It has been 3 years to the day assuming you are reading this on December 22nd 2024, of my passing my PPL. Since then it has been a journey with ups and downs. Was it worth it? You will have to possibly watch the video to find out
Transcript
Hello everyone. It's Wayne here from Whiskey Alpha Pilot. And today on the 22nd of December, 2024 marks something quite special because today is the three year anniversary of me passing my PPL. Yes, I have been a private pilot for the last three years and it's been quite a journey. First two years, and quite a lot of that's been documented on my YouTube channel.
Don't forget link in the description below and all that stuff. It's been interesting. The journey's been fantastic. There's been ups and there's been downs. The first question I get asked when people find out that I'm a pilot is, was it worth it? And the simple answer is, I think yes. Why do I sound like I'm qualifying that?
And the answer is because I'm being honest. There have been times in my journey where I sit here thinking I've spent all this money and is it really worth it? And then there's other times when I'm generally when I'm flying thinking, yay, this is great fun. I love doing this, but it's not always the case.
I have had a few ups and downs, shall we say, some of which I put onto YouTube, which sometimes that's been a mistake. People have this obsession with me not landing in the center line and then they start to lay into you in other ways. And I've seen it with other YouTubers and it's just not nice. And it's sometimes it's quite difficult to deal with.
If lots of people out there are effectively attacking what you're doing, some of that's going to rub off and you're going to start to potentially believe them and start to lose confidence. And I think to a certain extent that has happened to me. It's one of the reasons I've done less videos this year.
But I'm not going to use that as an excuse because this year has actually been quite difficult. Not because of YouTube, but because of real life, I happen to have a job and if you've watched one of my previous videos, you know what I do for a living. I'm not going to tell you again. And I have a family, so I have to fit flying around my real life career and my family.
And sometimes it gets in the way. You just can't go flying at the drop of a hat. And then when I've decided that I want to go flying the second thing that's cropped up. And that's the weather. And the weather in the UK this year has been atrocious. And I mean rubbish. Yep, I could go and get my IIR and I decided to stop my IIR.
Again, there's a video about that if you really want to go and watch. The weather in the UK has just been atrocious. We've had low cloud base, We've had high winds. We've had virtually everything you can think of and you almost guarantee the days that you actually want to go flying and the days, the weather's atrocious and the days you can't go flying cause I'm working or on holiday or doing something with the family, the weather's been brilliant.
So a big chunk of this is weather. A couple of times we haven't been able to fly due to the fact that the aircraft has gone the tech. We've had a couple of issues this year, nothing massively major. And at the moment Kilo Kilo is actually in an avionics shop because we are having some upgrades done and there will be a video about that coming out soon.
Assuming we can get it back in one piece because there's been a few issues, not saying that there wasn't going to be issues when you're doing massive upgrades, but it's been a journey as they say. So. Was it worth it? Yes, it was. But what's the good points? Friends and experiences, I think I would put right at the top.
I've met a lot of new friends from flying, a lot of new friends from doing YouTube, and it's been fantastic. It's great fun listening to people and talking to people about flying, about what they've done, what I do, what I haven't done, what I could do. And even at the top level when you talk to commercial pilots, most commercial pilots are really great.
It's really good. Because they have been through the process that we've been through as private pilots. They've gone through the hours of tearing our hair out over doing exams and solo cross countries and tests, etc. And they've taken it to much higher levels. So CPL with its 13 exams, I think it's 13.
They've gone higher and higher and when I've flown commercial and actually had the opportunity to talk to people in in the front when they come out from behind their bar doors. It's been fantastic. The one anecdote I'd love to talk about is I got asked by someone, I think it was easy jet where it might have been BA.
And the question they asked me when my wife had told them that I was a pilot, not me, my wife had told them, so who do you fly with? I just turned around and went, Jack. They were expecting me to say, Oh, BA or Virgin. But it was like, no, I fly with Jack and they were just laughed. It was, it was brilliant. So, I've flown to places I would never have flown to before.
I've been to places I would have never have been to before. And, the journey has been fantastic. It's not as expensive as I thought it was going to be. I've actually got money in the kitty to go flying, because I've paid for things and I haven't then used up to go flying. But, as a share, and I own a fifth of Kilo Kilo, we've managed to keep a handle on the bills.
Admittedly, we don't have an engine fund, so if the engine decides to We're going to get hit with a big bill and we've all had to pay a chunk of money out for the avionics upgrades. It hasn't been as expensive as I thought it was going to be, especially with the local flight school increasing their prices.
I wouldn't say exorbitantly, but their prices have gone up, because their costs have gone up. It's a fact of life, but it hasn't been as expensive as I thought it was going to be. So once you pass your PPL, share, great thing to do. I'll probably get around to doing a video about doing a share. Bad points.
Not flying enough. That's the biggest thing. Because that then leads to the fact that flying is a perishable skill. If you don't fly, you start to lose that edge. You start to lose the ability to fly. Yes, you can still get in the plane and get it off, but do you have that level of finesse to do a safe, smooth landing?
Proficiency is one thing. Confidence is the other thing. And confidence is something I suffer from. I do sometimes take to heart too much people's comments on YouTube. I look at my videos. I am the worst person to watch my videos. And it gets worse when I'm the person doing the editing of any video that I take because I'm sitting there watching every single little bit.
I'm the worst critic of myself.
So confidence is a big issue for me. I've already mentioned social media. I'm not going to harp on about it because this is a YouTube channel. I'm involved in social media because I do YouTube videos about flying. Why do I do YouTube videos about flying? Well, it's to try and give other people an insight into the journey that I'm undertaking.
I'm not an instructor. I have no intention of becoming an instructor. These are not instructional videos. But sometimes people take them as that, but it does give you a reflection as to how my experience and my journey has been and whether it reflects in the same way on your journey and your experience.
Do I recommend people put stuff on social media? Honestly, no. You need pretty thick skin to put stuff out because people are going to tear you to pieces. And the more you put stuff out, the more people feel that they need to tear you to pieces. That's life. What's the next year going to entail? Well, the first thing is Hopefully more flying and I'm really going to push the more flying aspect.
I've actually managed to rejig some of my life. Some, some of the commitments I had in the past few years I've shifted around or I've dropped because I want to go flying. I spent three years, I spent more than three years because if you include the time it took me to learn to fly, I've spent enormous sums of money dedicating my life to doing something that I like doing.
I need to keep doing it. So I'm gonna go and do some more flying. Kilo Kilo has a whole bunch of upgrades, which hopefully we'll make. flying a little bit easier. Yeah, people always complain that if you start to upgrade avionics, then people are going to rely more on them. But when you're in a situation where you're trying to do IIR and simple things like not having a heading bug on a compass can drive you up the wall.
Yeah, you can fly without it. You just have to remember it, but it's another thing to remember. So we've come up with some upgrades. 430 W which was. On its last legs We had some 25 kilohertz radios, which were minus being on their last legs In fact, most the time you had to push them in to get them to work at all.
They're done they just need to be picked up from the avionics specialists and Then we need to drop them off to our engineers because one of the power regulators has gone. So Hopefully early in the year we get Kilo Kilo back fingers crossed then it's a case of praying for good weather and keeping fingers crossed, but That's it Fundamentally, 2025, you are going to see more of me flying kilo kilo.
Hopefully that will then build my confidence. Hopefully that will build my skill set. Yeah, I'm still going to fly with Jack from time to time because everyone loves the Jack and Wayne show or the Wayne and Jack show, depending on how you want to call it. It's great fun flying with Jack. I like flying with Jack, but yes, I will be flying more on my own and flying more with non pilots because I need to build up my flying skills.
I can't just rely on having a professional experienced pilot beside me who's going to do the radios just because I can't be bothered to do the radios. Give some something to do, but yeah, I'll be flying more with Jack. I'll be flying more on my own. And you'll see a few more videos of Kaz, wifey in the back.
That's the plans for 2025. Hopefully, fingers crossed, the weather will sort itself out and things will take off, as they say. Anyway, if you like what I'm doing, please consider subscribing to the channel and do the old thumbs up on the video. Also, please consider leaving comments. If you have any comments or questions, I'll do my best to answer them.
If you're just going to complain about my landings, don't bother. I'll just ignore you. But if you've got constructive ideas or things you'd like me to address, things you'd like me to talk about, things that I've experienced in my training and my post training, things that I have experienced in my training that you'd like me to.
Explore and expand on. Yep. I can do that. Um, that's what I'd like to do. Bear in mind. I'm not an instructor So, please don't start to ask me instructory type questions. Best person to ask is your instructor I am not a qualified flight instructor. This is not a flight instructional you tube channel and hopefully We'll have some fun along the way, but whatever you do, please Thanks for watching Have fun.
Happy Christmas and be safe Bye!
