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Thread: Learning to Fly

  1. #65
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    PPrune is always quite negative, as the anonymity brings out the worst in people.
    However, there are flying jobs available... but there will always be more "low hour" pilots (eg CPL and 200hrs) than there are jobs...
    When you get to my level, 1300hrs and jet rated with time on type (ie line checked), then work gets easier to fine... 500hrs on jet and right now people will bang your door down to offer you work

  2. #66
    Hexus.Jet TeePee's Avatar
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    Looney pilot, there seems to be a situation where the air;ines all want experienced pilots but none of them want to train them. May I ask how much you've spent on trianing, especially line training?

    Hurricane Katrina has meant I couldn't do any cross country flying today, but I've managed 2 hours of local solo flying getting the hang of crosswind landings.

    This leads me o something I don't understand. The skill of flying in the UK is pretty much the same as the skill of flying in the US. The difference is really in the knowledge and workload management. You need to know how to deal with the different airspace requirements and communications etc, but it's like driving a car. If you can drive a car in the UK you can drive in the US. The difference isn't skill, as much as knowledge that you have to be on the right, and can go through red flashing lights, turn right on a red, etc. There is a small amount of skill involved, mainly managing the workload,, but I can't see it being 10-15 hours worth.

    My experience leads me to believe that learning in the US produces a better skilled pilot, with the same instruction. I recognise the instruction is sausage factory schools such as EFT, where the instructors are ATP students building hours, may be a lower standard, but the environment for training in the US is much better. By the time I finish my course I will have done more than 250 landings at a variety of fields in varying conditions. I can't imagine a UK student doing half that number when 10 quid fees per landing aren't included in most course costs.

    Personally I don't expect to need more than an hours extra training when I get back to the UK.

  3. #67
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    I would imagine its the difference between learning to drive in a nice quiet village , then trying to drive thorugh central london ?

    IIRC Loony had a 100% pass rate , I'm sure that when you get back to the UK he might be able to take you for a flight and asses your skills ( you'll have to buy him beer )
    my Virtualisation Blog http://jfvi.co.uk Virtualisation Podcast http://vsoup.net

  4. #68
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    Hi,

    TeePee you're right, airlines want experience but wont invest in getting people that experience. But its the same in any walk of life, in any career.
    In the aviation industry its doubly hard, because there aren't really ways of building experience.

    When I qualified with 200hrs.. airlines wanted 300.. when i got 300 they wanted 500... when i got to 1000hrs... they wanted 1000hrs.. on jets!

    I didnt pay a penny for line training, I paid for the 737 rating and base training (circuits) and Astraeus gave me 120hrs line flying, as they were short of F/O's and I had done well on the course. (myself and another guy from my course did about 120hrs each, he's now gone to thomsonfly). paying for the type rating was in my opinion, money well spent. But it worked for me, as it has done for most of my friends.

    You're living in a dreamworld if you think you'll only need 1 hr before being let loose in the UK, I'm not meaning to be insulting... just what I've seen first hand from my 900hrs instructing. 1hr in the local area at cranfield or lydd? you'd be lucky to even spot the airport, let alone get yourself home! Its just that much harder to navigate in the UK. My usual "US to UK" conversion procedure.. is to do a nav-ex and diversion (dual) and steep turns, forced landing, stalls, circuits (normal, flapless, glide, efato) to my satisfaction. I simply expct that someone I fly with can fly to a consistently safe standard before I would let them loose. (the general criteria i use is whether I would feel happy about that student or pilot transporting my mum from a to b without me being there.. sounds a bit silly doesnt it!) Any club will require a full checkout of the general handling items anyway, and it makes sense to do a dual navigation flight or 2 when u get back

    Flying is not like driving a car..... ok... flying a cessna in the US... it flies the same as the cessna in the Uk. but the differences in navigating will suprise you.

    Hour building instructors? Well.. that would be every single instructor that doesn't plan to make a career instructing... and they tend to gravitate to the big commercial schools in the end. I've seen good and bad examples of instructors in both the US and the UK, having been taught by great, good, bad and awful instructors throught out my time, and also worked with a few of each!.

    I was an "hours building" instructor, but I still taught my students properly. My 100% 1st time pass record for every student shows that. Ok, I wouldnt put a student in for a test unless I thought they had a half reasonable chance of passing, but then again.. who would!

    Again in my own personal experience, American taught, and American pilots in general, have lower handling skills than a UK taught pilot of the same experience level, the US focus being more on quantity than quality. (again, purely personal opinion based on experience).

    Americans are often shocked by the fact the we have 200hr pilots flying jets in the UK.. and they're usually shocked by how well those 200hr guys fly the jets! The best guy on my type rating course had well under 200hrs and he went to Thomsonfly.

    I accept entirely that what I wrote is a sweeping generalisation of americans but its just what I've seen.

    What you need to do is try to take "ego" out of flying. What you "expect" to need training-wise on your return maybe not necessarily match what is "expected" here.

    It does sound like you're doing quite well, so youve obviously got a decent instructor and school and/or you've got a good talent for it!

    When you get back, I'll happilly fly with you if you like. Can I just ask... how many hrs did u take to go solo (the total doesnt matter, its curiosity).. and after how many hours of lessons were u in the circuit.

    Pete

  5. #69
    Hexus.Jet TeePee's Avatar
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    In most industries, people start in lower paying jobs and build experience, and get their employer to send them on training courses, etc. In the airline industry people do that with instructor jobs, etc, but to get the next job in the chain involves huge expenditure, and in some cases working for nothing or paying to work to get line experience.

    I flew solo with 7.6 hours, circuit flying from about 5 hours, but doing a couple of landings each hour before that. I have a very good instructor and school. Hes a retired Navy pilot with 20K+ hours, and the school is so friendly he's taking all the students to dinner tomorrow night. I'm flying solo at the moment just building to the hours required for the FAA test. With 28 hours done I've covered the sylabus already. The quantity over quality approach is again a question of which school you go for. The JAA schools in the US ARE largely set up for passing european students as quickly as possible, and I could understand them having problems returning to the UK having flown the minimum cross country hours here.

    I didn't mean to say that all hour building instructors were bad, only that for many of them it's like people wanting to work as an electronics engineer having to teach high school physics. They may be great pilots, but they aren't in it because they want to teach.

    The point I was trying to make is theres a difrfernece between the required skill-set and the required knowledge-set. The opportunity exists to spend more time developing the skill-set in the US, and then training is needed in the UK to adjust the knowledge-set. My suggestion of only needing an hour is based on my spending a few hours with the UK PPL books, to learn the knowledge, then an hour or so adapting it. I don't know what navigation is like in the UK, I haven't even seen a chart.

    I would be more than happy to fly with you in the UK, and as an instructor there's much beer in it if you'd be prepared to sit down with me and a chart or two and talk airspace!

  6. #70
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    Out of sheer curiosity, what sort of hours do "proper" pilots fly? The usual is what, 37.5 hours per week, with 20 something days off plus weekends/bank holidays (yay! for bank holidays!!)...do pilots work odd hours, shifts, same flights, have huge holidays? Or does it vary?
    Well Hello!

  7. #71
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    Daverobev... you're right on almost all counts.....

    We fly around 800-900 hours a year (thats just the flying time)... duty time (the total time spent working) is obviously a lot greater

    There are various limits on flight time and duty (all the time periods are continuous rolling, rather than calender based). flight time limits are 900hrs a year, 100hrs in 28days.
    Duty limits are 55 in 7 days, 100 in 14 days, 190 in 28 days (so over 40 a week!)
    duty times are also limited on a daily basis, but it depends on what time you start work, and how many flights you have to do as to how many hours you can work. (the idea being that 4x2 hr flights are more tiring than 2x4hr flights.. and its true)

    leave.. depends on company to company.... but its between 28-42 days leave (includes public holidays or days in lieu). We also get compulsory days off and rest days, depending on duty times (for example if I've done a 14hr duty day... i need 14hrs rest)

    Working time wise.. weird shifts, odd hours.. yes we do it all.. but again it varies between companues. I've had to go to work at pretty much every concievable hour possible... 1am.. 3am... 5am.. 6am.. 7am... 3pm.. etc etc.

    I think flying is more titing than most other jobs, as u have to concentrate the whole time at work and always be ready to deal with problems, plus u cant exactly take much of a break, or pop out for a walk or a sandwich.

    30 yrs ago it was all different.. pilots were essentially paid 2 or 3 times as much and worked 2 or 3 times less hard than we do now!!

    Pete

  8. #72
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    Wow, I wasn't waware of that Loony_Pilot. Regardless, it all sounds really exciting! I want to fly one day:


    Sorry, it had to be done

  9. #73
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    Things have been progressing, slowly, mainly due to the weather we've been having. 30 Knot winds aren't so much fun, but I managed to get 0.6 hours of circuits yesterday just for a little 'unclement' experience.

    For Daverobev, The flight school owner and his wife took us to dinner last night. There are three full time students here, myself, a German, and anoter Englich guy who's married to an American. Must be for imigration reasons . We went down to a little seafood place on the gulf coast. Good food and a nice place. Particularly liked one of the waitresses, who 'loved my accent' as soon as I spoke. Mght have to go back there .

    Anyways, t was still pretty windy today, I did a short cross country to Cross City again. My first landing there was so good I had to do another, which was less good, but still pretty smooth. I guess all the practise yesterday has paid off. Flew back to Crystal River, and there was an airboat fooling around on the river below, out in the middle of nowhere. I flew around it a few times at about 1500ft, just watching. I think they waved. It's fantastic to have so much freedom!

    I'm at 32.1 hours now, I need to do 0.9 more and I can do the end of course review and take the skills test.

    Edit: I don't know if the British news has been covering Katrina, but it hit Miami as a Force 1 Hurricane and killed 7, swung out into the Gulf and picked up loads of energy from the warm water there. It's looking like it will hit New Orleans as a Force 5, which since the place is under sea level, is gonna do a lot of damage. We've picked up the odd thunderstorm here, but everyone is going aoround saying how lucky we are...
    Last edited by TeePee; 28-08-2005 at 06:32 PM.

  10. #74
    Hexus.Jet TeePee's Avatar
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    Well, I managed the extra 0.9 yesterday, just flying locally, before the wind picked up again. Got called into the flight school at 8am this moring for the end of course review, which I have passed. I think I seriously impressed the instructor with a perfect crosswind landing! My soft field landing was also not bad, but we weren't quite on centre line. This landing was done on a grass strip which has whats called a displaced threshold. You aren't allowed to land at the very end (although you can start the takeoff run from there) because there is a building right next to the runway. The building is a 'Dairy Queen'. A fast food restaurant that does pretty good burgers. I'm told it's possibe to taxi down to the end and order drive through...

    Only in the USA.

    As for my social life over here... erm... I planned flights to lakeland and Daytona Beach last night while watching 'Prison Break' on Fox. Sorry Dave, best I could do!

  11. #75
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    Cheers for continuing to update us Teepee, Glad its going so well. I've rated the thread 5* as its one of the best and most interesting thread on hexus in ages.

    Cheers all
    TiG
    -- Hexus Meets Rock! --

  12. #76
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    Never mind Stevie, I'm still at work, which is much, much worse than watching...ugh did you say Fox?!?

    Can't think of anything remotely flying related to say....well, apart from how much more have you got left? If you "finish early" can you still go up in the remaining time to rack up hours (and for fun of course!).

    I guess my WoW sig is passe now
    Well Hello!

  13. #77
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    1 Hour to go!

    I have offically completed the course here, just have to do the Check Ride with the FAA Examiner, basically a practical test. Then I get given a temporary pilots licence (the real thing gets sent in the post) and am let loose on the skies.

    I'm over here until the 12th of September, so I should have planty of time left over to fly around a bit. I'm going to get checked out on one of the Cessna 150s at the flight school.. They are smaller and less powerful that the C172s I've been learning on, but they are $55 an hour rather than $80, so I should be able to get a good few hours.

    I've been told a place called Cedar Key is worth a visit. A small town with a coulpe of good restaurants and an unattended airport a couple of miles away. Bascally the taxi driver listens in on the CTAF radio channel for the airport so he can turn up to pick up the pilot! I'm also planning to fly over to Cape Canaveral later this week with another student, which should be fun.

  14. #78
    listen to escape fails :) luap.h's Avatar
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    you should make a Hexus.guide - so we all know where to go and what to do to get flying over there! This is something I'd seriously love to do!

  15. #79
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    I'd be willing to do a Hexus.guide to flying in the US, provided someone (Loony Pilot?) can do one for flyng in the UK. I think it's something which there are definitely two sides to and a decision which has to be made.

  16. #80
    Senior Members' Member Matt1eD's Avatar
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    I have a couple of things planned for my gap year one of them is to learn to fly at Lydd.

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