Your 2018 flying year, how many hours, and aspirations for 2019?

Got a LAPL and night rating. Sold my Falke and bought a Cherokee.
80 hours, longest was Denmark to Estonia.
2019 – more nordic flying, first have to lick some wounds after very through annual and 8.33 installation ..

@ivark is your falke capable of night flying? How come you can have LAPL+NQ?

(I am interested my falk is day vfr only ;) )

The Falke is sold and now I have a P28A , which is night vfr certified.
According to part FCL, you have to pass 2 hours of IFR instructions with LAPL and then the normal 5 hours NQ course. FCL.810 – (2) Before completing the training at night, LAPL holders shall have completed the basic instrument flight training required for the issue of the PPL.

ivark wrote:

According to part FCL, you have to pass 2 hours of IFR instructions with LAPL

Actually it’s neither IFR instruction, nor bound to any fixed amount of hours. You need to cover the contents of basic instrument flight training (which is a big difference to IFR training) and how long it takes is based completely on competence assessment by the instructor. (You have quoted the part yourself).

I know one pilot who needed some 5 hours to be ready to start VFR night training, and I know pilots who were absolutely fine with less than an hour instruction.

Yes, you are right- “basic instrument flight training” is correct. Regarding hours- 2 hours seems to be the usual number most ATO-s have planned..

Not really a good year
42H57 time
15 airports in 7 countries
23 flights

Several reasons for that:
ATPL theory is leaving me less free time for flying
I got tired of Cyprus limitations and ATC anti GA behavior as well as Greece attitude so less desire to go through such pain of dealing with both since I could not go further without a 12 hour return trip back to Cyprus.
Positive, finally I convinced my family to do a big trip with me, the Elba fly-in.

Because of the above I made the decision to ferry the plane to Portugal, have it here with D reg and fly when I come home. Doing that and since I moved it last September, time of the fly-in, that’s when I did most of the 2018 flights.

Projects:
Finalize the ATPL theory and start the instruments rating,
Install a new AP instead of the existing century whatever that scares me the most,
Go the the usual 100 hours/ year and 2 European tours.

Last but not the least, continue to be happy flying.

2017:
75 hours, consisting of getting my PPL and Night rating on our club´s C152 and C172, some local crosscountry and two international trips

2018:
40 hours, all of it A to B international two or three days trips with C172
passed all 7 EASA IR theory exams – on the contrary of what has been discussed some of the knowledge was quite interesting to me
got my IR English and ICAO level 6
6 hours in advanced microlight Atec Faeta NG to maintain my microlight licence

2019:
more international trips, crossing the Alps
getting the IR
find more capable and more available aircraft arround Prague suitable for longer trips within reasonable cost
continue dreaming about owning Extra EA-400, have flown it once, amazing plane

Jujupilote wrote:

Objectives for 2018 : more of the above !!!
- many fly-ins planned : AERO, EuroGA at LECD, Duxford, my company’s one ….
- less touch-and-goes and more cross country : weekend at Scillies again, more day trips to visit cities
- maybe a full week of GA travel in Europe with family or friends
- get a tailwheel endorsement : my club’s J3 is about to be back in service. Will document it in a thread.
- bring more people to GA : I have about 10 people on my waiting list

I am happy with this year’s flying because I was able to travel more and make less pure currency flights.
This year I flew 44 h 41 min in 38 flights (down from 52h and 47 flights in 2017).

• of the 38 flights, only 10 were pure currency or renewals. Rest were flights “with a purpose”
• 4 trips taken : AERO, La Rochelle (the aborted LECD fly-in), Guernesey and Lourdes LFBT. 3 multi-day trips and 3 fly-ins undertaken.
• Visited Germany for the first time, and Guernesey for the first time as PIC
• 2 lunch runs and 3 dinner runs
• Took 9 non-pilots flying, 7 of which for their first flight

The flight I liked most was a dinner run taking 3 non pilots. Had a great dinner at LFOI Abbeville, took off just before night, flew back to LFPT watching Paris lights and fireworks over several suburbs (it was end of June). Everything worked fine (weather included), a lot of training paid off that evening.

Objectives for 2019 :

• making the Venice fly-in (top priority). If weather doesn’t cooperate, make a trip somewhere else instead.
• flying to Duxford Flying Legends (just confirmed with my friends some met at AERO)
• getting a Canadian PPL, in preparation for an IR
• no US flying as previously planned
• the tailwheel endorsement would be nice, but it is not a priority

I had 65 hrs this year. Way off from what I used to fly in the US, which averaged 120/yr. The reason… my girlfriend being caught up with work and then we took a 5 week vacation; a transatlantic cruise combined with a trip to the US.

Would like some more trips down South but the Greeks have gone crazy with fees so unless someone steps up and is willing to get raked over the coals by them its off my list of places to visit.

This coming year my daughter is getting married in the US in Sept which is during the best flying whether in Europe so I dont think I will be increasing my flight hours in 2019 unless I decide to fly my plane to the US.

Here it is – quite a small player compared to some others – :

2018: +/- 32h (similar to last year)
One long flight to France (cfr my tripreport to LFLP here)
Got stuck in the process of CBIR which I hoped to do in 2018 (started theory but I guess that distance learning does not put enough pressure to move).

For 2019:
CBIR is THE objective
Hope to do some more longer flights & week-ends