Just took first flight lesson...is it normal to feel overhwhelmed?

Jeff Szlauko

Jeff Szlauko

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ChopperJeff
Hello all. I completed ground school months ago and finally began my flight training. My first lesson was in a Cessna 172 just a couple days ago. Am currently scheduled to do a flight lesson every Saturday. In clarifying my question in the subject line, I do NOT feel overwhelmed at all by the instructor, as I feel very comfortable with him, and he's great at explaining everything and making me feel comfortable. When I say "overwhelmed", I mean it just seems like so much to know, even with the simple tasks like entering the pattern and then lining up for final. Then there's the dealing of crosswind. I mean, it's like your dancing on so many controls at once, since as you lower the nose, you pick up speed. You throttle back, and then drop more. You pull up, and slow down. All of a sudden it seems you can be going too slow, or too fast, or too low, or...whatever. So much happening at once.
Just wondering how you guys out there felt after the first lesson, and how long it took to get a good feel of the plane, and if you also felt a bit overwhelmed at first by it all.
 
Yes it's perfectly normal. It gets comfortable as you move along. Really it's like anything completely new to you, although maybe not to the extreme as flying. Great you're flying AT LEAST once a week. Any way you could step that up to 2, maybe 3 lessons a week? You'll progress quicker and more economically if you could. If you miss one, even two Saturdays then when you get back to it you'll end up repeating a lot of your previous lesson.

But stick with it. Takes different people different amounts of time to "get the feel" but after awhile you'll get there. Good luck!
 
Normal. Don't worry about it. You're just task saturated and brand new. You will learn to manage all these things without really trying. It's a continuum. Each time you fly, the task saturation will diminish and things will start becoming more automatic without really thinking about it.
 
Yeah, its normal. You will quickly become more comfortable and start to keep up with the workload in the plane. But, be ready - often at about 10 hours you start to feel overwhelmed again as you start working on crosswind landings and taking on more solo pilot responsibilities. Then as you start your instrument rating you will feel behind the plane once again. Stick with it, when things click you will wonder what was so hard in the first place!
 
Normal. And the instructor's job early on is to figure out how you learn and how quickly you are able to take on new information. By lessons 3 and 4, you both find a good "middle point" and will make good progress from there.
 
How did it feel the first time you were let go on a bicycle without training wheels? A little wobbly? hard to keep it straight?

Same thing with flying. There's a lot to take in at first, but you'll get accustomed to it as time moves on. Don't get frustrated, it's normal for everybody. GL!
 
Yep. Completely normal. And it gets better as you transition things that you must currently think about into rote memory and move on to other things. Just like learning any skill.
 
Ryanb said:
How did it feel the first time you were let go on a bicycle without training wheels? A little wobbly? hard to keep it straight?

Same thing with flying. There's a lot to take in at first, but you'll get accustomed to it as time moves on. Don't get frustrated, it's normal for everybody. GL!
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See if Pee Wee can do it, you can too!

pee wee.jpg
 
Normal. And as soon as it starts to fade, your Instructor will add a new task that will bring it right back for awhile. But it fades faster each time.
 
Thanks everybody...great replies, and much appreciated. I'll keep checking for more replies, but in the meanwhile...THANKS!
To the person who said that taking more than one lesson a week would be better, I completely agree, and would love to take at least two a week, if not three. Currently though, due to finances, I'm limited to 1 per week. I could take more, but that would involve taking out a loan to pay for them. Certainly an option I've been toying with, but for now at least, this is my plan.
I should probably create a separate post for this, but while I'm here, what do you guys (sorry, ladies too!), think of the David Clark h10 13.4 headsets? At some point I'd like to purchase a headset, and these seem to be good bang for the buck. Currently my instructor has me wearing ones made by Lightspeed, and are active noise cancelling, and go for around $900. Yikes! He actually likes the ear bud style. Not sure what the brand of those are, but he said they go for about $500. I know the David Clark h10 13.4 headsets can be had for just over $300.
 
Agreed--normal. Write those things down and look back on them when you are a private or higher and read what you were thinking. I wish I had done that.
 
Jeff Szlauko said:
[snippage]
I should probably create a separate post for this, but while I'm here, what do you guys (sorry, ladies too!), think of the David Clark h10 13.4 headsets? At some point I'd like to purchase a headset, and these seem to be good bang for the buck. Currently my instructor has me wearing ones made by Lightspeed, and are active noise cancelling, and go for around $900. Yikes! He actually likes the ear bud style. Not sure what the brand of those are, but he said they go for about $500. I know the David Clark h10 13.4 headsets can be had for just over $300.
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David Clarke headsets are good quality. That said, the most critical part of any headset choice is how do they feel and seal (for over ear) on YOUR head? I can't wear David Clarke's for more than about 30 minutes. They just clamp to tight.

Active Noise Reduction head sets are nice, but pricey. I suggest seeing what you can try-before-you-buy. Once you've settled on what you want, eBay can be your friend. I bought a brand new in box set of AVCOMM AC-200's off eBay for $60. I also bought 2 pairs of Telex 1st generation ANR headsets for $65. They're not new but they both work fine.

John
 
Jeff Szlauko said:
Thanks everybody...great replies, and much appreciated. I'll keep checking for more replies, but in the meanwhile...THANKS!
To the person who said that taking more than one lesson a week would be better, I completely agree, and would love to take at least two a week, if not three. Currently though, due to finances, I'm limited to 1 per week. I could take more, but that would involve taking out a loan to pay for them. Certainly an option I've been toying with, but for now at least, this is my plan.
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Avoid the loan.

And if possible, be willing to hold back from flying for a bit until you have at least 60% of the projected budget setup, then restart. By delaying and saving, you actually will save money over training just once a week. Once a week and the occasional skip will mean new skills and information will erode to the point to where you must repeat a lesson or skill, which stalls the progress. Having a significant part of the training money saved up in advance so you can train at least twice a week and continue to add money into the fund for the remainder means you will avoid skill erosion and get this done quicker.

I should probably create a separate post for this, but while I'm here, what do you guys (sorry, ladies too!), think of the David Clark h10 13.4 headsets? At some point I'd like to purchase a headset, and these seem to be good bang for the buck. Currently my instructor has me wearing ones made by Lightspeed, and are active noise cancelling, and go for around $900. Yikes! He actually likes the ear bud style. Not sure what the brand of those are, but he said they go for about $500. I know the David Clark h10 13.4 headsets can be had for just over $300.
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Lower costs headsets for training are perfectly okay. I did my training with a crusty pair of Lightspeed 30-3G's that I got off of eBay for $200. Once you know you will finish training, you can save up the funds for the higher end models.
 
Jeff Szlauko said:
Thanks everybody...great replies, and much appreciated. I'll keep checking for more replies, but in the meanwhile...THANKS!
To the person who said that taking more than one lesson a week would be better, I completely agree, and would love to take at least two a week, if not three. Currently though, due to finances, I'm limited to 1 per week. I could take more, but that would involve taking out a loan to pay for them. Certainly an option I've been toying with, but for now at least, this is my plan.
I should probably create a separate post for this, but while I'm here, what do you guys (sorry, ladies too!), think of the David Clark h10 13.4 headsets? At some point I'd like to purchase a headset, and these seem to be good bang for the buck. Currently my instructor has me wearing ones made by Lightspeed, and are active noise cancelling, and go for around $900. Yikes! He actually likes the ear bud style. Not sure what the brand of those are, but he said they go for about $500. I know the David Clark h10 13.4 headsets can be had for just over $300.
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I like the QT halo ear bud style, around $300 but can be hard to acquire, there are plenty of headset threads on here, use the search. Before the QT I had a budget avcomm, I think I got new on sale for $80 on amazon, they were fine, I use those as a passenger set now. I would consider myself to be noise sensitive and still the cheapos were fine, the QT are comfortable if you don't mind ear plugs.

edit:
oh yea, good luck on your training, they don't call it drinking from a firehose for nothing.
 
exncsurfer said:
I like the QT halo ear bud style, around $300 but can be hard to acquire, there are plenty of headset threads on here, use the search. Before the QT I had a budget avcomm, I think I got new on sale for $80 on amazon, they were fine, I use those as a passenger set now. I would consider myself to be noise sensitive and still the cheapos were fine, the QT are comfortable if you don't mind ear plugs.
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I have a QT Halo set (yellow) that I'm not using much anymore...... might be talked into selling....
 
The aviation term is called 'being behind the plane' and you can experience that at any time but especially when first learning to fly. Some are helped by chair flying...the idea is to takeoff and fly the pattern and land sitting in a chair. Call out both radio and elements of rotation, speed, altitude, flaps etc at each segment of the pattern. Once in the plane do the same.
 
Instead of buying a new $300 David Clamp headset - look for a used Bose X or Lightspeed Zulu. I bought all 4 of ours that way, all were between 250 and 350.
 
Just fly low, and go slow, until you get your skills polished. . .joking, joking - like everyone else said, you'll progress from having to think about everything, and move on to doing things more intuitively, like unconsciously applying trim, or recognizing the "proper" nose position for level cruise, to judging a good approach slope. . .

Some guys get an "epiphany", after they struggle with a couple aspects (maybe judging flare height, or x-wind landings) - and suddenly, the motor skills, muscle memory, and intuitive understanding all merge. One day you suck, and the next flight you nail it down. . .

Shorter version - if you get jammed up on some skill, stick with it a while; you'll get a breakthrough.
 
Jeff Szlauko said:
Hello all. I completed ground school months ago and finally began my flight training. My first lesson was in a Cessna 172 just a couple days ago. Am currently scheduled to do a flight lesson every Saturday. In clarifying my question in the subject line, I do NOT feel overwhelmed at all by the instructor, as I feel very comfortable with him, and he's great at explaining everything and making me feel comfortable. When I say "overwhelmed", I mean it just seems like so much to know, even with the simple tasks like entering the pattern and then lining up for final. Then there's the dealing of crosswind. I mean, it's like your dancing on so many controls at once, since as you lower the nose, you pick up speed. You throttle back, and then drop more. You pull up, and slow down. All of a sudden it seems you can be going too slow, or too fast, or too low, or...whatever. So much happening at once.
Just wondering how you guys out there felt after the first lesson, and how long it took to get a good feel of the plane, and if you also felt a bit overwhelmed at first by it all.
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Absolutely normal. There is so much to learn and it all seems to come at once when you are a newbie. The structure of a flight syllabus is one step at a time...the building block method. Top of the list is control effects, and that may take a couple of flights dedicated to that purpose alone. I have had students from whom the first couple of lessons were essentially airplane rides, because there were so many new sensations to assimilate. I trust that your instructor is using such a syllabus, because the shotgun method doesn't work. Once you fully understand what each of the controls does and how to use it (and the throttle is a control), you can proceed to apply that knowledge by performing plain vanilla maneuvers such as climbs, descents, and turns (and climbing/descending turns). There is nothing to be gained by skipping over the fundamentals. You should not be exposed to crosswinds until you are comfortable with normal landings. Pattern work should come after ground reference maneuvers.

Hang in there, you are going to love it!

Bob Gardner
 
It seemed impossible until hour 20 for me.. I am starting to feel more comfortable now approaching 30 hrs. The stories one hears about the 7 hour solos or the guys who get their lic at 40.3 hours, I'm going to assume are gifted souls.
 
AggieMike88 said:
Avoid the loan.

And if possible, be willing to hold back from flying for a bit until you have at least 60% of the projected budget setup, then restart. By delaying and saving, you actually will save money over training just once a week. Once a week and the occasional skip will mean new skills and information will erode to the point to where you must repeat a lesson or skill, which stalls the progress. Having a significant part of the training money saved up in advance so you can train at least twice a week and continue to add money into the fund for the remainder means you will avoid skill erosion and get this done quicker.
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I agree with this.


AggieMike88 said:
Lower costs headsets for training are perfectly okay. I did my training with a crusty pair of Lightspeed 30-3G's that I got off of eBay for $200. Once you know you will finish training, you can save up the funds for the higher end models.
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I disagree with this. As someone that trained with cheaper headsets (actually, the first part of my training, we used the mic and speaker), and someone who other wise abused their ears early in life with power tools, power toys, and rock concerts, I now wear two very powerful hearing aids, and am practically deaf without them.

I would try to buy a good headset asap. But try them on, preferably for a few hours at at time. I am another one that can't wear David Clarks for more than 40 minutes without feeling like my head was in a vice.
 
AggieMike beat me to it but for emphasis: Don't get a loan!!

As for the headsets, I love my David Clarks. My wife offered to buy me a Bose set and I told her no. The DC fit me fine and I can wear them a long time. Maybe down the road for the Bose, but not now.
 
Yes, it's definitely a firehose. You will get on top of it, eventually.

As for the headset, get a comfy one. They can be had for cheap, even new. I got mine for $120. It's a DRE 1001. Later, I upgraded it to ANR with a kit for an additional $200. Still going strong, 5 years and 500+ hours later.

If you look through attenuation specs, you'll find they are all pretty much the same. The question is how they feel. I like gel seals with cloth covers, plus a PASSIVE mic (some of the DC's have active ones that are noisy as hell -- but not the one you are looking at). Try it on at a big pilot store. It's worth a 100 mile trip if you're about to spend $100 or more, right?
 
Jeff Szlauko said:
what do you guys (sorry, ladies too!), think of the David Clark h10 13.4 headsets? .
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I have 2 13.4s, and to me they are fine. Got 'em cheap on craigslist, also some listed on eBay. Search pigeonracing on POA search bar, he sells headsets.
 
Love my Faro ANR set. $350 new, and very comfortable ear cushions. The batteries last a long time....when I don't forget to turn them off after flight. :)
 
Being overwhelmed on your first lesson is normal.

As an instructor, I'd be concerned about a new students mental state if they weren't overwhelmed.

Don't worry as others have stated you will gain confidence with each lesson.

I bought reconditioned David Clarks off of eBay for half the cost of new & have been totally happy with them.

The reality of buying an airplane really hit my wife when the headsets came in the mail. It was just a week before we picked up our 182 in July.
 
I am at about 15 hrs and some stuff if not most are still overwhelming. I still remember my first take off, it seemed like from zero speed to 3000 altitude took little less than 3 seconds, and no I am not training in f15... then things started slowing down... at this point , I think it's my 8th take off and things are pretty much slowing down as in I am climbing and I talk to myself ..only 300 ft and it's been a long time since the ground roll..hey look there is a bunch of cars waiting on the street for no reason... wait, where did the cars go.. ohh need more rt rudder....

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 
Congrats on your beginning!!!

As others have stated, don't get a loan! Personally I'd save up my money for a few months and then have enough to do plan on 2 lessons a week. You'll be surprised how much faster you progress to not have to relearn stuff each time.

Headsets... I did what you're considering and bought a brand new DC 13.4 headset for training. I really liked the headset, but honestly didn't know any better. After finishing the PPL and starting to do some light travel I decided I wanted to upgrade to some better headsets for myself and my pax. Bought some used Lightspeed Zulu's on ebay for ~$400 and honestly... will NEVER go back. I currently have 3 Zulu's and 3 Uflymike / Bose QC15 setups (fly a 6 seat plane). Do yourself a favor and increase your budget just a bit and buy an ANR set used and you'll be so much happier! If I could do it all over again I would never have bought the David Clamps. They're well made and durable. Just not comfortable.

Being overwhelmed is normal. You'll get better each time and you'll occasionally have additional overwhelming experiences such as first solo, first X country, first simulated IMC (foggles), first pax, first post PPL X country, etc... Great memories!
 
It's normal. Take it one step at a time. Good luck on the rest of your training!
 
Jeff Szlauko said:
what do you guys (sorry, ladies too!), think of the David Clark h10 13.4 headsets? At some point I'd like to purchase a headset, and these seem to be good bang for the buck. .
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Not much...

You will lose your hearing only once. Get something that works and is comfortable for you. I use and suggest active noise cancelling (ANC) headsets. A passive headset just prolongs the time to noticeable hearing loss. But then again I fly for a living and may be in the air for 8 hours a day and 100 hours a month. And I do have a little hearing loss in the upper ranges..... especially my wifes range.
 
avongil said:
It seemed impossible until hour 20 for me.. I am starting to feel more comfortable now approaching 30 hrs. The stories one hears about the 7 hour solos or the guys who get their lic at 40.3 hours, I'm going to assume are gifted souls.
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I did my check ride at 45 hours and my examiner said he'd been doing it for 30 years and had only seen a handful do it in less time, And they all had time in military planes as navigators or something similar. Frankly, I don't think I should have passed. I wasn't ready.
 
Zeldman said:
Not much...

You will lose your hearing only once. Get something that works and is comfortable for you. I use and suggest active noise cancelling (ANC) headsets. A passive headset just prolongs the time to noticeable hearing loss. But then again I fly for a living and may be in the air for 8 hours a day and 100 hours a month. And I do have a little hearing loss in the upper ranges..... especially my wifes range.
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Do u use the ANR while she's talking ??

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 
Now I'm rethinking the headset thing, and now viewing the LightSPEED Sierra Headset. They may very well be the ones my instructor currently has me using. Seems like the ANR may be a really good thing! Someone also mentioned AVCOMM headsets. I wonder too if the in-ear type would be best. Ah, so many choices!

As for the flying, and being overwhelmed, it's good to hear this is normal. Heck, from the sound of it, I guess it's expected! I tend to be a very cautious person, and I think this may lead to me taking a bit more time to learn. I went thru this when I learned to ride a motorcycle, as I just needed to get the feel of it before I relaxed with it. Until that point though, I was hyper-sensitive to what was going on. Oh well, that's all part of the fun...and excitement...right? Rising to the challenge of it all is rewarding.

Plus, I just turned 60! Can't believe I'm that old! What better way to bring something knew and exciting into my life!
 
Avoid the Sierra and go straight for the Zulu.2. Construction is much better and they will last longer.
 
The best way I describe how it felt for me, is there are 30 tasks to do to land a plane, in the beginning you mess up 30 tasks because your overwhelmed and don't have all the tools yet, so your instructor takes over and does all 30. After a while you figure out 5 of the things, and your instructor only has to do 25 tasks. You feel a little less stressed, so it allows you to focus on the other 25. This continues on untill your doing nearly all 30, but your still having a hard time because its tough to do all 30, sometimes you forget a few things, which causes stress. Sometime one or two tasks you just can't get and it frustrates you. But as you practice more and more, the difficult things become easy and you do them without thinking, freeing up your brain to focus on the more difficult, important things. The key is to understand why your stressed, understand its part of the process, do your best and it will come into focus. Think of it like the old saying, "how do you eat an Elephant?" "One bite at a time."
 
midcap said:
I still can't land worth a darn and I am almost at 10 hours...you are doing great!
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Heck, I've got 400 hours and I can stink up a landing with the best of them. Don't worry, you'll get it figured out. And then you'll forget. You'll pass your PP check ride, have landings basically under control, and then you'll start instrument training and forget how to land an airplane all over again. :)

Jeff Szlauko said:
Plus, I just turned 60! Can't believe I'm that old! What better way to bring something knew and exciting into my life!
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You aren't old. I'll be 65 in April. :) Passed my PP ride 2 days after turning 49 and passed my IR ride at 59. But, this is a great way to learn something new. Have fun!
 
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