Flying Lesson - West London Aero Club (White Waltham)

[TapA321 0]

Hi guys,

Today I went on an introductory flying lesson at the West London Aero Club, based at White Waltham airfield. I was flying a Piper PA-28 Warrior and the session included a 30 minute briefing and 1 hour's worth of flying. The instructor let me fly pretty much everything on this flight, apart from the takeoff and landing - where he took over about 200ft off the ground - oh and one incident where we were close to a collision with a glider . All of the pictures taken were taken by my dad, who was sat in the back seat. :nea:

Just as we were arriving, a Mustang was too. This Mustang is a frequent visitor here and, according to my instructor, the guy who owns it has one of the biggest World War aircraft collections in the country.

Aircraft details: Piper PA-28 Warrior, registration G-BZIO.

Just before the lesson, I'm standing in front of the plane. :smile:

A nice tight squeeze into the cockpit.

Beginning the taxi to runway 03

After takeoff, this motorway junction is used as a waypoint.

Passing over rural England.

Next we performed a steep roll at a 60 degree banking.

Another aircraft passing close. We had to keep a close look out for traffic as it was such a busy day in the nice weather.

The River Thames below.

Passing the Lakes just north of Reading.

I think this is Henley .. not too sure now.

Approach & Landing

Here is an overview of the airport (White Waltham) and its runways

For the approach, we were to fly over the active runway (runway 03) and then enter the "dead zone" to descend to 800ft and enter the traffic pattern to circle the airport and fly back round to line up with runway 03.

Passing over and into the "dead zone"

After flying back round, we are now parallel to runway 03, in the top left corner.

Now turning to line up with the active.

On finals with full flaps - this is where the instructor took over.

Taxiing off the runway, as another aircraft gets away.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little flight report! Thanks for viewing!

Cheers,

George

[mutley 4,497]

George,

Nice report and thanks for posting, you were really lucky with the weather today, it was glorious.

I like the PA 28, my first lesson was in an Ikarus C42 microlight :nea:

Will you be taking more lessons?

Joe

[TapA321 0]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for the reply. Certainly was lucky with the weather - easily the best day we've had this year. Visibility in the sky was great too.

I'd really love to take more lessons, and eventually obtain a PPL. I'm currently in Year 11 and taking GCSEs this summer, but after my A-levels (so at 18) I was thinking of taking a gap year, whereby I would work (to pay for the lessons) and also go flying. It's still early days, but I definately would love to continue flying.

Cheers,

George

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Nice looking Mustang!

[SEATAC 400]

Fantastic! Absolutely fantastic!

[rob16584 42]

Very nice shots George, good luck with the future flying

[mike H 456]

Lovely set of shots George and what a fantastic day you had. :nea:

It was at White Waltham I took my first flight with the ATC in a RAF Chipmunk way back in 1960. I had ago at the controls and then the pilot did some aerobatics. Just Awesome. It did make me feel abit sick at time as I remember, and the parachute harness was abit too big for me, I did not care I just wanted to Fly. Who knows what would of happened to me, if I had to jump out of the a/c. at that time.

Your dads pic's just brought it all back.

PS Good luck for the future. :smile:

[TapA321 0]

Thanks for the kind words, Mike. As it happens, there was someone doing an acrobatics lesson just before I set out for my lesson - looked pretty scary, but also very fun at the same time - and yes, I'm sure I'd feel pretty sick too! Unfortunately in this Piper there were no Parachutes, but I had the comforting thought of being last out of the aircraft if we had to evacuate!

I'm sure White Waltham hasn't really changed too much since you did your first flight there - it really is a nice friendly airfield.

Thanks to everyone else for the kind comments, too!

Cheers,

George

[The red barron 41]

Great report George.

I would love to obtain a PPL but haven't got the money so may do what you are looking into doing,

You had brilliant weather, I went up last year and had a hell of a lot of turbulence! but we were surrounded by clouds and it rained when we landed!

I joined the ATC last year and was meant to fly in February but that was cancelled as it was snowing, I remember being pulled out of final and taken into the CO's officer for her to tell me "you can't go flying tomorrow as the chief medical officer is snowed in!" I still haven't gone up and we need a date when the Chief med oficer can sign me off as I need to be signed off by Him before I can fly. Not fair everybody else gets to go flying and I can't!

Oh this brings back some memory's!

[grth_bbtt 0]

Looked like superb weather for flying there and looked like a great flight!

Looks a very tidy airfield to fly out of and certainly looks alot less hectic than Shoreham does!

I currently undergo around 2 trial lessons each year at Shoreham just for enjoyment and too see what its like. I am in the exact situation as you, exams this summer and then sixth form in September and wanting to get a PPL ASAP. Finding the money is a pretty hard job and it's the only thing stopping me at the moment