Learning to fly, one mistake at a time
Flying is simple isn't it? Take off. Land. Repeat. And obviously try not to get the two confused.
I started learning to fly in my early 50s and have never quite stopped being a student. This is my attempt at explaining why I fly. To myself, to Wifey, and hopefully to you.
I hope you find my antics honest, humorous and possibly even inspiring? That last one is a bit of a stretch, I know. But I love flying, and I love seeing others understand why I fly. If that encourages one person into the air, then I've succeeded.
My goal is simple: keep the number of landings equal to the number of takeoffs. And of course, try not to crash. I'm not an instructor - listen to them not some internet influencer (I was once called an 'up and coming YouTuber - Thanks Flyer Magazine'!!), All you will find here is just me and my experiences. Hopefully you can learn from them before I run out of luck, skill or cash.
Mystery, Mayhem and short runways in a flight to Beccles Airfield in my C172. As well as landing on my shortest runway, I had to contend with the possibility of Exploding boats, Mystery UFOs and tongue tied flight instructors on the way, all in a day trip to Beccles Airfield
Not a whole one. Let's be clear about that before the wife reads this.
I bought a one fifth share in a 1977 Cessna 172N. G-DCKK. Based at Elstree. And honestly I think one of the better decisions I've made in aviation, which given some of my decisions in aviation is admittedly a low bar.
The share model makes sense for most GA pilots at my level. You can get cheap access to an aircraft without the eye-watering cost of owning one outright. The idea is you split the costs of the annuals, the insurance, and hopefully the unexpected bills.
And you get to share the joy and the pain in roughly equal measure.
What the video doesn't fully capture is the emotional side of it. Walking out to an aircraft and knowing it's partly yours. That it has your name on the paperwork. That the people who fly it share your slightly irrational love of a 47 year old Cessna that could generously be described as characterful.
It is the start of a journey. Why not come along for the ride?
Some things in aviation are worth the cost. KK is one of them.
Night flying changes everything. Obviously. It is dark for a start.
It might be the same airfield. It is hopefully the same runway. And I am prettey certain it is the same aircraft. And yet at night it feels like a completely different activity. All the visual references and cues you rely on during the day are gone. The lights of the ground merge with the lights of the sky in ways that take some getting used to. And Elstree at night has its own particular character. And weird runway lighting.
I did my night rating at Elstree and it's one of the parts of my training I remember most clearly. Not because it was the hardest, although some of it was, but because it felt like a genuine step into a different kind of flying. The world looks completely different from 1,000 feet at night.
If you're thinking about a night rating, do it. It makes you a better pilot and the views are spectacular.
Nine months in and it is time to be honest.
I bought a one fifth share in a 1977 Cessna 172N in early 2022. G-DCKK. I know G-DiCKK!!. Based at Elstree, my local airfield. And this video was my attempt to answer the question I'd been asking myself, and otehrs have been asking ever since the ink dried on the paperwork.
Was it worth it?
The honest answer at nine months is: yes, with caveats. The access is everything. Being able to book KK and fly without the faff of school aircraft availability and hourly rate anxiety changes the relationship you have with flying. It becomes more routine. More yours.
The caveats are real though. The bills. The annual. The insurance. The upgrades. The fuel that doesn't get cheaper. The months when life gets in the way and you're paying your share of fixed costs for an aircraft you're not flying. Those months sting a bit.
But the share model has worked for me, and hopefully will for you, assuming of course you go in with realistic expectations and a tolerance for the occasional expensive surprise.
18 months of training. And a promise.
I'd told someone I'd fly them to Duxford. At the time I wasn't entirely sure I'd ever be in a position to keep that promise. Learning to fly in your 50s has a way of making you question whether the whole thing is actually going to come together. And then one day it does.
Duxford is one of those destinations that means something. It's not just an airfield. It's the Spitfires, the history, the aircraft that tell the story of aviation in a way that nothing else quite manages. Flying into EGSU in a C172 and parking up next to some of those aircraft is one of those moments that reminds you why you started all this in the first place.
The flight itself wasn't perfect. They never are. But it was mine and I kept the promise.
If you're a newly qualified pilot looking for a first proper cross country destination, Duxford EGSU is worth considering. Good runway, well organised, and the cafe is decent. The aircraft on display are slightly better than decent.
Taking Caz flying for the first time was either very brave or very stupid. I'm still not entirely sure which.
She was sort of supportive of the whole learning to fly thing from the start. In the way that partners are supportive when they think it might be a phase. It wasn't a phase Well maybe it was, but once you have spent ££££ it becomes bigger. And eventually the moment arrived where the only logical next step was to actually put her in the right seat and see what happened.
Elstree to Sywell. A reasonable first trip. Sywell has a lovely cafe, a grass runway, and enough GA activity to make it feel like a proper day out rather than just a circuit. The plan was solid.
What the video captures is Caz being entirely herself throughout. Calm in the way that people are calm when they've decided worrying won't help. The occasional raised eyebrow. The look that says she's filing everything away for future reference.
She hasn't stopped me flying. That's probably the most important thing. She's been back in the right seat since. She's even been to Duxford.
Getting the people you love into the air with you is one of the better parts of this whole thing. Even if they spend the entire flight pretending to be fine and trying to feed me peanuts.
Pilots love toys. We can't help ourselves. And these days a huge chunk of that toy collection lives on an iPad.
The problem is there's a lot of rubbish out there. Everyone has an opinion. Half the aviation YouTubers you watch have affiliate links and discount codes for things they may or may not actually use. I don't do that. Partly because I'm a small channel and nobody's offering me discount codes. But mostly because I'd rather just tell you what I actually use and why.
Every student pilot hits that moment where they're standing in a shop or scrolling through the App Store with absolutely no idea what they actually need versus what looks impressive. It's overwhelming.
SkyDemon is the one I won't fly without. Flight planning, navigation, airspace awareness. It just works. But the video covers a broader range because the honest answer is it depends what stage you're at and what problem you're trying to solve.
A word of warning though. Apps update. Some of the specifics in the video have moved on since I made it. The broad principles haven't. Don't buy something because it's popular in the US. UK airspace is its own beast and not everything crosses the Atlantic cleanly.
There's a longer piece coming in the toys section that goes deeper into the specific things I use day to day. This video is the starting point. Worth a watch if you're just getting into this and wondering where to begin.
