I completed my first 40 hours just as I finished my Stage 2 checkout. September 7, 2023.
It’s funny to think about, the FAA only requires 40 hours experience for Part 61 student pilots, 35 hours for 141 student pilots, but with the maneuvers that require proficiency, plus the required checks insurance companies specify prior to solo, these numbers are basically not achievable for anyone without prior experience.
To be honest, we are better for it. The required knowledge and experience may seem like a lot for a student pilot, but it helps keep you safe. General Aviation accidents have been on the decline for a while now, and I think most of the decline is an increase in training. This isn’t the FAA or flight schools becoming more strict on ACS standards or something; it is an increase in the amount of knowledge before you are set free. Later down the road, every extra hour of experience still counts toward your future goals.
Before Flight School
Prior to starting flight school, I have always been an AVGeek. Both my grandfathers were airline people, Delta & Eastern. The Air Force was my goal for a long time (although Information Technology won out… sadly).
I joined the Civil Air Patrol in middle school, Florida squadron 280 at Homestead Middle School. This was one of the first squadrons from a new school program the CAP was developing to build their cadet program. After a year or so at Homestead Middle, the squadron moved to some charter school and renamed to 802 to fall in line with the number scheme for the school initiative. I transitioned over to squadron 279 out of Homestead Air Reserve Station… or Base… shortly after this move. After being heavily involved for years, I left the Civil Air Patrol around 2004-2005, and my interests in the Air Force with it. I did apply and investigate joining the AF and Coast Guard aviation units after high school graduation, but that didn’t pan out.
I always kept an eye on the flight schools at the airports, but the expense and time requirements were a problem. But one day my neighbor called and said he was joining a school at Homestead General Aviation Airport. I went a signed up; the money and time requirement I’d just need to figure out on the fly.
Ground School
I started with a night class ground school. There were 4 of us in the class, plus the instructor. After purchasing an ASA student pilot kit (~$250), we jumped in to the basics.
Apparently the ASA ground school book thinks the basics are all the math around flight and aerodynamics. Not things like the parts of an airplane, or who is the FAA, or basic understanding of medical and certification requirements. Nope… math.
We jumped to the back of the book to find who is the FAA and started there.
Classes ran for 2 hours, usually 3 nights a week, for about 3 months. So (3 nights x 4 weeks) x 3 months = 36 classes or 72 hours. We covered a lot, and it helped later down the road.
We were introduced to ASA Prepware for the written test prep. The school had a requirement for 3 90% or higher practice test grades to receive an endorsement to take the written. I completed my written in August, with a 92%.
The FAA Written Test
Every FAA Certificate has a written test component. The Private Pilot Exam, or PAR, is the first. The test requires >70% to pass, consists of 65 questions, and you are given 2 1/2 hours to complete it.
Unlike most other FAA writens, the PAR does not have a public question bank that are the exact questions you could see on the test. Rather, the question banks are similar questions. Therefore, you should not work on memorizing the question and answers, but rather the understanding around the question.
An example is determining the VOR radial you will need to be on to traverse from an area on the section map to the VOR. If you end up memorizing the radial, and not the understanding on finding the radial, you’ll find yourself answering the question wrong.
The best advice I can give is to read the FAA Airplane Flying Handbook and the Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, as well as taking many many Prepware practice tests until you consistently score >90%. Be sure to learn the basic understanding of each question, and not the question. Also, brush up on Basic Med requirements… for whatever reason, I got a bunch of those.
Flight School
We finally get to the fun part, FLYING!
I started flying about 3/4 of the way through ground school. This is a nice place to start that I accidentally found as you have had many basic lessons on the ground, which help you get a running start in the air. But you also still have that last bit of ground where you can use your practical knowledge, that you’ll gain quickly while flying, to start to master the knowledge taught in ground.
Lesson 1: we taxied up and down Taxiway A at X51. I only had to do it once to show proficiency. We then took off and did a intro to flight lesson. Mostly straight and level flight, turns climbs descents. My previous experiences made this go by quickly, so my instructor and I jumped into stalls. After a handful of demonstrations, we walked through my first intentional stall and recovery.
Lesson 2 was a repeat of lesson 1, minus taxing. After lesson 2, my demonstration of slow flight was spot on, and my stall recoveries are becoming second nature… important knowledge to begin take offs and landings.
Lesson 3 I started learning take off and landings. I have a tendency to come in high.
Lessons 4 & 5 are nailing the maneuvers and knowledge from 1,2,3.
Lesson 6 & 7, Stage 1 review & check. A funny story is my instructor didn’t catch a change in the stage curriculums and thought Steep Turns were stage 2. Didn’t matter, I performed my Steep Turns within standard, on only the second attempt.
Lessons 8 – 14 are mostly pattern work, or flying circles over the airport in different configurations. Power off, no flaps, crosswinds, slips, etc are grinded until you remember each step by default. In the middle, we threw in night time pattern work for the night requirements, and flew the same night to KPBI (Palm Beach International) to meet the night cross country requirement; just for fun.
Lesson 15, it happens. SOLO! We are 28.9 hours in, with 135 take offs and landings.
At this point in my training, I am very knowledgeable about our home airport, X51 Homestead General Aviation Airport; the Cessna 172 checklists are very much routine now, but I still doublecheck I’ve remembered and completed everything with the paper list; and flying all the different situations are just another day in the office.
But here it starts to get fun, and technical.
Lesson 16 we begin Short Field & Soft Field maneuvers. It’s actually pretty easy to get confused since the names look and sound the same. I figured out a quick little saying for myself.
Short Field, climb out shortly (distance not time). Soft Field, get off the soft ground quickly.
To build a little on soft field, its not necessary to climb out quickly, but we want to be off the ground as soon as possible, since soft ground has bumps and holes. This reminds me to hold… well try to hold… the plane in ground effect until Vy (74K).
We also started ground reference maneuvers. I do not struggle with these at all.
The concept of ground reference is pretty easy, you want to draw the maneuver in smooth, easy lines with the breadcrumb feature on a GPS. Turns around a point should look like a perfect circle. S turns should look like S’s. The winds will push your airplane, and you need to account for these winds to make your maneuvers the desired shape.
Up to this writing, I’ve only had one iteration of these maneuvers that almost didn’t look proper. But then a gust of wind pushed the tail straight and I leveled the wings quickly, yelled “Nailed It!” into the intercom, and continued like it was planned. Maybe a little bit of cockiness helps.
On September 8, I passed my Stage 2 check out, at 42.0 hours, with a total of 172 landings, 2.9 night hours, 1.4 simulated instrument, and 1.9 hours solo time.
On to Cross Countries!
