Ppl + instrument rating has been a goal of mine for quite some time. I've been studying the phak & fars for the past few weeks and have taken on an instructor & scheduled my first lesson since my days in civil air patrol 18 years ago for this weekend.Looks like I'll be downgrading from the ngx to carenado's c152 to practice radio navigation & pattern entries for a while, but I'll likely still fire up the old (new) bird once in a while.Wish me luck!

Awesome Ken! I'm jealous. Best of luck.

It's been so long since I looked at an analog gauge... Cessna's do have a Boeing fmc, right?

I have some really good FLASH interactive tutorials on IFR on my forum that I wrote. They took months. Flash really helps the user since they have that interactivity. All the IFR tutorials are based on small single engine and I also have practice files.

Best of luck Ken,

Great Ken!Study for the written and get it out of the way! After the written is done I always find my focus on getting a new rating much better. Plus with the PPL the written test covers most of the basic knowledge you'll need for the oral portion of the practical. Tab that FAR book. Good luck!!!

Great Ken, good luck to you! Very shortly at my 17th birthday I'm also gonna take flying lessons, for hopefully my Private Pilot Licence in the future, also in the Cessna 152 at my home airport EHKD!

+1 for Dans forum tutorials, thats for sure.

Well the weekend didn't work out due to weather, so my first session was postponed until this morning & I've just got home from it.Turns out I'll be doing my training in two different aircraft, the Socata TB9 Tampico and the Diamond DA-20, both low-wings.  I was a bit skeptical of trying to get used to 2 different planes at first, but now I like the idea.  It'll make the transition easier when I get my PPL & have to rent whatever is available.We took the Tampico this morning & it behaves like a dream.  If my wife & boss were that docile life would be perfect!  We had a 10kt crosswind so he handled the takeoff, followed by an hour of straight/level, turns climbs, descents and slow-flight maneuvers.  The first 2,000ft were rough as hell but it smoothed out very nicely above the clouds.  That was a good intro into how I shouldn't fight the turbulence.  At one point I just let go of the yoke & the plane kept doing the same thing, so from them on it was just little corrections to keep us pointed the right direction.I actually surprised myself and the instructor on the turns, every single one was perfectly coordinated from the get go (within half a ball), even the slow turns!  Had the stall horn blaring the whole time on those, so I was careful to do it right...  Only problem was I tend to climb a bit on right turns & descend a bit on left turns, but only about 50ft in a 180deg turn though, so not terribly bad.  I'm trying to use the windows & not the gauges as much as possible & never spent more than a second looking at any of the gauges.  That's his biggest complaint about "flight sim guys," they tend to focus on the gauges, which is fine for an IFR flight, but not PPL training which is supposed to be all VFR. The instructor says if I keep it up at this rate I'll be one of the few 40-hr students he's taught, most average 70-80hrs before he lets em do the checkride.  Tomorrow morning I'm scheduled for full stall recovery & steep turns.  Hopefully I'll be able to nail those as quickly as I did the stuff today & move on to something else.

Happy flying! ;-) Stall recovery is a good way to know how the plane reacts. ;-) just remember to do the go-around, when recovering, properly and slow but in a fast sence. Hope you know what I mean. ;-) Best regards Jakob

Be prompt without jerking, yes. We didn't do any full stalls, just till I could feel the plane buffeting. If the weather clears in time I'll be going back up tomorrow morning to pick up where we left off.

That's his biggest complaint about "flight sim guys," they tend to focus on the gauges, which is fine for an IFR flight, but not PPL training which is supposed to be all VFR. The instructor says if I keep it up at this rate I'll be one of the few 40-hr students he's taught, most average 70-80hrs before he lets em do the checkride.

In the middle of my PPL training, I went through a spot where I didn't have the money to keep going, so I spent a lot of time in FS. Sure enough, when I went back up in the plane, my instructor spent the whole flight flicking my shoulder and saying "eyes out!"I was a 41-hour guy myself, so it can be done. Good luck!

We did the stalls, steep turns & a couple of slips pretty easily today. Took a few tries but I think I got the hang of it. There wasn't much wind so I did my first landing with very little coaching. (he did nudge me to add more power a couple of times on approach) It was pretty firm but not quite a hard landing - I didn't flare enough to hear the stall horn so yeah, a bit too fast... (I'm blaming the ngx on that one)Once we landed he started pushing me to get my medical & student certificate pretty quickly, so I'll take that as a good sign.Friday morning should start with some more slow flight, followed by low altitude maneuvers.

i gotta say i feel your excitement. Im 19 and in an aviation program, planning to write my ppl this week. ive got 36 hrs under my belt so i need some crosscountry flights and instrument but thats it. cant wait to take my friends and fam up. best of luck.

Instrument should be a walk in the park for you. Send me a pm after the knowledge test & let me know how it goes.