Part 2 – Flight Training Insights & Survival Guide

Advice for the ATPL theory exams

Form a study group

My advice to students currently taking their ATPL exams is to form or join a study group, rather than always studying on your own. Although studying independently allows you to focus without distractions, there are benefits to having group study sessions as well:

A) You can bounce your ideas off each other.

B) You can ask each other questions. Sometimes instructors are busy, and if you’re someone like me who asks lots of questions, it might take a long time for them to get back to you, and you won’t even have the chance to ask all your questions.

C) You might find that something you thought was correct is wrong.

D) When plans have been made to meet up, you are likely to show up even if you lack motivation that day, to honour the commitment. Therefore, you get more studying done, and being around people can have a positive effect on your mood.

Try not to feel overwhelmed

In the beginning, you might feel overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of material. However, every time you study, the amount you know increases, and the amount that you don’t decreases. With some good planning, by the time your exam arrives, you will have learned everything you need to know.

8 Things to do when struggling with landings

In the beginning, when you are just learning to fly and land, flying regularly is important. Long gaps can hinder your progress, causing you to ultimately take more flying hours. There was a time when I went a long period without flying because I was waiting for my assigned instructor to become available. I decided to do everything in my power to help me land when I get back in the aircraft.

The following are helpful measures I undertook to improve my landings (but can be useful and applied to any phase of the flight training):

1. Improve your radio communication

When you are struggling to land, you want everything else on the flight deck to be easier so that you can focus on the approach and landing. One way to achieve this is by mastering your comms (communication), so that you don’t have to waste time on, for example, asking ATC to “Say Again”. I did my foundational flight training in America, where you can listen to live ATC online. On days that I was not flying, I used to listen to live ATC and familiarise myself with clearances. You can open the airport diagram in one tab, listen to Ground Control in another, and follow taxi clearances. Listening to live ATC allows you to navigate complex and unusual clearances in a calm environment.

2. Dry-flying

You may have heard of chair-flying, a popular rehearsal technique to practice procedures in a chair. This is the same, except that you are sitting in an aircraft seat. If your flight school allows you to chair-fly in an aircraft that is not in use, it is a great way to practice your landing checklists. The following is an exercise to practice pattern work (as a good landing starts with a good approach on final) with an added element of time pressure:

• Find an aircraft that is parked facing the runway.

• Turn on live ATC and a flight tracker and choose one aircraft that is currently

  at your aerodrome practising touch-and-go landings.

• Once you have visually identified your chosen aircraft in the sky in front of

  you, imagine that you are sitting in the cockpit of that aeroplane.

• Pay attention to ATC calls to your callsign, and practice all the upwind,

  crosswind, downwind, base, final, landing, and takeoff actions in real time with the aeroplane.

3. Visualisation before sleepingAre you finding yourself anxious in bed, with racing thoughts about your lesson the next day, and would like to practice a bit more to really put forth your best effort? Then, visualising your next flight in your head the night before, before going to sleep, may be a useful rehearsal technique for you.Depending on how much time/energy you have, you can go through procedures you feel less confident in, or even run through the entire flight, starting from the moment you step into the training centre to securing the aircraft after landing.

4. BackseatingAsk around (friends, instructors, flight leads) if there are any flights, preferably with students in a similar phase of the training, that you can backseat. Backseating is useful for watching the taxi and pre-take-off procedures, listening to radio calls, watching takeoff and landing, and familiarising yourself with your aerodrome.

If you are backseating a flight leaving the pattern, you get the benefit of familiarising yourself with waypoints and the practice area, which will be useful once you have learned landing and moved on to navigation flights.

5. Instructor

It is equally important to have a good instructor who is well-suited to you as a student. When I was struggling with landing, my flight school assigned a different instructor to me, who had more experience with pre-solo students that are learning to land. Additionally, if you are not happy with your instructor, don’t be afraid to speak up. This is your training, and you are paying for it.

6. Revisit the fundamentals

When I started flying with my new instructor, instead of just doing patterns again and again, which wasn’t working for me, we revisited manoeuvres like 30-degree bank turns (the pitch and power required and the sight picture), which are also done when turning in the pattern. If you are struggling to land VFR, check whether your basic skills are up to par. For example, are you looking at your instruments too much?

7. Find your own personal anthem

Inspired by my roommate during flight training, I learned to listen to songs that would hype me up before flights, anytime I felt nervous. I would listen to my chosen song in the morning before leaving my house, or at school before going to my aircraft to preflight, whenever it was appropriate. My personal go-to song is ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ from the Kung Fu Panda movie.

8. Do not lose hope

If you are struggling with landing, don’t give up on yourself. During this phase, I had to attend multiple meetings with my flight school and fight for myself. While it was scary, I’m glad that I showed up for myself because after overcoming this initial hurdle, I could continue training and experience the joy of flying. There is much to look forward to (navigation flights, cross-country solo, instrument approaches), so keep persevering.

Next time

Stay tuned for ‘Part 3 – Landing Your First Airline Job’, where I will be sharing notes on how to find and secure a job.