Last Wednesday I started the practical part of my Private Licence and it couldn’t have been a better start.  I had the pleasure of being taught the basics from a guy who’s actually a First Officer with an airline in his normal day to day job too.  Really pleased i’d hammered the revision prior to starting the lessons though as it meant I understood alot of what we went through really quickly.

Lesson 1 was abit of an intro to flying which i did in the Piper Warrior, a 4 seater training aircraft and really stable in the air making it ideal to learn in. We covered all of the checklists involved in the safe operation of the aircraft too to help me familiarise myself with the location of the instruments in the cockpit that i’ll be using on a regular basis.  We then requested clearance and took off towards the North over Morpeth where we covered the Primary and Secondary Effects of the Flight Controls. Ailerons on the wings roll the aircraft left and right when you turn the controls, the Rudder  YAW’s the aircraft left and right (like drifting a car), and pulling the controls back and pushing forwards caused the aircraft to pitch up and down.  It was interesting to feel the effects of these in the air and there were definitely some drops of the stomach at times.

I then took control and demonstrated back all of the controls and just got used to how the aircraft responds to different inputs at different speeds and spent an hour just playing around with it before we landed back at Newcastle after a little hold at Stannington Quarry.  The reason we hold is because the bigger jets create something called wake turbulence when taking off and landing which can be very dangerous if you get caught up in it, for this reason there is always a 2-3 minute wait before other aircraft take-off or land.  I then got to line up for landing which I did a pretty good job of and then had to control the descent down to the runway (my instructor really wanted to see what I was made of on my debut.)  On the side of the runway there are 4 coloured lights, 4 red = too low, 4 white = too high.  The aim is to get 2 red and 2 white, you get that and you’re on the path to a decent landing (which I did, first time, not proud of that at all obviously)

My next lesson is on Tuesday and i’ll be going up in the Cessna 152 which is a 2 seater aircraft and apparently abit more challenging to fly so really looking forward to seeing the differences between the 2 aircraft.  The Cessna will be the aircraft i’m in for the majority of my course unless I have passengers as it’s cheaper to hire and learn in compared to the 4 seaters.  

That’s it from me today though, I hope you find it interesting and feel free to leave a comment or a question!

James