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Your 2016 flying year, how many hours, and aspirations for 2017?

I forgot about “aspirations for 2017”. Very simple (or not): Getting the PPL before our daughter is due in May. Thereafter retaining basic currency despite having two very small children at home, moving and changing jobs. To be honest if I manage one hour of flying per month after the PPL I’m glad. Oh and I wanted to visit my friend in Bonn (EDKB) by plane.

Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

I only just noticed this topic now that it got bumped. So here goes:

If I add in late 2015, when I started PPL training, I had a total of 22h31min at the end of 2016, all of it in the Aquila A210 or A211. 4h43min of that was solo flying. There was a large break from April to August in which I didn’t fly at all, mainly due to time constraints as a young father and intensive care doctor, two occupations which imho are already mutually exclusive to some degree…

Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

Fenland_Flyer wrote:

What is the DA40 like to side slip?

It sideslips beautifully

LFPT, LFPN

jfw wrote:

…and I feel I am getting wild looking at information for starting the IR path

Do that! You’ll never regret it.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

jfw wrote:

Well as relative new & free-time pilot, 2016 was bad year for me : 28h instead of 37h in 2015 :-(

Plans for 2017:
-getting back in the 35-50h zone
-get the endorsement for DR400 plane
-get NVFR
-make some pleasure flights outside Belgium

and if I am getting wild start IFR

Update:
endorsement DR400 ==> DONE
NVFR ==> DONE
…and I feel I am getting wild looking at information for starting the IR path

jfw
Belgium: EBGB (Grimbergen, Brussels) - EBNM (Namur), Belgium

What is the DA40 like to side slip?

UK, United Kingdom

No, sorry. Certainly can go steep. I was just saying that for a specific approach (Lugano LSZA), if you glide at best glide in still air, then your descent rate won’t be enough to stay on the Glidepath. You can obviously descend at a steeper angle than best glide, with the regular options. I don’t know exactly how it compares to other planes (I remember the Arrow falling more like a stone with power off and gears and drag flaps), but I I don’t recall going around in that plane because I couldn’t descend fast enough.

At the time went I went to do the approach I was a bit fast (there was another plane coming), and I struggled a bit at / after the glideslope intersect (the DA40 has a low-ish flap limiting speed), as to bring the speed down I had to get on a part of the L/D curve that gives an even better glide angle (so pulling nose up already puts you high, then you also get an even better glide with puts you even higher compared to the steep glidepah). If I had to do it again, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have the issue anymore.

Noe – please humour me and explain more if you don’t mind. You seem to be saying that you cannot go to anywhere that has a steep approach path in a DA40, am I correct? If so I still do not understand why and would like to learn more. Am I missing something?
Thanks

UK, United Kingdom

I meant that you have to glide worse than best glide (in still air) as best glide has a shallower angle of descent than the approach (you’d end up too high otherwise). I was only referring to staying on the instrument approach/ glidepath.

Noe wrote:

To steep for the DA40

I have to say I really would like to know more about this statement. I have decades of flying behind me of which prob 95% is in Cessna variants with a large mix of other types. What is so different about the DA40 that it needs a shallow approach? Some of the landing strips I use may seem quite scary to the long hard runway users but honestly they are safe (when you have been given proper training) and HUGE fun.

UK, United Kingdom
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