So, student pilots.. Who are we and where do we stand?

eman1200 said:
fun stuff, aint it? don't take this the wrong way, as I know how exciting this stage of learning is, but take off and landing time is the time to be LISTENING more and talking, well, little to none. maybe a quick repeat of what the instructor is telling you to do..."reduce power"....."reducing power".......more right rudder..........."ok more right rudder", and that's it, as instructions will be coming at you one after the other. I know it's overwhelming but, more listening at this stage.
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For sure. Thank you for watching and the advice! I really do appreciate any input and I will have my ears on full next lesson. Which isn’t until next week. I did 8 landings yesterday and really felt like I got the hang of things. Then we did short field and loss of power simulations and it all changed again! I am still landing a bit left of centerline consistently for some reason and need to master that up. So next lesson if focusing on centerline and forward slip landings.


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500tt, Pp, Inst, hi p & complex, all writtens complete upto atp. Close to the com sel ride. Been off for months from moving getting back in sattle at falcon Aviation next week.
 
My PPL checkride is scheduled for this Saturday the 23rd. Me and my CFI are going to knock out my last hour of checkride prep this week. Let's hope for good weather that day.
 
Ronbonjovi said:
My PPL checkride is scheduled for this Saturday the 23rd. Me and my CFI are going to knock out my last hour of checkride prep this week. Let's hope for good weather that day.
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Good Luck! I have been following your progress a little closer than the others due to the tiger paw and being fairly local in POA terms.

Do you know the DPE that you most likely will be using?


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Ronbonjovi said:
My PPL checkride is scheduled for this Saturday the 23rd. Me and my CFI are going to knock out my last hour of checkride prep this week. Let's hope for good weather that day.
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Good Luck! prepping for mine also. Hoping to get it knocked out soon.
 
Greenhead said:
Good Luck! I have been following your progress a little closer than the others due to the tiger paw and being fairly local in POA terms.

Do you know the DPE that you most likely will be using?


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Thanks! I will be using Cyndy Hollman. Some of you may have seen her ground school youtube videos. We called Tom (I don't know his last name) and he was booked up for a while and he referred us to her. She is a local CFI who recently became a DPE. I'm planning a cross country from KGMU to KPDK. Works out well because I will be flying into PDK more than any other airport other than my home base. I have not flown out of KGMU though and we will be doing the checkride out of there so I need to take a quick flight over there to help get familiar before hand.
 
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Knocked off the written today as KRYY stayed MVFR all morning. Just need 5 night landings that take 1 hour and some more solo XC hours to get all the time based stuff done. Looking at mid July for practical.
 
Was able to add 1.1 hours yesterday, did all ground radio calls except for take off, instructor kept the center line and had me pull back for rotation - what a feeling! After departing Tampa airspace went up to 1,800 ft and started doing steep turns and ended with slow flights. It was really interesting to see what a steep turn looked and felt like in person besides reading about it or watching various videos.
 
Ronbonjovi said:
Thanks! I will be using Cyndy Hollman. Some of you may have seen her ground school youtube videos. We called Tom (I don't know his last name) and he was booked up for a while and he referred us to her. She is a local CFI who recently became a DPE. I'm planning a cross country from KGMU to KPDK. Works out well because I will be flying into PDK more than any other airport other than my home base. I have not flown out of KGMU though and we will be doing the checkride out of there so I need to take a quick flight over there to help get familiar before hand.
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I did my check ride at an unfamiliar airport. It wasn't an issue for mine.
 
Had a few hiccups come up since my solo back on the 5th of May. Weather here in FL has not been great, and then my grandma passed away and we had to head to CA for a week for the funeral. Finally got my first cross country done yesterday from KISM to KVDF, it was awesome and went flawless. I finally got to see how awesome Foreflight is outside of the pattern and the practice area, what a tool.
 
exncsurfer said:
I did my check ride at an unfamiliar airport. It wasn't an issue for mine.
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Can u see how this might be slightly intimidating to a student pilot on his checkride?




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This is where I did mine. I’m not sure what’s so intimidating about Greenville. I had done a couple of t&gs on 9 and then we landed and the CFI got out. Then a 182 blew a tire and they closed 9 so I soloed from 36. There was enough traffic that I had to adjust each pattern.

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Hello all, another wanna-be pilot here. I will solo in about two weeks or so. I have just under 30 hours. Before the solo I'll still have to have another 2.5 hours or so.

On that I have a question - isn't this a bit too much time for a pre-solo?
 
There is no formula. If you are learning, trust your instructor and are enjoying the ride, don’t worry about time to solo.
 
beretta said:
Hello all, another wanna-be pilot here. I will solo in about two weeks or so. I have just under 30 hours. Before the solo I'll still have to have another 2.5 hours or so.

On that I have a question - isn't this a bit too much time for a pre-solo?
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no. just because some have done it in less, means nothing. enjoy the solo!
 
Howdy Y'all.

Another student pilot here. I just had my third lesson. Currently working on slow flight, stalls, and trying to taxi without looking like I'm under the influence (I'm not!).
 
I feel your pain with Taxi. I'm using a C162 and controlling only using brakes instead of a rudder is really difficult for me for some reason.
CyclePilot said:
Howdy Y'all.

Another student pilot here. I just had my third lesson. Currently working on slow flight, stalls, and trying to taxi without looking like I'm under the influence (I'm not!).
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Got to fly again today. I've now logged 5 hours.

We worked on power on/off stalls and some crabbing. I'll be honest the stalls kind of spooked me. I'm still getting used to the 3D sensation of flight, so the airplane losing lift felt like vertigo or something. Hopefully things start to slow down soon, every flight is pretty intense right now. On a positive note, my taxiing was respectable, lol.
 
Written done (88). Did my >150nm XC today. RYY - AJR - AHN - RYY. Day started nice, but got real turbulent and windy around noon. Picked up Flight Following from AHN to RYY given all the Class D airports and ATL Bravo shelf. Landing was tough at RYY, gusty wind, did go-around then landed on the next try. Need one more XC flight and 1 hour of night +5 night landings and all ready to start Checkride Prep... Targeting mid-july
 
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Weathers not looking great for my checkride tomorrow. Fog/low ceilings in the morning when I’m supposed to fly to GMU from CEU. 12-22 kt winds in the afternoon according to the TAF. We’ll see what happens. Worst case I could drive there to try to knock out the oral.
 
57 year old pre-solo with 15.2 hours, 24 hour ground school class, 3rd class med, currently flying abt 3hrs a week. Studying for written with Dauntless Ground school. Built simulator with full instrumentation and radios, using X-plane and FSW. Currently considering instructor change. Biggest word of caution is choose flight school and instructor carefully, many (not all) schools are more into making money on plane rental and many (not all) CFI are just looking to build time on your dime for their ATP.
 
Hello All,

Its been a while since I posted, but today I got my first long cross country out of the way. We filed for 0730 and were wheels up just before that time, we did KISM-KBKV-KOCF-KISM. We left early enough where it wasn't blazing hot, and beat the weather. I had a great morning, and cant wait to get my solo cross country done. Below is a quick video I put together, I decided to do something a little different, and hope you enjoy, the video is just from the first let of todays flight.

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Skyking517 said:
Hello All,

Its been a while since I posted, but today I got my first long cross country out of the way. We filed for 0730 and were wheels up just before that time, we did KISM-KBKV-KOCF-KISM. We left early enough where it wasn't blazing hot, and beat the weather. I had a great morning, and cant wait to get my solo cross country done. Below is a quick video I put together, I decided to do something a little different, and hope you enjoy, the video is just from the first let of todays flight.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="
" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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That's the same plane Lew Dix instructs in in a lot of his videos.
 
16 hours in, solo and currently working on short/soft field practice and reviewing s-turns, stalls, steep turns and normal landings when solo. Can't wait to get into x-country! :)
 
Well you guys probably figured by my lack of update on the checkride that it didn’t happen. We had low ceilings Saturday morning until 10:30 and that was too late at that point for my dpes schedule. We had a tentative date for tomorrow morning but she got called to the airlines so rescheduled. As of now it’s set for July 17th. I’m trying to look at the positives so at least I’ll have more time to study.
 
First IR stage check scheduled for this Saturday. 1/3 of IR training done’ish!

Nowhere close to how hard PPL was, this is fun!
 
Cas Hoefman said:
First IR stage check scheduled for this Saturday. 1/3 of IR training done’ish!

Nowhere close to how hard PPL was, this is fun!
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Funny because I've heard people say just the opposite. Maybe after getting the PPL out of the way you're a pilot and whatever happens with the IR ticket, you're still a pilot.
 
I finally got the video done from my first solo. After landing I make some giant mistakes with ATC and my radio calls. Overall a great experience! Since this day I have done one more solo with 6 touch and go’s as well as my stage one check and passed. Making progress for sure and now have 20 hours in the logbook!




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Peter Anderson said:
I finally got the video done from my first solo. After landing I make some giant mistakes with ATC and my radio calls. Overall a great experience! Since this day I have done one more solo with 6 touch and go’s as well as my stage one check and passed. Making progress for sure and now have 20 hours in the logbook!




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Nice video. Congrats!
 
Peter Anderson said:
I finally got the video done from my first solo. After landing I make some giant mistakes with ATC and my radio calls. Overall a great experience! Since this day I have done one more solo with 6 touch and go’s as well as my stage one check and passed. Making progress for sure and now have 20 hours in the logbook!




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NICE! Blues Traveler too, sweet!
 
Currently at 73 hours over the past 4 years. Had to take time off for a new job. Getting ready for check-ride soon but lost my previous instructor to airlines and had to switch planes with .40 hour remaining for solo hours.
 
Tan said:
Currently at 73 hours over the past 4 years. Had to take time off for a new job. Getting ready for check-ride soon but lost my previous instructor to airlines and had to switch planes with .40 hour remaining for solo hours.
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Lots of people in that boat. Grab another CFI and go... you’ll get ‘er done! :)
 
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