As many of you might know, I’ve been in the midst of trying to get my Private Pilot’s Licence, after having gained my Recreational Pilot’s Certificate with passenger carrying and cross-country endorsements.
If the amount of bureaucratic paper-shuffling, box-ticking, fees and applications I’ve had to wade through were any indication, I’d feel like I were applying for a spot on the Space Shuttle. Or running for public office. They certainly want you to be very sure its what you want.
The Private Pilot’s Licence, or PPL, will remove the restrictions I have on my current cert – namely, only 1 passenger, in a 2-seat single-engine plane, weighing less than 600 kg, and in uncontrolled airspace. Recreational still gives me 98% of the entire country. The PPL will allow me pretty much any plane up to 5700 kg, and full access, more passengers, etc. Plus the ability in the future to add multiple engines, night flying, or even instruments. And from there, who knows, could even parley that into a Commercial Pilot’s Licence and get paid for it one day. And, ironically, due to the controlled airspace restriction, I cannot even fly a recreational plane out of the aerodrome I trained at, Bankstown!! This will take care of that and give me some real options.
So after I decided back in December this is what I wanted to do, I was put in touch with Sydney Flying Club (known historically as Schofield’s or Schoies) by Brett my CFI for my journey up to now. I met their CFI, Bill, who looked over my logbook and had a chat with me and we discussed next steps. He put me in touch with Chris, who would be my new flight instructor.
Chris gave me all the information I needed for the Piper PA28-161 Warrior II aircraft, and a short “test” to work on so that my record would show I was familiar with the systems and procedures.
However, step 1 was I needed to get (at least) a Class 2 Medical Certificate. This meant going to a CASA-approved Doctor and having a small physical. No problem, I thought. Unfortunately, I did have to tick the box for “sleep apnea” which put me into a loop of more paperwork and tests. Saw a sleep physician, scheduled a sleep study (several months later by now) and confirmed for CASA what I already knew, which was that my sleep apnea was controllable by CPAP. Fine. 4 months later I finally get my certificate, but the turds dated it to January when I first put in the application, rather than April which is when i finally received it. I have to renew it in a year, but hopefully I’m a little wiser to the process.
I wasn’t idle though, and in the meantime, I used the time to fly more cross country hours in the (cheaper) recreational plane, to satisfy the requirements for cross country solo flight. I studied for and passed the dreaded PPL(A) CASA written examination. I ran around to my other instructors to get them to certify that my logbook entries to date were “true and correct”.
I went back and sat with Chris, showed him my progress to date, and we lined out a plan of attack. Of course he hasn’t flown with me, but at a minimum he seems to have a good idea of what it is going to take to get me where I need to be. If I do well and don’t need much remedial work, it seems feasibly doable inside 10-15 hours, which is about what I thought. A couple of flights to get used to the Piper, a few navs, couple hours of instrument work, controlled airspace endorsement, and a pre-test wrap-up flight. Then of course The Test.
My first flight in the Piper was supposed to have been yesterday, however the weather was not great, quite turbulent and windy, and probably not the best experience to transition into a new aeroplane. So I went in anyway just to see if things would settle out. I ticked another box, namely the Flight Radio Operator’s Licence test – made a 90%.
Chris came back in and said, yeah, not looking good… but, he very helpfully spent a few hours with me going over the things I missed on the test, working through the test booklet for the plane (from way back in January) and even giving me some performance and weight and balance problems to work through. I think that we are going to get along great.
So, we looked at the schedule for next week and got me on… now just have to hope the weather cooperates. I hope to have a better update this time next week, but as CASA says, you’re not clear to fly until the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane. I think I’m getting close now 🙂
morerightrudder 