Once they have a PPL, many people will fly in the familiar local area before taking family and friends for a flight and gradually stretching their wings to land-aways at familiar airfields.
PROUD to be a pilot
The CAA launched the PROUD scheme to encourage pilots to build their skills. There are several schemes around, all of which have criteria such as total hours experience, cross-country miles and land-aways, new experiences and attendance at seminars.
If you fly at Andrewsfield, I recommend joining their Flight Levels scheme. The Bronze level is aimed at newly minted PPL’s and can be achieved in a modest amount of flying over 1-2 years. The Andrewsfield scheme is unique in offering members a discount on flying costs. Bronze gets you a 5% discount; the Silver, Gold and Diamond levels are more challenging, with commensurately higher rewards.
Cross-country coaching
Maybe you just want some advice on which airfields to visit – we can help! Perhaps you want some concrete advice on how to plan the route or join an unfamiliar circuit – just ask us for advice! Beyond that you may want to consider our advanced navigation course, or one of the options below.
Cross channel flying
Cross channel flying is great fun – you can’t beat a stroll on the beach followed by a nice lunch at Le Touquet or fresh sea food at Oostende. Your aircraft does not know whether it is over land or water, nor does it know which country it’s in. But you need to know!
In a cross-channel check out, we will provide a briefing and then fly with you to your chosen destination and back. There are a few more formalities to be observed when flying out of or back to the UK. We will cover filing a flight plan, requesting Customs and PPR at the destination, filling out the GAR form required by Border Force, and how to get weather and other practical information on the continent. If you are already familiar with these, you can find handy links on the Planning Links page.
Some practices in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands are different to our own, the most important of which is how to join the circuit. Although you can rely on speaking English at major airfields, we will provide an elementary knowledge of French and German RT vocabulary, which will help in situational awareness and can be used at the smaller airfields. Where appropriate, we will use navigation aids such as GPS and VOR’s to help reach the destination easily.
Formal training
If you have the thirst for some more formal training then you may want to consider the following.
IMC rating
The IMC rating is the next step for many PPL’s, who wish to obtain more flexibility when flying in our changeable UK weather. It will allow you to depart in poor weather, operate in cloud, out of sight of the surface, and fly instrument approaches on arrival.
The IMC rating is recorded on your PPL licence as an (IR(R), i.e. restricted IR. The restrictions refer to the facts that it can only be sued in the UK, does not allow flight in class A airspace and has certain limitations on approach minima. Every IMC rated pilot will confirm that the training raises their flying ability generally, and for some, the IMC rating is a stepping stone to a full IR. EASA are also developing a basic instrument rating (BIR) with greater privileges than the IR(R), and we anticipate that IR(R) holders will receive a credit for their training if applying for a BIR.
Prior to starting the course, you must have flown 25 hrs after issue of your PPL, of which at least 10 hrs PiC (pilot in command), and 5 hrs PiC on cross-country flights.
The course involves a minimum 15 hours of training, of which 10 hours must be FBSRI – flight by sole reference to instruments, either simulated or actual IMC. We will cover flight on full and limited panel, recovery from unusual attitudes, ADF tracking and holds, and a variety of instrument approaches such as NDB, ILS, GPS and SRA approaches. You can train in your own aircraft (if suitably equipped) or in a club aeroplane.
Night rating
The night rating allows you to fly VFR …..at night! Flight at night is a beautiful experience in its own right. It is the only qualification that does not entail a test (but regrettably there is a fee to be paid to the CAA for entering the rating on your license) and is open to any PPL holder, provided you are not dis-qualified by colour blindness. It requires a minimum of 5 hours training, including 5 solo circuits and landing. We start with a full briefing and undertake a familiarisation flight, 1 hour cross- country flight (he minimum requirement is 50 km), circuit training and practice for emergencies.
Farm strip flying
There are a huge number of privately owned air strips around the UK which can be used by GA pilots with prior permission. They may provide convenient access for visits to friends, hotels, spas, restaurants, stately homes, the races or auction rooms. Private strips range from undemanding flat airfields of billiard table smoothness, to rough fields dotted with cow-pats, sloping runways, and airfields with challenging approaches. We will examine how to discover where these fields are, how to plan a flight to such air-strips. We will practice short-field techniques at a larger airfield before attempting approaches and landings at several different strips. We can tailor the course to the kind of airfield you plan to visit. All this will give you confidence to make your own flights.