New UK PPL student

Amateurish wrote:

Did your kids also suffer motion sickness at first? Is it better at higher altitudes?

The higher you fly the smother the air typically is – therefore motion sickness is less of a problem at higher altitudes in general.

Alpha_Floor wrote:

you’d never convince a PPL instructor to fly with you to France, let alone Spain, Italy, Croatia etc.

I doubt that works in PPL setup? or it has to be an exceptional ATO school?

I know one PPL UK ATO that does some of that, but 3*FIs are ferry pilots (bored of flying locally and happy to eat hot dog & sleep near aircraft), there is also a Microlight School where you get UK NPPL(M) after 20h of touring Spain & Slovenia !

Regarding passengers and motion sickness: don’t talk to them about motion sickness before the flight because that will predispose them.
If you know of someone who tends to get sick, give them one of those motion sickness tablets a few hours before the flight. They are good but have the side effect of making them sleepy also.
Carry bags in the aircraft. I take them from commercial airliners and then put them in every pocket of the PA28 when I am taking passengers (but I don’t tell them about the bags unless they are actually needed!). If someone is about to go, the bag better be ready right in front of them.

Kids are generally fine, it’s the adults that are of concern in my experience!

Regarding yourself feeling sick on your first flight: I am not afraid to say that I felt very unwell on my very first PPL training lesson. I had eaten way too much in the buffet for lunch, it was a hot summer day with thermal turbulence, and the excitemente of being in the air suddently invaded me while flying, pretty overwhelming feeling.

Since then, I’ve had flights where, let’s say, I was happy to finally be on the ground. Particularly some 2:30h training flights under the hood doing upset recoveries in bad weather and turbulence. Particularly if I hadn’t slept well the night before or if I was under stress for some other reason. This is normal.

One probably “can” find an FI who will do trips abroad – this is pretty common at the turboprop level, where a lot of owner-pilots want a “right seat filler” who knows the type – but is going to cost you a packet, because the school will bill the rental at the minimum daily hours (around Europe it is mostly around 3hrs/day, according to many past posts and what I hear) but you aren’t likely to be actually flying that much, plus the FI rate (he is still paid by the school), plus a hotel and food for him. I used to have to do this because the ex demanded a second pilot if I flew with one of the kids; she was doing it more to annoy me because she was happy if the FI sat in the back After a few years she gave up on this demand.

As mentioned, the chief consideration for passengers is to pick good smooth wx, because once someone has had a scare they will probably never fly again.

As @Alpha_Floor says, just nod and be polite and quietly get the PPL done.

They inhabit a particular world, and as a new customer they expect you to be interested in becoming part of that world. Revealing too overtly that you’re not isn’t a great idea – and to be honest this is applicable anywhere and isn’t really a flying matter.

Wherever you’re learning, the instructors might not be much use in terms of European touring and everything you want to achieve in the longer term, but they will probably be excellent at teaching you how to fly an aeroplane!

Amateurish wrote:

I will try to get two hours flying a week done, so hopefully complete the course before winter.

This is an excellent approach, perhaps even the practical minimum if one wants to get it done quickly. A glance at the first few pages of my logbook shows the first lesson on 04/04/11 then flying roughly twice a week before the skills test on 29/08/11. I don’t recall losing a single lesson to the weather (which must be some sort of record) – so do it quickly and do it over a summer – this summer! Once you get into winter you are losing many/most lessons to the weather which then means you go longer without flying, which means you lose your groove and need to repeat stuff, which means it take more flying hours as well as much more calendar time.

Also, don’t pay for the whole thing upfront – unless with a credit card.

Indeed – this has just happened to my son. He didn’t lose much but others did.

And yes do absolutely everything possible to avoid running into the Oct/Nov/Dec bit. I had booked every day to fly (90 lessons!) and got only around 3 of them. It just rained and rained.

The best way to progress beyond the PPL burger run is to fly with an experienced pilot.

I didn’t think anybody found my Youtube videos I never promote the channel. I use just Vimeo and pay them $50/year to get rid of adverts.

Peter wrote:

One probably “can” find an FI who will do trips abroad – this is pretty common at the turboprop level,

Initial PPL training on turboprops is, however, kind of rare – although I don’t see a legal reason why it should be impossible ;-) Good IFR instructors do it also in SEPs.

But let’s be realistic: The core of the PPL training is to get you in the air and back on the ground alive. The real cross country flight training happens after PPL.