Tips for A Student Pilot

Ryan: Congratulations on choosing to pursue a private pilots license! Read, read, read! The books that you have are great! Check out the Sporty's study buddy, there is a free version available from Sporty's Pilot Shop. As you read your PHAK and AFH, use the study buddy to quiz yourself. Also,  American Flyers has an excellent on line ground school. Dont get discouraged if the knowledge doesn't come quickly. As you study and fly, everything will click together.  Also get a copy of the 2011 FAR / AIM. Read the AIM !! It is an excellent resource! Hang out around your flight school or FBO as much as possible in your free non flying time. If your flight school is anything like the few that I used in pursuit of my private, there are always some arm chair flyers around. These folks are a wealth of knowledge about flying. Listen to them! Visit FAA.gov and look for the free digital products. You can get a digital AFD which is free and constantly updated. Use it! At some point in your training, fly with a different instructor for a lesson or two. It is good validation of your progress before your checkride with the examiner. At some point, find a grass strip and someone who instructs there and spend a few hours on realy soft field /short field work with a competent instructor that doesn't live at an airport with a 5000ft x 150ft runway. You will gain amazing condfidence from landing off pavement (watch out for deer!).  Last but not least, if you can get a part tim e job working at your local FBO (refueling planes, or doing whatever odd job comes up.)....jump at the opportunity) Aside from the extra cash, and maybe even a discount on your flight hours, you just might meet a few extra pilots that are interested in offering pricelss advice, and get to see some pretty sweet airplanes in the process. I wish that I had started my training at your age. The extent of what you can do in aviation going forward is only limited by your own desire........(and weather and time and money). Lastly, dont push yourself to fly when the weather is not right. Learn patience and good judgement early. There is never a good reason to fly in high winds or crappy weather in a light training airplane..........or any airplane for that matter.  Have fun!

Ryan, first of all make sure you are prepared for each lesson before you start the plane. Read the chapter in the book and know what to expect so that you learn better and learn faster and save time and money. Next, try to fly as often as possible, at least 3 times a week. No top business or miitary group would ever try to teach someone something new like a foreign language or a new computer method by only meeting an hour or so every two weeks like some students try to. Think of how often a top sports team practices.

Books are fine, but there are computer interactive courses that help you learn even faster and easier.

Get a good instructor that you are compatible with, ask for recomendations from other students or pilots.

You are lucky to get into flying while you are so young and your mind can absorb so easily, and you have great vision and reflexes.

Aviation can be great fun, but be careful. Mistakes made in flying can be fatal, its not like missing an extra point kick or hitting your drive in the rough or double faulting on your serve. But it it more fun and worth the effort.

Come up to EAA Oshkosh and see for yourself.

Good luck, Bill G

Google "See how it flies" and read. It is a modern "Stick and Rudder" which is also a good book. After getting your certificate find a copy of the "Naval Aviators Handbook". Check your local library. Enjoy.

Thanks for the site, looks like it has allot of information, I will have to read through it.

Get your ground school/written test finished by the time you solo and are ready start the cross country phase. If you don't, you will have a lot of unproductive "aircraft" time until you get the written done and, after that happens, you will spend time and money getting back up to speed. For some students, this is where they fall by the wayside.

AND - have your instructor make you a list of what happens in the landing pattern. You will need to sit at the kitchen table, preferably in a swivel chair, pretend that you are in the landing pattern, and do the required items. If you spend the time and learn the sequence your instructor gives you, on the ground, you will have much more time to FLY THE AIRPLANE & LOOK FOR TRAFFIC and you will not feel that you are being rushed.

Pete

Congratulations on starting the journey towards becoming a pilot! Whether you're doing this for a future career, side career or just for fun as a Private Pilot, it's important that you treat your flying as a lifelong quest to be the most professional and safest pilot you can be. Strive for smooth technique in all maneuvers and always know what's going on with the airplane. Make sure you fully understand stalls and get thorough training in them.

As far as books and training tips, the 2 books you have are great resources along with the FAR/AIM. I recommend that you obtain your own C150 POH and study it at home. There are lots of flight maneuvers guides and checklists for the 150 available online also.

In addition, your instructor should set you up with:

1.  A Private Pilot training syllabus that outlines the general steps toward the certificate, so you can track your progress and see what's going to be expected of you. There are many different variations of this; many are available online or can be obtained as part of a training kit.

2. The Private Pilot Practical Test Standards, or PTS. This is available with a training kit, online at faa.gov, or you can purchase it in an inexpensive booklet format. This is the content of your checkride and is also a good supplemental training guide along with the syllabus. Treat the testing criteria as bare minimums.

Enjoy your flying.

Elaine Kauh

CFII

Note the FAR/AIM is available on line, no charge, from the FAA web site. Read the section on communications and the Pilot/Controler Glossary at the back of the manual.

Do the "flight/landing patern at the kitchen table" as suggested and include the radio calls. Every time you go around the pattern in your mind ask yourself what else you can add to the routine. If you intend to continue professinally include a landing gear retract and extend and gear down check. Early learning is most easily recalled. If you skip those steps in your early training it will be more difficult to add them in later. You may miss them in the heat of things but attempting to include them will eventually add them to your habit pattern.

If this is your plan I would like to talk with you offline. Send a phone number with your e-mail.  

Ryan, Grant says to include a landing gear check in your checklist, "if you intend to continue professionally" . Why wait until someone is paying you to fly in order to learn a landing checklist the correct way? Many of the exciting airplanes in the world have retractible gear, ( certainly not all like Cub or Sukio). so why not learn to incorporate this in your thinking from the start?

I try to think of landing gear down as the main point of my checklist no matter if I am flying  a fixed gear glider or a turbo Bonanza.

Having the gear down for landing is the essence of the landing procedure. There may be other things on the factory POH or checklist that are written before gear down, like some fast planes use partial flaps to slow to gear speed. However, all these other things like fuel pump on or even flaps down are nice to have, but THE ONLY ESSENTIAL ITEM IS GEAR DOWN (and confirmed down). 

So as you descend for landing or as you enter the pattern for landing, think about lowering the gear above any other item.

I have twice had landing gear fail to lower and had to crank it down by hand, and once could not get a green light due to a broken wire even though the gear was safely down. 3 different planes over about 30 years.

You can walk through a landing pattern on the ground, you can use a sidewalk or a driveway as a pretend runway and think of what you'd do, and what you'd check at each part. . By the way , radio calls may be good, but planes fly just fine without even having or using radios. Don't drop the airplane in order to pick up the microphone. The gliders I fly don't have radios. Some very busy airports may have a lot of jet ifr traffic and they aren't good at looking out the window, but some other places may be very basic. 

 Thanks for all the the advice guys. I am reading each and every one of your comments and learning, and finding better ways to learn. Also I plan on purchasing many of the books that have been recommended me. 

Also, Grant Smith,  I have tried to email you and something seems to be messing up with the email on here as after I have typed the email, I cannot seem to find a send button anywhere. Hopefully this problem is fixed, or it might just be me doing something wrong? I sent you a friend request thinking maybe if you were my friend on here it would work. I am new to this site and am still figuring things out.  I will continue trying to get my email to send to you, and if it does not get fixed soon maybe I can find another way to get an email to you.

-Ryan