Flight Training | What to Expect on Your First Training Flight

What to Expect on Your First Training Flight

Introduction

So it is your first flight, you have finished all your theory, you've covered all the subjects and you're ready for your first training flight.

Generally Effects of Control is the first exercise covered during your flight training. The main objective of the exercise is to allow the student pilot to experience the primary, secondary, and tertiary effects of controls, and to become familiar with how to counteract any undesirable effect.

But from your perspective (you being the student pilot), this exercise is much more than that. This is probably the first time you will be in the actual aircraft. You will be experiencing all the different aspect of flying that you previously read about. Simple things like the confined space in the cockpit, ATC chatter, G-loading, and turbulence, will all contribute to create an overwhelming experience for some and hindering your ability to properly concentrate on the primary objective of the lesson/ exercise.

This is completely normal! I still remember after my first flight I was exhausted and sweating profusely. My advise to you is to anticipate and accept that the first flight might be a lot to take, make sure you have rested well the night before, make sure to talk and communicate to your instructor about any discomfort you may be experiencing at any stage of the flight, and most importantly manage your expectations of yourself. Don't expect to be able to learn to communicate, carry out checklists, taxi, take-off, etc... from your first flight.

Listen to you instructor, they should (and will) compartmentalize the tasks and slowly hand over more tasks/ responsibilities to you as you progress during your training. And if at anytime you feel task saturated, please communicate that to your instructor. It is essential that you are comfortable enough to experience, understand, and comprehend the primary objectives of each exercise.

The Briefing

So you have done your studying the night before and you are ready and eager for your first flight. A properly conducted Flight Training Exercise should always begin with a pre-flight briefing.

The purpose of a pre-flight briefing is to quickly go over what is going to happen during the flight. Points such as the following should be discussed:

1. The instructor will cover how the primary objectives of the lesson will be taught;
2. The instructor will explain the sequence of events of the exercise;
3. The instructor will specify where the training will happen (Which training area? How do we get there? What altitudes to expect to operate at? How much traffic is expected in the training area at that time of the day? etc...)
4. The instructor will determine how the tasks will be divided / shared between the instructor and the student. At least for the first few flights of the course the instructor should specify who will be responsible for navigation, communication, carrying out checklists etc.. You should expect to be gradually given more of the tasks / responsibilities as you progress during your training, you should be able to manage all tasks / responsibilities by the time you are ready for your first solo.

The instructor should encourage questions during and after the pre-flight briefing. Think about the points listed above, if you feel like any of them are unclear ask for clarification from your instructor before leaving the briefing room because things will get pretty busy as soon as you walk out to the aircraft.

The Walk Around

The "Walk Around" is a key safety and security check of the exterior and interior of the aircraft. The walk around one of the first checks to be performed before a flight. The purpose of a talk around is to check the condition of the different components of the aircraft and to check for unwanted items onboard and aircraft (for security purposes). During a walk around you are generally inspecting the following elements of the aircraft:

• The flight control surfaces;
• The wheels, brakes and tires;
• The interior of the aircraft;
• The different probes and sensors (pitot, static, OAT, static dischargers);
• The cleanliness of the windscreen and windows (clean and clear windscreens are essential for a propped lookout);
• Wheel wells (for aircrafts with retractable undercarriege);
• The various engine inlets, outlets, and exhaust/s;
• Engine oil and other serviceable fluids. 

You will be surprised, during your career, by the amount of issues that go unnoticed by the previous crew. It is easy to miss something when you're exhausted after a long flight at the end of the day. Keep in mind this is never an excuse to skip the post flight checks (discussed later), but we are humans at the end of the day and we all make mistakes.

The Night Before Your First Flight

Before you show up to the flight, make sure you go through your checklist and read the walk around checklist a couple of times. Try to find images online for your aircraft, look for images for all 360° of the aircraft's exterior, and look for images of the cockpit. Then go through the checklist and try to identify where each item is on the images you found. This will take the burden away on the day of the flight and you will give your instructor a good first impression.

The Day of The Flight

Your instructor will demonstrate the first walk around. During that time don't be surprised if they throw in a couple of questions, instructors tend to do that to gauge how prepared you are for the flight. This is where prior preparation comes in handy.

Some instructors may even ask you to pull out the checklist and carry out the walk around while they monitor you. This is were your preparation will come in handy.

You will quickly notice that most checks, including the Walk Around, are designed in an ergonomic way. This doesn't apply to all aircraft manufacturers, but for the majority of manufacturers you will quickly notice that a lot of thought has been placed into putting checks in a "flow". Walk Arounds generally go clock wise or anti clock wise and begins from the left hand side access into the cockpit (some aircrafts such as the PA28 have only one access into the fuselage and its from the right).

Ask questions when performing the walk around, don't worry about "the instructor getting a bad expression" you are there to learn! But PLEASE don't point to the elevator and ask what 
kind of flap that is! (True story!)

The Flight

Pre-Flight Checks

Even though flight time is not logged until you start taxiing on your own power, your mind should switch to "Flight Mode" from the moment you walk out to the aircraft. That means the Pre-Flight Checks should be handled as seriously as any other aspect of the flight. 

Conducting a thorough pre-flight check is essential for the safety of the flight, so always take your time. You will notice that, as with the Walk Around, Pre-Flight Checks generally follow a flow and go around the cockpit in a well thought out manner. At the beginning of flying a new aircraft you might feel that the checklist is going in a completely arbitrary manner and you will not be able to see the checklist maker's intentions (or flow) that they had in mind until you repeat the check a couple of times. So, always try to look for the patterns in checklists, or you can always ask your Flight Instructor if there is a certain flow. 

A common mistake that happens commonly is skipping items on the checklists. This could be a big threat to the safety of the flight and are avoidable. Here are the most common reasons why student pilots tend to miss checklist items:

• Rushing through checks;
• Getting distracted;
• Checklists are printed on a small A5 checklists and a small font is used.

Taxiing

Taxiing is one of the things that may leave you disheartened after your first attempt. For those of us who have had a driving license for a while before beginning flying, actions like turning may seem counter intuitive. 

The silver lining is, from my experience, taxiing is one of the tasks with the highest learning curve. The most important thing is not to stress about it or over think it. It will come with experience.

A common mistake that student pilots tend to do, even after acquiring the motor skills to taxi smoothly, is that they tend to look at the taxiway center line marking a short distance in front of the aeroplane. This will cause you to notice even more most minor deviations from the taxiway center line and you will intuitively begin to correct. This is bad because: 

1. Making way to many minor corrections, to the minor deviations that you will notice, in a short time frame will cause your inputs to seem jittery. This is uncomfortable for all the occupants of the aircraft.
2. Concentrating on making corrections to minor deviations will take a lot of concentration. This heavy concentration will come at the cost of reducing your situational awareness, your ability to navigate the taxiways, and monitor atc/ traffic.

The solution to this problem is to look straight ahead and far away down the taxiway. This will stop you from chasing minor deviations but will still allow you to notice any significant, unwanted, turning tendencies.

Take Off

Before going to the flight make sure you know your aircraft's Rotation Speed (Vr), Best Angle of Climb Speed (Vx), and Best Rate of Climb Speed (Vy). If you feel like you can still shove some more numbers in your brain, learn the flap retraction speed and and flap retraction altitude limitations if they exist in your aircraft manual or company Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

Now for the Take Off, as per the syllabus (some may vary), you are almost never required to practice or learn how to Take Off on the first flight. Some instructors may let you have a go at it, and some student pilots would ask to give it a shot. Remember if you do give it a try, do not expect to get it right and most importantly (you might've noticed there's a repetitive theme here), DO NOT GET DISHEARTENED if you make mistakes or if the instructor has to intervene. It is completely normal.

In a single engine piston aircraft the most difficult aspect of a take off is the rudder control. And of course you know why because you've gone through your theory and you remember it all :D. In case this is one of those days where your memory has failed you, go back to your books (or iPads) and look up the propeller effects. There are 4 of them. Here is a quick question to check your knowledge:

For a Single-Engine Piston aircraft with a clock wise rotating propeller, 3 of the 4 propeller forces contribute to a left turning tendency during the take off,  and only 1 of the 4 forces contributes to a right turning tendency. 

Do you remember which 1 force works in your favor (i.e. give the aircraft a right turning tendency)?

Navigating to The Training Area

Once again, for the first flight the instructor should be completely responsible for taking you to, and bringing you back from the training area. If you feel like you want to give it a go, talk to your instructor about it. But remember not to stress yourself, you need to be focused on the exercise and primary objectives of the lesson when the time comes.

My advise is, before you show up to the flight, try to go over the route to the common training area/s used with one of your colleagues. You can use a chart or even good maps to have an idea of how you're going to get there. Don't spend hours on it, I'm not saying you need to memorize every heading and ground reference, just spend 5 minutes to familiarize yourself. This will improve your situational awareness on the day of the flight and make it quicker for your to become familiar with the route/s available. Keep in mind this might not apply to you as every airspace is different than the other.

The Air Exercise

This is the highlight of the flight. This is where all your concentration should be. 

It is often underestimated how important the first couple of lessons are. I've been told by students that they thought that Effects of Control (usually the first exercise in most syllabi as explained earlier) is not important since it is mainly a demonstration. 

Whether it is Effects of Control or any other exercise you should always treat them equally. Be engaged in the flight and with your instructor.

Now, how do you prepare for the exercise, and what is important?

Before you show up for the flight go over any material that your flight school or instructor may provide you with. If no material is provided, revise the following topics (this is specifically for Effects of Control part 1):

• The primary flight controls (what are they, their different types, and their purpose);
• The Axss of rotation (remember 3 of them);
• Pitch, Roll, Yaw (about which axes they rotate, their secondary effects);
• The "tertiary" or "further" effects of pitch (speed, altitude changes);
• The slipstream and it's effect on the primary flight controls.

Landing

This is article is long enough and I probably lost your interest by now so I'll keep this short.

DO NOT WORRY ABOUT THE LANDING. Just sit back relax, and observe. If you want to give it a shot, go for it but don't let it stress you out.

And please do not waste the debriefing with questions about your landing and how you can improve it. When the time comes, I promise you, your instructor will give you 110% of their effort for that.

The Debriefing

This is where most of the learning happens, the debriefing is the breakdown of what happened in the flight. 

You instructor will recap the flight, mention what went well, what went bad and how to improve it, and they will give you a heads up for what's happening on the next flight.

Make sure you go through any pending questions or concerns in the debriefing as it is the best time to discuss them with your instructor.

If your instructor doesn't do it on their own, make sure to ask what you need to prepare for your next lesson. Make it a habit not to leave a debriefing without having something to study when you get home, there is always room to improve.

With this said you are always welcome to send me a message on my Instagram on fi.notes

And yes, you may ask me how to improve your landing after your first flight! 😂