learn the aircraft systems and the stuff that's hanging off the engine, maybe by snooping around an opened-up aircraft during its annual. My own experience with training really glossed over that and I learned much of it later when I owned my first aircraft. Your mechanical knowledge may already be good enough that you understand the actual specifics of how the fuel system is plumbed, the electrical is segmented, how the flap lever or motor switch actually deploys the flaps. I hate it when any part of the system is a mystery.

Sayings of my first instructor still resonate on every flight, 13 years after my PPL training. If you have a good instructor, hopefully the same is true for you.

hotrod180 wrote:Fly as often as possible. I tried to fly three times a week. Took me 3-1/2 months and 54 hours to get my private. Too long between flying sessions and you'll have to spend time relearning old stuff instead of learning new.

Try to spend time around aviation even when you're not flying. Hang out at the pilot shop, airport café, or people's hangars. Join the local EAA chapter and/or local pilot association. Immerse yourself in aviation.
Read aviation magazines & websites. There's a lot of bullshit out there but soak it all in, you'll be able to sort it out as you go along and learn more.

Ditto. I flew Friday afternoons, Saturday morning, ground school during the day, Saturday evening, Sunday morning. Flying often reduces non productive time and re-learning. Main thing though, I think is instructor quality. Find a guy that has enough experience to teach you something about flying. That's surprisingly hard to find. Lastly, try to find an instructor that has chosen to teach not instructing because that's all he can do. Every minute in the cockpit should be scripted and meaningful. After an hour you should be mentally and somewhat physically taxed.

When I started, it was common to fly every day and solo in a week in a tail wheel airplane. The military has always done it that way. Like Cary said, you lose too much progress going once a week.

Don't let fear of incident on the part of the school, instructor, or yourself get you down. Instructors used to be expected to solo students before the first learning plateau at about ten hours. That is not the case in this legalistic world, unless you get an old fart like me.

You don't have a lot of control over this, but I touched the controls about 1% of the time with zero time students. You learn best and fastest by manipulating the controls. Move them to see what they do. Barely applying a little pressure here and there is bull shit. You wouldn't learn to ride a bicycle that way.

I better quit. I told you not to listen to me anyway.

The more you fly the faster you progress.

Take care of your physical health. Rest, good nutrition, exercise, and needless to say no smoking and little if any alcohol.

Manage your stress. Work, family, financial, etc. Don't let stress in the cockpit.

Repeat and enjoy.

I will try to build on the great council that has already been given. (Apologies for the stream-of-consciousness reply!)

Take your training seriously. It is easy to take flying lessons, but hard to get your PPL. You have to pack a lot into 40 hours of practical experience to fly away with your ticket. Arrive at your lessons with a list of questions from reading/studying you've done since your last lesson. Show your instructor that you are serious and sharp by having the plane pre-flighted and ready to go in advance of your lesson. Spend some good time with the FAR/AIM, since it isn't just about passing a written exam. Every day of your flying career is a practical exam of sorts, and running afoul of the regs would be a disappointing way for it to come to an end. Visualize maneuvers like an athlete when you are on the ground. Memorize the POH and work to understand the mechanics of your bird. Strive for excellence: keep the ball centered, maintain your intended heading and altitude with precision, hold the center line, etc. This is your chance to build a solid understanding of stick-and-rudder flying, so don't let yourself off the hook even if your instructor lets you get away with a little sloppiness. I credit this discipline with salvaging a check ride that I otherwise might have flunked!

Finally, congratulations on making one of the best decisions of your life! Flying is beyond fun, so enjoy the journey!

FWIW, my dad took his written way early on and is now frustrated with rememorizing the nit-noids before his PPL checkride. I'd do it like Z and 180 said.

The quality of the written as an educational tool is demonstrated by how little is retained for any length of time. There is an axiom in Army education: Test them on what they know. If you tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and finally tell them what you told them, they actually retain it. What they don't retain is pointless.

Going to have to break me into the acronyms - FAR/AIM and POH?

I'm finding out the instructor they paired me with (who I like so far) doesn't have a very open schedule. He's retired Navy and teaches. Have him booked for my second lesson next week but have another guy for the 3rd to try and expand my options.

FAR is federal aviation regulations I believe. POH is pilots operating handbook for the plane.

AIM is the Airman's Information Manual

By the time you're practicing stalls, get spin recovery training. If your school/instructor won't do it, go somewhere else for it. Practicing stalls without having practiced spin recovery has killed more than one pilot, and spin recovery is soooo easy once you know how. Even if you don't need it to save your life, it'll take (most) the stress out of stalls.

Hammer wrote:By the time you're practicing stalls, get spin recovery training. If your school/instructor won't do it, go somewhere else for it. Practicing stalls without having practiced spin recovery has killed more than one pilot, and spin recovery is soooo easy once you know how. Even if you don't need it to save your life, it'll take (most) the stress out of stalls.

Definitely. I didn't do spin/emergency upset training until after I had completed my private, but it was incredibly valuable. I did it with Tim Brill at Stead, NV in his Super Cub (at the time) and later a Super Decathlon.

One of the best exercises was the "falling leaf" stall, where he held the stick full aft and had me hold the overhead tubes. We entered into a stalled/extreme mushing condition (with plentiful altitude) and I used rudder alone to both keep the aircraft upright but also to steer it around. It requires very light stabs/pumping of the rudder and was a great lesson in delicate in moderation of directional input.

We also did aerobatics and lots of spin entry/recovery. It was invaluable training but that I wish I'd gotten earlier.

I agree with Hammer and Z. All this used to be just part of the program. Most old instructors I know still do it.