18/10/2004

PPL for the second time

I first obtained a PPL in 1997 but after starting up my own business, flying sadly fell by the wayside. 6 years later with a few pennies in my pocket and whilst currently living and working in Sydney, Australia I decided to see if I could get flying again.

In June I started the process. As I already had a UK PPL to convert to an Australian licence I just had to pass an Australian Air Law exam and pass the Australian PPL flight test.

The Air Law exam was not too bad, similar in many aspects to the UK version although it is a Cyber exam (done online at the flying school) and surprisingly open book. Being open book did not make things much easier though as there are so many Australian aviation related manuals to take into the exam and finding the right content can take some time.

I took and passed the PPL flight test last Monday. This involved flying from my home airfield (Camden, south west of Sydney) to Canberra International. This first leg was a navigation exercise to prove I could find the destination and handle class c airspace. Unlike today, it was fabulous weather although this was after about 5 cancellations due to poor weather. Its not all sunshine in Sydney! In fact it can get very wet but more often, very windy.

The return trip from Sydney to Camden was via a small private strip at a place called Crookwell. Here I had to demonstrate stalls and a precautionary landing and various other handling skills before proving I could find my way back to the home airfield. 3.3 hours later I was back on the ground and informed of my pass. Yay!!

After roughly 6 years non flying I was very rusty, but my flying school did a fantastic job in getting me back up to speed with all things aviation whether getting to grips with Australian procedures or hands on flying training.

If anyone is in this neck of the woods, they could do far worse than get in touch with the guys at http://www.airborne-aviation.com.au . I found it a total pleasure getting back in the left hand seat. I avoided weekend lessons opting for weekday slots. This resulted in unrushed lessons with an excellent instructor. I can confidently say its one of the best flying schools I've been to and I'm not getting paid to say it

I feel as though all the various components of getting a PPL have been put in context and I am now comfortable and looking forward to exploring more of this great land... once the PPL has actually arrived that is!