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.
It was a Short. It was about 15 seconds long. And the title was, let's be honest, a slight exaggeration.
I didn't crash a real DA42 Twinstar. I crashed one in a simulator. But the title didn't say that. And YouTube didn't care. It got over 10,000 views - yes 10000 views, which for a Short on a channel my size at the time was a genuinely surprising number.
The interesting thing about that video is what it taught me about titles. I'd posted plenty of simulator content before with accurate, descriptive titles. Nobody watched them. The moment I framed it as a crash, people clicked.
There's something about the word crash that does something to people. I've noticed it consistently across my channel. Use the word crash in a title or thumbnail and the numbers go up. Every time. It doesn't matter if it's a simulator, a bad landing, or a near miss. The word itself is a magnet. People are drawn to it in a way that's hard to explain and slightly uncomfortable to admit you're exploiting.
I think it taps into something genuinely human. We watch dashcam compilations. We slow down past accidents. We want to see things go wrong because it's dramatic, and because somewhere in the back of our minds we're asking ourselves what we would have done differently. Aviation crashes carry extra weight because the stakes feel absolute.
When I started making videos I was very deliberate about avoiding what felt like clickbait. Sensational titles, misleading thumbnails, promising drama that wasn't there. It felt cheap and I didn't want WAP to be that kind of channel. That instinct is still right, I think. But the reality of YouTube in 2026 is more nuanced than simply avoiding clickbait.
YouTube isn't really an art form anymore. It's a science. The platform rewards specific behaviours and punishes others, and the metrics tell you exactly what's happening. Hook rate in the first three seconds. Average view duration. Click through rate on the thumbnail. Retention graphs that show you the precise moment people stopped watching and why. You can obsess over all of it, and plenty of creators do.
The crash title worked not just because of the word itself, but because it created a question in the viewer's mind that they needed to answer. That's the hook. The retention came because the video was short enough that leaving felt pointless. The click through rate was high because the thumbnail backed up the title. Every element was doing a job, even if I didn't fully understand that at the time.
The line I try to walk is psychological without being dishonest. Create curiosity, deliver on the promise, respect the viewer's time. Whether I always get that balance right is another question entirely. Only you know the answer to that!!
Flying near a major international airport like Heathrow in a little Cessna C172 is one of those things that sounds more terrifying than it is. And also exactly as terrifying as it sounds. Both things are true at the same time.
This video actually came out in the wake of the Heathrow substation fire and the airspace chaos that followed. A lot of people were suddenly very interested in how controlled airspace works around the world's busiest airports and what happens when a small GA aircraft gets anywhere near it.
Flying the transit is a structured process. You request it, If they like you get a squawk, you then follow the routing, and you don't mess about. You need to ensure your are precise and accurate. What the video gives you is the POV of doing that in real time. The radio calls, the situational awareness, the constant checking of where you are relative to where you're allowed to be.
Worth noting: always check NOTAMs and current airspace status before any Heathrow transit. Things change. Sometimes dramatically and at short notice as the fire rather proved. Don't be scared, it is fun, snd they are real people.
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
I quit. There. Not something I find easy to say.
I started my IR(R) with the best of intentions. The Instrument Rating (Restricted) IRR, felt like the logical next step. Be able to fly in worse weather. Be a safer pilot. All the reasons we all give. And then life, work, costs and if I'm honest a growing sense of being overwhelmed got in the way and I stopped.
This isn't a video about failure. Or at least I didn't intend it to be. It's a bit more honest than that. Flying in the UK means you're constantly fighting the weather, the costs, the scheduling, and your own confidence. Adding instrument training on top of that is a significant commitment. And there are times when the sensible thing is to stop, regroup, and come back when the conditions are right.
The IR(R) is still on the list. I want to do it. The plan is to restart whenI am properly back in the rhythm. But I wanted to be honest about why I stopped because I suspect I'm not the only one who's started something in aviation and quietly let it slide.
There's no shame in it. The important thing is the aircraft is still there. KK is still there. And I didnt break anything.
My most popular long-form video. And it's about getting a landing badly wrong.
That tells you everything you need to know about my viewers.
People don't watch aviation content to see perfect landings. They watch it to see what happens when things go wrong and how the pilot deals with it. Or in this case, doesn't deal with it particularly well. And they they jump in the comments and scream about my lack of skills. From their armchair, with their 10 hours of Microsoft FlightSim.
I'll be honest. The landing in this video is not my finest hour. And instead of doing the sensible thing and going around, I kept going. That's the mistake. Right there. The go-around is always the right call when things aren't right on final. Always. It took me longer than I'd like to admit to really get that into my bones.
This video is the blueprint for what I want to do with a future series. Watch the footage back. Be honest about what happened. Explain what should have happened. No excuses, no blaming the wind, no pretending the aircraft did something unexpected. Just an honest look at what went wrong and why. I do it time and time again. How many times do you think I watched the video during the edit?
The comments were mostly kind which I really appreciated. A few weren't. That's YouTube. The people who found it useful are the reason it's worth making.
This was our second attempt to fly KK to Le Touquet. The first didn't go well either. You'd think that would have been a sign.
Le Touquet in Frnce is one of those trips that every GA pilot in the UK has either done or wants to do. Cross the channel - it is wider than it looks, land in France, have lunch, fly home. Simple. In theory. In practice, flying a 1977 Cessna across the Channel has a way of finding things to go wrong. You have to get the simple stuff right. paper work. and more paperwork.
If you watch the video you will find that things didn't go entirely to plan. At one point ATC asked us the immortal question that nobody particularly wants to be asked. Do you wish to declare an emergency? We didn't. It wasn't that kind of situation. But being asked that question in a real aircraft about to fly over over real water has a way of focusing the mind rather sharply.
The training kicked in, we worked through it, and we got down safely. It sounds more dramatic that it actually was.
Le Touquet is still on the list. We'll try again. Probably.
We flew our 1977 Cessna to the Alps. And the French military got involved.
That sentence pretty much sums up the trip out to Aero Friedrichshafen 2023 and I'm still not entirely sure how it happened. What started as a straightforward cross-country to one of the world's biggest GA airshows turned into one of those flights where you're constantly wondering what's going to happen next.
Aero Friedrichshafen is worth the effort. If you're a GA pilot and you've never been, put it on the list. 860 exhibitors. Aircraft you'll never see at a UK airshow. The kind of flying culture that makes you realise how hard UK GA has it by comparison. Oh, and a Zeppelin. An actual Zeppelin flying overhead. That alone is worth the fuel.
The show floor video is the calmer of the two. Less French military, more wandering around trying not to spend money on things I don't need. Mostly unsuccessful on that front.
Two videos, one trip, and a reminder that GA flying doesn't have to stop at the English Channel. KK is perfectly capable of getting you somewhere interesting if you're willing to plan properly and accept that nothing will go entirely to plan.
Worth it. Every bit of it.
