Good day from a Newby South African Student Pilot

"Xonix" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi everyone, thanks for a great NewsGroup! I have recently started off
my Pilot career(having had a dream to fly for about 20 years)! Well,
with just 19 hours in my brand-new logbook and my first solo-flight
only 3 days ago, I am really excited and ready to go. (I have another
lesson in about 2 hours).

I am doing my PPL at the Lanseria Airport (FALA) just to the west of
Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa and am currently flying with a
little Cessna C150 Commuter. (EGZ - you will find a pic or two on the
web somewhere).

Question 1: Do you guys generally hire and fly or do you try to
acquire your own aircraft once you are ready?


I'm currently at 67.7 hrs total (passed my checkride at 51 Hrs) and I will
continue to rent for the forseable future. The flight school where I
trained has good planes and I like doing business with them.

Dunno if I'll ever be in a position to own my own plane so I'm looking into
flying clubs as a possible avenue to go down in 2005.

Question 2: Does anyone really benefit from a PC Flight Simulator - I
have done quite a number of hours in mine, but I found that the lack of
rudders in my sim is quite a disadvantage - I am INCREDIBLE lazy with
the rudders - especially when on final and moments after landing.

Depends on which simulator and for what it is being used. There are
purpose-built PC sims for IFR training that are worth looking at. Some seem
to think that even FS2004 is ok for working on approaches procedures, ILSs,
etc, but there seems to be a pretty wide-spread opinion that for VFR flight,
FS2004 is not a good idea because of:

-No seat of the pants feel
-No real ability to navigate by looking outside (some parts of the virtual
world are better than others...)
-Not really very accurate physics of flight nor performance (per the real
life C172SP)
-Teaches bad habits (like not looking outside...not using rudders properly)

As far as your own rudder use in real life, have your instructor work the
rudders while you handle the yoke and throttle for some cross wind landings
and takeoffs. First time my instructor and I did this, I thought he was
going to shove his foot through the floor with the amount of rudder he
kicked in at one point. Showed me that you must use all the control
surfaces all the time and actively fly the plane all the way to the ground
(and beyond...) and don't just "be along for the ride."

I almost stuffed us in the weeds on a couple of occasions because I didn't
stay proactive with the rudders in gusty conditions. I've since come to
like the "Rudder Pedal Two Step."

Something that happened with my first solo: I did three circuits
(Dual) and then dropped my Instructor at the tower. Cleared for Taxi,
did the run-up tests and took off. Was pretty amazed with the power of
the aircraft since the instructor was on the ground. The circuit went
just fine, the approach was very good and the landing was really safe.
And then, a Jackal on the runway! I had to keep myself ready for a
go-around, but luckily it was out of the way in good time. Will never
forget that! What happened with your first solos? Can you still
remember it?

My solo was very un-eventful. Three clean circuits and then back to the
ramp with a big, big sh*t eating grin on my face.

A few days later, in the early stages of takeoff, we had to sort of swerve
around a tumbleweed. Not as interesting as a jackal, but it was worth
reporting to the tower.

Good luck with the rest of your training and be sure to drop by
rec.aviation.student for additional flight training discussions.

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ (USA)







Anyhow, the main objective of this posting was just to say "Hi", I hope
that I will be getting some responses!

Take care and happy flying!

Hey there! Thanks for the lengthy reply! I will definately pop into
the Student Newsgroup - I think that is where I belong at this stage!
Yeah, no flight simulator (PC Base in any event) will EVER substitute
the real thing! Take care and happy flying! Ettienne