Has anyone got any words of advice on doing their PPL from their own experience?

I feel like I want a challenge to learn a skill that I never imagined myself having and this feels like it ticks the boxes from my initial research.

As I’ve got no flight experience I was considering going the glider route first or having a few short sessions to see how it sits with me before obviously committing.

I know it doesn’t allow you to fly in low vis or bad weather so wondering if I’m being a little optimistic about doing it if living in the UK?

I haven’t got so far to see what license I’d need to fly in France or other countries but that’d more likely be the eventual aim.

Thanks

I’ve done a bit of gliding and really love it, I like the challenge of finding lift and the serenity. No where near solo standard fwiw. Its much much cheaper to get your solo/licence than powered and then of course cheaper to do on an ongoing basis. Common to have ownership clubs sharing an aircraft. Note once you get the licence you have to do a certain number of hours to keep it up and this is costly for powered. A good friend of mine who has a glider licence now flies microlights as the best bang for his buck.

I’m part way through mine. I have a lot of thoughts but these are the main ones:

-Go with an experienced instructor who wants you to learn rather than someone who is looking for an airline job and just needs the money.
-really question whether your instructor is teaching you or just sitting beside you and change if necessary
– the weather will cause delays, accept it’s going to take longer than you expect
-read all the books at least once as quickly as you can as there is plenty of detail hidden in them that will help you
-slightly contentious one but I’d choose a field with crosswind runway options. IMO, it’s probably easier to learn to land and then learn crosswind technique than have a mixture of weather cancellations and crosswind lessons that you’re not really ready for

edit:
-you will be able to fly to Europe on your PPL. A very common trip is to head for Le Touqet for lunch. It really depends on where you’re based though. Depending where you are might influence your choice of ‘home’ airfield if that’s your aim as you can save a fair bit by not having to fly around London avoiding that airspace.

I used to be a solo glider, and I can tell you it’s an order of magnitude cheaper than a PPL for most of the fun. Plus it’s quieter.

Just passed mine a month ago. Had a few cancellations over the 18 months it took me, but you could use the time to take the written exams instead of flying.
The AFE books are by far the best to buy ,don’t bother with the pooleys ones.
Have to say it was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done and just being able to rent a plane and fly away is awesome.
Best of luck.

Just make sure you use proper maps after qualification – the airspace is very congested, and keeping out of restricted airspace will help avoid nasty surprises.
Any Instructor who tells you Military Airfields only legally need to be avoided by 3nm, not the full 5nm they publish needs owning with a set of bombers!! Whilst technically correct, it is equivalent to doing 30mph in the outside lane on a foggy motorway and will end up with a 5 ship formation of Tornado’s smashing past you at 500mph!!!

Mainly though, just enjoy it – Aviation is great!! (Im flying off to Boston this afternoon – even though its my job, I still love flying!)

I’d certainly have a couple of trial lessons before committing – whilst most people become addicted, it’s not everybody’s cup of tea.
Gliding is great fun and can be just a hobby or a very competitive sport. If you’re after something slightly different, what about gyrocopters?
Whichever route you take, don’t be afraid to swap instructors, it can be the difference between an enjoyable experience and a miserable time; it’s also similar to golf – you want to learn properly from the beginning and not develop bad habits which stay with you. Great fun, expensive, addictive.

Powered aircraft or gliders? I had the same dilemma a few years ago and went for gliding.

Like you I wanted a new challenge and was drawn towards getting a PPL but at around 8-10k from start to finish it wasn’t cheap (the gliding equivalent costs maybe £1,500, less if your’re a natural). I’ve also got a number of friends who passed their PPL and once they got over the novelty of flying from one small airfield to another small airfield quickly lost interest and let their currency lapse. With gliding you are always learning and there is always a new challenge.

If you want to progress to a CPL or get from A to B go for the Cessna. If you want to have fun I’d choose gliding.

I can’t speak for gliding but definitely invest the £20 in the first flying training book, read it and take a trial lesson for an hour. That will be under £200 and if you have any interest is worth it for the experience even if you decide it’s not for you.

If that goes ok and you’re still interested the next milestone is doing your first landing (however badly). That should be somewhere between 5 and 10 hours and you can make a decision on keeping going or stopping at that point having had a good experience of what it’s all about.

Daft question (or not) do any of the flight simulators for the PC/Mac help with learning how to control the aircraft?
Are they worth getting to grips with before going to the real thing?

What @Eddie says. I would compare (perhaps incorrectly) gliding/power aircraft to sailing/motorboats. Gliding/sailing are as much (if not totally) about the journey as the destination. Powered aircraft/motorboats are fundamentally about the destination as once you can fly the thing its an wxercise in A to B. Gliding is always a challenge of weather/thermals and sometimes just finding a place to land 🙂 As above you’ve competition elements and the ability to take some fabulous holdiays in say South Africa or New Zealand to fly in truely amazing places. You can even take holidays to go from novice to solo. See those costs £1,500 vs £10k. As you can see I am biased !!

Note as above it depends on how you take to it. I never got close to glider solo not least as I got very nervous at the thought of being up on my own. Being with an instructor I loved.

Daft question (or not) do any of the flight simulators for the PC/Mac help with learning how to control the aircraft

Not really.

You could probably get solo on a glider for the cost of some of those simulators! I think it took me less than two weeks full time to go solo, it’s like the first time you took the car out on your own but times ten 😀

Used to Glide many moons ago….converted to PPL and now have amassed 1000 hrs flying over the last 25 years…..you really get the bug….it is stunning to be able to view the earth from above having safely taken off and of course safely landing back down afterwards all done with your own piloting skills.

Gliding is a very social pastime….but you need lots of time.

Powered flying can be social, but often is not, especially after learning as you tend to turn up at a Flying club, rent an aircraft for an hour or two ( for a £200 hamburger !) return and go home. Best thing post PPL is to join the LAA …Light Aircraft Association who have a network of local branches (Struts) and are the grass roots organisation for flying in the UK . You will find many like minded pilots in the LAA and shares in aircraft groups which is a far better value for money way to fly.