Starting the Private Pilots License Ground School
Putting the work in on the ground, to make it in the air
I was meant to be flying today but the lovely London weather has made my chomping of raw ginger all morning all for nought! (See previous post…motion sickness is a killer..!)
So instead, I thought I’d write about what I’ve been up to this last week on the ground…
The Private Pilots License, or PPL, is the standard license for EU pilots. To get it, you have to do at least 45 hours of flying (10 of which must be solo…eek!), sit 9 exams, pass a medical test and prove your ability to an examiner in a skill test.
The exams are:
- Air law
- Human performance
- Meteorology
- Communications
- Principles of flight
- Operational procedures
- Flight performance and planning
- Aircraft general knowledge
- Navigation
After sharing my first post on LinkedIn, a friend of mine got in touch to connect me up with his pal who is a flying instructor. We’d had a call last week before my first lesson, and he advised that I get my hands on some manuals straight away so I could get learning.
With the UK weather and a full schedule limiting my flying hours to, realistically, 1 hour every 10 days or so, I’ve been focusing my enthusiasm on revising for the exams and practicing manoeuvres theoretically, using the Pooley’s Air Pilots Manuals. There’s 7 of these textbooks to get through — I’ve bought number 1 (Flying Training) and 2 (Air Law & Meteorolgy) to begin with.
The Flying Training manual is brilliant — it’s a great way of visualising the flying on the ground, with the first few chapters taking you through the various controls, balanced flight exercises, emergency procedures and the cockpit instruments. After doing one flight lesson, it’s a great reinforcement of learning and it’s flagged a few things that I want to ask about next time I’m in the air. My instructor Ivan suggested I read up to the end of exercise 6 before my 2nd lesson — which basically covers all of steady flight and the effects (and secondary effects) the different controls have in the air. It’s also been brilliant (re)learning all about lift, aerodynamics and the physics of motion (I did a physics project on the lift coefficient when I was at school — testing wing shapes and angles of attack to see the effect they have on lift #nerd).
The Air Law one is a little more tedious — especially as my background is very much maths and physics, not literature and law..! But passing the Air Law exam is required before you can do your first solo flight — and with this looking do-able at the 10–15 hours mark, I want to get up to speed quick to ensure I don’t hold back my practical progress.
I also got super excited and bought 2 general books on flying, as I was keen to not only up my knowledge in terms of the skill of flying, but also on the planes themselves and what it’s like to be a pilot. There is a tight community of aviation geeks (literally #avgeek on social networks…), and I felt a bit out of my depth reading some of the information online, so wanted to get a bit more background on the industry itself too.
So I bought an amazingly detailed book of random facts and figures about planes called ‘From Airbus to Zeppelin’ by Norman Ferguson. It’s literally a collection of facts about planes in chapters A through Z. Glorious. (I especially enjoy now knowing the speed at which the toilet flushes on an A380).
I also picked up a book about what it means to be a pilot, called ‘Skyfaring’ by Mark Vanhoenacker. The writing in this in stunning. There’s a bit about what he terms ‘place lag’ — kind of like how jet lag affects time, except it’s a feeling of being confused about where you are, as opposed to when. I was initially confused, but then I came home from a <48 hour trip to Cologne this week, woke up in my bed the next morning completely confused about where I was in the world, and suddenly felt a taste of what Vanhoenacker was on about. It’s a gorgeous read regardless if you’re interested in becoming a pilot or not.
So that’s been my first week of ground school complete! I am feeling slightly overwhelmed as there is a lot of information to take in, but then I think that’s a symptom of me wanting to read so much so quickly. I’m going to get investigating podcasts and blogs too to see if there’s anyone out there also documenting their journey, either as a learner or as an expert. Any recommendations, do send them my way..!
Especially now that I have another week before the next hour in the air, I’ve got to point my excitement SOMEwhere!
