Ultralight Blogging

First non-school flight!

2006-10-17T22:24:00.000+02:00

Last week I received an anonymous COD letter. I had to pay a little more than SEK 4500 to get it out. But as I fairly well knew what the contents of that letter would be, i gladly put up that money.

And yes, it really was my pilot license. At last. More than one year after my initial flight. And most of the time has been spent waiting for different things. First the student permit, then a new aircraft, then vacations and then for the final paperwork. And I had to wait even more before I could start flying. We had a small trip planned for the weekend, so I had to wait until today before I could make my first private flight.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't too good today. Cloud base at less than 2000 feet, 9 km visibility and some crosswinds. And it seems like it's becoming worse the next few days. But anyway, today was mostly a practice flight. I flew to Stegeborg, made a couple of turns in various directions and returned for a total of eight landings (no, I didn't bounce, they were separate landings).
The flying went better than expected, and it felt really good to be out on my own.

I have summarized the costs for my flying lessons, in case someone is curious:

Ground class admission fee: 2750 SEK
Literature: 680 SEK
Flying club membership: 1105 SEK
Medical examinations: 2000 SEK
Student permit: 666 SEK
Various maps and other stuff from KSAB: 1760 SEK
Flying lessons: 9600 SEK
Issue of license: 850 SEK
Fuel costs for travels between Linköping and Norrköping: 3000 SEK

This adds up to 22400 SEK. However bear in mind that I have previously had a glider pilot license, taken some PPL lessons and do some simulator flying at work. This has probably reduced the needed number of flying lessons. But on the other hand, that is perhaps compensated by the costs for my travels between Linköping and Norrköping and that my medical exams got extra expensive because of my eye problems. However, in any case, I would say that this is an extremely affordable way of flying.

Final school flight

2006-08-31T20:27:00.000+02:00

I'm sorry that I've really neglected this blog since the flying lessons started. Somehow I lost the motivation to blog about stuff.

I have had a great time taking all these flying lessons. I have made a lot of touch-and-go landings and flewn some navigation trips. Both with and without my instructor. My glider pilot experience have shortned the learning path, reducing the number of lessons needed.

Today I flew to Gotland together with my instructor. That's actually an international flight (sort of). Half-way there we were outside of sweden's territory for a while. It was a beautiful view from FL95 (i.e. 9500 feet). The weather was perfect. Unfortunately I didn't bring a camera.

The only mishap was that our transponder stopped working shortly after take-off from Visby. Not very popular with the flight controllers. So we had to stay outside of controlled airspace. But since most of the route was outside controlled airspace anyway, this wasn't much of a problem...

This was my final school flight. Now I just have to wait for all paperwork to be finished...

Flying lesson and ground class examination

2006-04-26T23:06:00.000+02:00

A couple of months have passed since I got my student permit. I have been terribly busy, with several business trips, a skiing trip, the flu and a lot of work. And besides that, the new aircraft hasn't been ready until quite recently.

Today we were going to have a practice exam of the ground class (at least that was what I thought). This was a good opportunity to take up the flying lessons again. I called my teacher Mats and scheduled a lesson an hour before the exam.

The weather was almost perfect for a nice flying lesson. The only negative parts were some clouds in the distance obscuring the horizon. And the new aircraft was really nice. It is equipped with a large EFIS (Electronic Flight Instrument System) replacing the old iron instruments. I'm used to this from the simulators at work, and I think it's a good idea. I hope the reliability is good though, because there aren't any redundant instruments...

We practiced some turns, stalls and some quite basic stuff. With a new aircraft and new instrumentation it was quite good with some repetition.

When we had landed it was time for the practice exam. However, by some lack of communication, I hade missed the fact that it wasn't really a practice exam. It was the real thing. Oops. Maybe I should have studied a little... Fortunately the exam wasn't too hard, so I passed. I would have preffered a better result, but it isn't that important.

Total logged time: 0.9 hours (accumulated: 3.2 hours)
Total cost: SEK 644 (accumulated: 6584)
(I need to verify these sums)

At last!

2006-02-14T00:02:00.000+01:00

Today I received my student permit. Finally. It just took a little less than six months... (But I am of course happy anyway. A long wait is much better than a rejection.)

I hope this is the end of authorities-related posts in this blog. From now on I will be able to focus on flying related stuff. However, the flying club's new ultralight aircraft isn't in service yet. So I can't take any flying lessons for the moment. But to actually have the student permit gives me a lot more inspiration to study the theoretical part. The examination will be quite soon, so it's about time I get on with the studying...

Some Progress

2006-01-09T13:53:00.000+01:00

Last week i contacted the authorities once again to find out why nothing had happened yet. But this time something had actually happened. As I understood it, my application has been accepted. But since all procedures have taken so long time, I need to renew my medical examination before the permission is issued. Otherwise my permission wouldn't last more than a couple of months, which is probably not enough time for me to finish the flight training.

The authorities had actually sent me a letter about this some days ago. But obviously they hadn't updated my address in their records. So the letter was sent to my previous address, and hence delayed for a week.

This renewed medical examination is a simple procedure, basically just a form to fill out and some minor tests, like blood pressure etc. Any medical doctor is allowed to perform that examination. But since my company have a couple of authorized medical examiners (AME), I thought it would be easiest to see one of them. They should know more about the required procedures than a random doctor. However, the company doctors wanted to charge me 8-900 SEK, which I think is just a little too much for filling out a form. Instead I called Anders Svensson, an excellent AME who made my initial medical examination almost five years ago. I will see him this thursday.

No news is no news

2005-12-29T21:38:00.000+01:00

We returned from our 3.5 week vacation yesterday. I had expected to find something from the aviation authorities in the mail. But of course, there wasn't anything from them at all.

Four months have passed since my application was initially filed. And almost two months have passed since i made the eye examination. Normal processing time should be something like two weeks. I must really be a difficult case.

I'm still here

2005-11-26T12:48:00.000+01:00

I haven't posted anything here for a long while. That doesn't mean I have given up or something. However, I'm still waiting for my "elevtillstånd". I called the authorities the other day to check if something was stalling the process.
The answer I got was that the results from my eye exam hadn't been sent to their eye specialist until November 8 (I don't know why they waited for almost a whole month before sending it). The expected time with the eye specialist was "less than a month". After that I don't know what will happen.

But besides the uncertainty, the delay is currently not a huge problem. The flying club has just sold their sole ultralight aircraft. And a replacement won't be available until February. So even if I had my permission, I wouldn't be able to take any flying lessons. And besides that, we're going away on vacation for almost the entire month of December.

An eye exam

2005-10-11T23:36:00.000+02:00

I managed to get a time with the eye specialist today. In Norrköping. Sometimes I wonder why we don't live in Norrköping. It seems like I go there every day...

The eye exam showed no new anomalies to my eyes. And I got confirmation on that my quite new eyeglasses are good. I do actually have more than perfect vision with them on (1.5 on the best eye). It's a bit frustrating to know that I could wear a couple of glasses with correction well within the regulated limits for PPL and still have vision above the required level. Unfortunately that's not the way the rules work.

The results from the exam is in the mail to Luftfartsstyrelsen. So now the waiting begins again. A rough estimate of the waiting time is one month. I suppose it will take longer. But the most important thing is of course that my permission is granted eventually.

The cost of the eye exam was SEK 1500.

I have also forgot to add the cost of the ground class (SEK 2750) which I paid last week. So now my accumulated costs are SEK 5940.

Back to square one

2005-10-04T21:13:00.000+02:00

While I was having my lunch today the doctor from Luftfartsstyrelsen called. I answered and talked to him for a while. After having had my application for almost a month and a half, they had now come to the conclusion that they want me to perform a special eye exam with an appointed ophthalmologist. On my first contact with the authorities they told me that I shouldn't have to make a new such exam because they did already have a protocol from my previous one (almost five years ago). But obviously that wasn't true.

Or was it? I don't know. It almost seems like I know their rules better than them by now. They also told me that my medical exam protocol was too old. It only had a validity time of one year. This I knew wasn't true, which I also told the doctor. He went away to see an administrator, and finally they concluded that the protocol has a validity of three years. But I was still sure that this wasn't true, it should be valid for five years. After a new round of checking, the doctor actually came to the same conclusion (i.e. five years).

However, they still wanted a new special eye exam to be performed. And since there doesn't appear to be well defined for how long those are valid I guess I'll have to comply.

The problem is that there exist a very limited number of appointed ophthalmologists. So it will probably take some time to be scheduled with one of them. And after the exam has been performed, the doctor told me that the result will be processed for a month by some other authority before it is returned to Luftfartsstyrelsen.

I haven't even been able to reach one of the ophthalmologists today. My best guess is that I won't get any result from Luftfartsstyrelsen within the next two months. And after that, I'll be on vacation for almost a month. So there will probably be no more flying lessons this year. If I at all will get a positive response.

Within a minute after I had hung up, I got a new phone call (I managed to take one bite of my now cold lunch between the two calls). This time it was my flight instructor who wanted to know if I had heard anything from Luftfartsstyrelsen. Weird timing...

All this uncertainty and waiting takes away most of the motivation for my ground class studies. It is not fun to commit most of your free time to something you don't know if you ever will be able to make use of. :-(

Still waiting

2005-09-29T21:57:00.000+02:00

I haven't given up or something. But I still haven't got my permission from the authorities, so I can't have any flying lessons. I don't think it's supposed to take this long time, so I'm a bit afraid that my vision will cause problems again.

Yesterday an administrator from Luftfartsstyrelsen (The latest trend in Sweden seems to be that all authorities are getting rid of their acronyms, for example RSV is now Skatteverket, RFV is Försäkringskassan and LFI has become Luftfartsstyrelsen. I don't know why they are doing this. Their inernet domain names get longer and it looks silly in text written in other languages than swedish. Luftfartsstyrelsen is similar to the FAA, CAA or whatever they are called in your country.) visited the ground class. He told me that the normal processing time should be twoo weeks. But he also said that sometimes it could take considerably more time because of some other complicated case blocking the doctors.

So I guess I'll just have to keep waiting...

Waste of time

2005-09-19T20:56:00.000+02:00

We had our exam in radio communications today. I had expected this to be a short test followed by a ground class on a different subject. I was right about the test being short. I completed it in approximately 10 minutes. I didn't bother to read through my answers, since i felt that I could at most have made a couple of errors.

However, this was all that was planned for today! My journey to and from Norrköping took about five times more than doing the test. I don't know for how long the other guys stayed, but it couldn't be more than an hour, or could it?

At least I got a new book and was assigned a piece of homework for wednesday's class.

Flying lesson #2

2005-09-17T16:09:00.000+02:00

I had my second flying lesson today. The weather was almost perfect, with just a little termic turbulence. The visibility was almost unlimited.

This time I practiced a little of various kinds of turns. Shallow turns, steep turns, climbing turns, descending turns, turns with extended flaps etc. When making turns, one of the differencies compared to gliders (and fighters) are that you are placed side by side in the cockpit in this aircraft. This causes the horizon to take different positions depending on if you make a right or left turn. A bit confusing now in the beginning, but I suppose I'll get used to it.

Steep turns (60 degrees banking angle) are fun, because you can feel some g-forces. But I don't know how often you'll use it in regular flight.

I also practiced four landings and take-offs. To make it convenient to practice several landings/take-offs a technique called "touch and go" is commonly used. This means that you make a regular approach and landing. But you never come to a full stop on the runway. Instead you give full throttle once you have slowed down, and make a new take-off. Then you make a new traffic pattern (see the figure), starting with a very short crosswind leg.

Total logged time: 1.2 hours (accumulated: 2.3 hours)
Total costs: SEK 860 (accumulated: SEK 1690)

Say again

2005-09-13T17:59:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was yet another occurence of the ground class. Still about radio communications. The class is a bit slow-paced and repetitous in my opinion. This may of course be because I have studied the subject twice before this. There is also the issue of this being the first subject, so there are a lot of questions raised regarding very unrelated stuff. It appears that not everyone knows the fundamentals of flying and navigation, so for us who have some previous knowledge it easily becomes a bit tedious to listen to explanations about for example that the compass is divided into 360 points.

I noticed that there is some bad weather moving in tonight, so I tried to call my flight instructor to see if it was possible to have a flying lesson this evening. However, I failed to reach him. Hopefully the bad weather won't be staying for so long...

Still no news from the authorities.

First flying lesson

2005-09-07T21:32:00.000+02:00

I had planned the first flying lesson for today, between work and the ground class. After having had great weather for a couple of weeks (or something), a cold front suddenly moved in just an hour before the lesson. I observed that it was moving quite fast, so I went to to the flying club for my lesson anyway.

On arriving there, the rain started pouring again, so we had to wait for half an hour before we decided that the weather was good enough for a short lesson. We made a quick inspection round of the plane, and fueled it. Then we were set to go.

Since I already have some flying experience (about 75 hours gliders and a couple of hours in Piper PA-28:s) we skipped the most basic stuff, like the basic functions of the different control surfaces. Instead we focused more on the differences between gliders and aircraft with engines. One notable difference is that the rudder pedals are much less used here. I also tried some climbing and descending turns, turns with various banking angles, keeping the altitude with different levels of thrust etc.

The lesson lasted for approximately half an hour, which was about half of what was planned. There was only time for one landing, especially since we had to wait for some birds to leave the runway before we could start our final approach.

The air was quite turbulent and windy today, so it became a bumpy ride. Not that I have any problems with that, but it wasn't the best opportunity to try my first landing. thus the instructor helped me a little with the controls starting a hundred feet above the ground (Argh! After holding down a shift key for too long; Windows decided that I"m disabled and not allowed to use my shift keys; so now I"m in some weird caps locked mode; and cannot type any digits; commas or other non_shifted keys)

(I couldn't find any way to get rid of that silly keboard mode, so I moved to my Linux computer instead. Guess I'll have to reboot the Windows box.)

After the flying lesson I went directly to ground class. Today's subject was radio communications. We were just three students there today. One has already dropped off, one didn't have time, and I don't know where the last guy was.

I will summarize costs and logged time in another posting.

Ground class begins

2005-09-06T10:09:00.000+02:00

Ground class started yesterday. We will be a group of six, of which half will go for ultralight and half for PPL (Private Pilot License). We will take most of the classes together, but the navigation part (and something else, which I can't relly remember right now) will be held in separate parts for UL and PPL.

Yesterday was mostly information about everything. A bit chaotic when all instructors tried to talk at the same time, but I think I got most of the relevant information. Good news is that I won't have to buy so many books and other material. I have some stuff left from when I studied for a PPL, of which most is still accurate. I will however buy new maps and a couple of books.

I tried to call the aviation authorities today, but apparently all of the licensing administrators were gone for some business trip until friday. So I guess nothing will happen there for a while. That's a bit unfortunate, since I am not allowed to start taking flying lessons until I have a go from them (I may take some lessons labelled "trial lesson" or something, but I can't have too many of those). And soon it will start getting dark early in the afternoons, limiting the possible time for flying lessons to just a few hours during the day.

A new letter from the police

2005-09-02T22:02:00.000+02:00

Today I got another letter from the police. This time my reaction was more like "Oh, no! What did I do wrong this time?". But believe it or not, this letter was a confirmation that the investigation was finished and the result has been sent to the aviation authorities. That was a real surprise. On sending in my new set of forms it must have been taken care of right away instead of the normal waiting time.

So now it's all in the hands of the aviation autorities. I think I'll give them a call next week to check that they now have everything they need. With a bit of luck, that could even speed up the process a little by having them retrieve my papers...

I have noticed that I have some american readers of this blog. Please feel welcome! I hope you can find some interesting reading here. I do apologize for my non-perfect english.

And this week my thoughts are with the people of New Orleans. It is with great sorrow I read the reports and watches the terrible images from this disaster. :-(

More waiting

2005-08-29T20:16:00.000+02:00

Today I received mail from the Police. Wow! That was fast, I thought. But on opening it, I realized it was more like the other way around.

When I filled in the form, I filled in all the obvious fields, and asked the person if that was all. "Yes, that's fine", she told me and grabbed the form. However, today I got a new set of forms with a sticky note that told me to fill in *all* the forms. On closer inspection I noted that there should have been a carbon paper between the three sheets. Maybe I should blame myself a little for not inspecting the forms thoroughly enough. But on the other hand, whou would have thought that the police don't have access to copy machines?

I will post the new set of forms tomorrow, which probably means that they will be at the right place on Thursday at the earliest. Great. My application process just got delayed for another two weeks :-(

First flight

2005-08-27T20:05:00.000+02:00

Today I went to Norrköping to have a look at the flying club, see some people and sign up for the course. But first I started with a trip in the club's ultralight aircraft (that's the one in the picture). This aircraft, called Zephyr 200 C, is a quite modern version of an ultralight. The basic requirements of an ultralight aircraft is that it has at most two seats, has a low weight and a low stall speed.

The aircraft felt like a hybrid of a glider and a conventional light aircraft. You fly it with a control stick, which is similar to gliders (and fighter jets), but unlike most other conventional planes. What got me a little surprised is that you should use your left hand to grab the stick, and use the right hand for the throttle. This is the other way around compared to both gliders and fighters (my flying experience consists of a lot of gliding, some fighter jets (Simulated. We build those simulators at work.) and a couple of hours in Piper PA-28s.) It felt a bit awkward, but I got used to it after a short while.

Today's flights were more aimed to show people what it's like to fly. So it wasn't really any introductory flight lessons or anything. I may however log the time as part of my training. I did nevertheless got to do almost all flying and taxiing by myself. The flight instructor performed the take-off, and then handed back the controls to me. Obviously I still remembered how to fly a real aircraft.

I really enjoyed the trip. We were in the air for about 20 minutes and flew over the bay of Bråviken, which is really beautiful from the air (well, from the ground also). The weather was a bit windy today, with a lot of cumulus clouds which made the ride quite bumpy. This also meant that we had to keep the speed down a bit.

These aircraft have unexpectedly good performance. The maximum speed of this one is just a little more than 140 knots (260 km/h). And it's very fuel efficient, so you may go more than 1500 km away without landing. It takes off in something like 200 meters, and has a stall speed of just 35 knots.

The flight instructor was impressed by my flying (or at least that's what he told me). He believed that I could get the license in just a couple of months. We'll see about that. I suppose the ground classes will go on for more than that time, and I won't be able to take flying lessons every day.

The ground classes will start the next monday. I look forward to that, and i really look forward to commence with the flying lessons. I certainly hope that the authorities won't cause any problems. Formally, I am not allowed to start taking any flying lessons until I've got the "elevtillstånd" (flying lessons license, or whatever you may call it).

Total logged time: 0.5 hours (accumulated: 0.5 hours)
Total cost: SEK 300 (accumulated: SEK 300)

This weekend

2005-08-25T22:24:00.000+02:00

My plans for this Saturday was to go to Stockholm and participate in a combined chili-cooking competition, dinner and wine-tasting. Unfortunately this event was cancelled :-(

However, there will be some aviation related event at the flying club in Norrköping this weekend. I don't know exactly what will happen there. But what I know is that it's partly a recruiting event. So this will be a nice opportunity to have a look at the flying club and their equipment. And of course also a good opportunity to speak with the flight instructors and other members of the flying club before signing up for flying lessons.

One thing I should remember to ask about is if it would be useful to re-activate my glider pilot licence, and how this can be accomplished. Maybe it might save me some flight training hours?

No news is good news?

2005-08-24T21:49:00.000+02:00

As I promised, I posted my application for the "Elevtillstånd" last Friday. And I also went to the police office to request the personal investigation. This request was obviously not an everyday thing. First they couldn't find the form. And when they found it and gave it to me, I asked if I should mail it somewhere or just give the form back for them. To this, they didn't have an answer. But after some telephone calls they managed to find out that they should take it, and even where they should send it. So I feel rather confident that it will be processed correctly.

I don't really know why this investigation is needed. But I suppose it's like some kind of check that I don't appear in too many criminal records. This shouldn't pose any problems. As far as I know there shouldn't be any negative data at all in their records. Not even a speeding ticket!

The worst thing about this investigation is that it will take a couple of weeks. I hope that the aviation authorities will start processing my application before receiving the papers from the police. But they probably won't...

Authorities

2005-08-19T10:33:00.000+02:00

Today I have discussed my possibilities with two ladies at the Swedish Aviation Authorities. The first one was an administrator at the medical department. She was optimistic, and as far as she could see, I wouldn't meet any particular problems in getting an exemption for my nearsightedness. My old medical protocols, including the one from a special eye examination, seemed to still be valid. This will save me some money and time.

The second adminstrator told me that I could post my application for "Elevtillstånd" (i.e. permission to take flying lessons) today, but that I should request a new personal investigation from the police authorities, since the previous one could be outdated. I will go to the police office at lunchtime today to fill out that form.

I won't count any chickens before they've hatched, but things does actually seems quite bright right now.

Initial contact

2005-08-18T20:36:00.000+02:00

Well, this is my first post to this blog. I don't really know where to start.

However, this blog is supposed to focus on my efforts in achieving a ultralight pilot license. I will probably provide more information about ultralight aviation, my background and why I have chosen to go for ultralight at a later point of time.

Unfortunately there are no flying clubs with UL sections in Linköping. This is a bit strange, as Linköping can be regarded as the aviation center of Sweden. My job is located next to the airport (well, actually my company owns the airport) where the flying club of Linköping is located. But as I've already mentioned, they don't do ultralight.

So my next option is Norrköping. Not a bad option, since Linghem (where I live) is located almost between Linköping and Norrköping. Today I talked with a colleague about my plans. He suggested that I should talk to an instructor at the flying club of Norrköping who he knew.

So later in the afternoon I telephoned this instructor and had a little chat (well, first I had a small chat with some nice old lady whose telephone number was published on the flying club's website by mistake). The outcome of this chat was basically that I first should check the possibilities with the aviation authorities and/or a aviation doctor.

This is not at all surprising. One of the reasons behind looking into ultralight is that I tried to achieve a regular private pilot license (PPL) some years ago, but was denied the necessary medical certificate due to my nearsightedness (my vision is perfect with corrective lenses, so you don't have to be afraid about half-blind pilots if I get my license). The visual requirements for ultralight aviation are however not the same as for PPL. But i do still need some kind of exemption.

I will call the aviation authorities (and maybe an aviation doctor at our company) first thing in the morning tomorrow. I'm a bit optimistic about getting this exemption since the regulations are the same as for glider pilots, and I do have a (now expired) glider pilots license. If everything seems alright and I am a bit lucky, I won't even need to redo the medical assessment...