For those who don’t know me, my name is Rich and I work on the operations desk at the flying school. Every few months I will update you on my journey and experiences as a student pilot conquering the skies. I have a PPL and passed the 14 ATPL ground exams with a goal to attain a commercial pilot’s licence.

After a slow start to the year following the poor weather, it was great to finally get airborne again. Being grounded has meant that I can spend time thinking about how to structure the hour building and get inspiration on new airfields to visit. I need to build a further 36 hours of PIC (Pilot in Command) time during the hour building phase before starting a commercial pilot’s licence course, which requires 100hours of PIC time before the commencement of training.

It’s been a while since I last flew so it’s going to take a few refreshers to shake the rust off and get current again, so I plan on getting current on one of Goodwood Flying School’s Cessna 172S’s, an aeroplane I learnt to fly in some eight years previous. A steady mix of general handling, PFLs and a stack of circuits should certainly help. I hope to cover some crosswind circuits too as you can never practice them enough!

My first flight

Date: 11/08/09

Location: Goodwood Aerodrome 

Aircraft: PA28 G-ELZY 

Instructor: Mike Norman 

Remarks: My parents bought me a trial flying lesson for my 19th birthday after I'd shown a huge interest in aviation. We took off and headed west towards Hayling Island, Mike handed me control of the aeroplane and that was it! I was hooked! 

Pictured below is me (on the left) walking out with my instructor to ‘ZY after a pre-flight briefing at the Flying School, looking forward to getting airborne!