Airborne_Again wrote:
Apparently EASA rules don’t allow it.
To elaborate. It used to be the case in Sweden that you needed a Student Pilot License to begin flight training (or at least to solo). All the background checks that the CAA does on you (e.g. that you haven’t been convicted of drug-related crimes or drunken driving) were done when the Student Pilot License was issued. This is no longer allowed per EASA regulations so the background checks have to be done when the PPL is issued, after the checkride. So no longer do you get the license from the examiner.
(This also means that there is a risk of someone completing the whole PPL training only to be refused a license in the end.)
Curious. I needed the background checks both before and after the PPL course.
Back on topic:
My first flight with the license was one month after the exam flight. I think the license took two weeks to arrive in the post box and then we had two weeks of bad weather. When I did fly it was a simple A to A flight from my training homebase, flying the same Aquila A211 I did my PPL on. I did some touch and goes, a practiced forced landing from 2000ft and flew around the vicinity a bit. Total flight time was just under an hour IIRC, all the while my wife and mother in law were watching from the airfield cafe.
The final landing was perhaps the smoothest I ever performed…
For it was the excitement that I could get her out for a spin without asking someone, even if for a few circuits.
This is my first flight after I passed my PPL checkride.
I did seven local flights, and the first land-away was to Compton Abbas EGHA; about a 1hr flight in a rented PA28-181.
I have a pic of me, taken by a GF at the time, eating a massive bread roll there, with some stuff dripping out of it 
Pics or it didn’t happen 
My first flights were:
I’m not sure in what order… Did I do the cousin first or an alone flight first? I honestly don’t know.
My first off-base landing was a day trip at LFQA.
My first “real” travel was to visit a friend close to LFAX, with a lunch-and-fuelling stop at LFOX (no fuel in the AIP at LFAX… although I discovered they will sell you some for cash in practice). Strong wind, but right in the runway centreline, plus I was current (significantly more than now…) on crosswind landings anyway :) Stopped at LFQB on the way back.
My first flight on my own ticket was identical to one of the navigational exercises I did during training. Same plane, even.
My first flight for a reason other than just to fly was about a year later, EPKP to LKRK and back, my first international flight as PIC.
I did a short local flight together with my girlfriend. Pretty marginal weather with gusts and showers prevented us from going very far, but it was fun.
My first flight after receiving my license happened while I was on holidays (I passed the test two days before going away for two months). I pestered the UK CAA to get it sent to France and got it while staying with friends in Champagne. The next day I joined the Aeroclub de Plivot (I still have the paper card) and got trained and released in a Robin DR400 (all my training was in a Piper PA28). I had no idea about the local airspace, and just took on my eldest son and my goddaughter for a 10 minutes very local flight. It was 11 years ago, they were 5 and they still remember it. Me too. It was lovely.
