Learning to Fly in 21 Days

There is nothing better than piloting your own aircraft on a bright sunny day. Learning to fly can be a real rollercoaster of emotions - exhilarating, terrifying, stressful, joyous – and nothing beats the ability to fly to numerous different locations even if it’s just there and back for lunch (the proverbial “$100 hamburger”). If you have the desire to gain your own Private Pilot’s Licence (PPL) then this book will aid you in achieving your dream.

Phil Stone, a business management consultant, describes his experiences while following an increasingly popular route to obtaining the Private Pilot’s License (PPL), the intensive course: “Learning to fly in 21 days”. He travelled from the UK to Florida and learned to fly in near ideal weather conditions and at a huge saving in costs compared to UK courses.

This account of his experiences is not intended as a technical manual. It gives an insight into the physical and emotional aspects trainee pilots experience when tackling the challenge of learning to fly a small plane. Phil’s experience helps potential pilots understand exactly what they are about to undertake and hopefully prepares them for the pain, anguish and challenge that they will no doubt experience, as well as the elation of finally achieving the various goals along the route to a Private Pilot's License. The book is fully illustrated with numerous photographs together with the completed weather briefings and navigation flight plans used during the training.

Since gaining his PPL, Phil now has in excess of 500 hours in his Log Book in 22 different aircraft, including two ex-RAF aircraft and a De Havilland Chipmunk. Phil has looped the loop in a Slingsby T67 Firefly during aerobatic training and even donned helmet and goggles in a Waco UPF7 biplane on sight-seeing trips over the Florida Keys.

During the years following his training, he has flown extensively throughout Florida, Georgia and Alabama and more recently in California and Hawaii. Phil has logged visits to nearly fifty different airfields during which time he has been fortunate to see whales migrating off the coast of San Diego and Maui, Hawaii, as well as enjoying a spectacular flight over the erupting volcano on the Big Island, Hawaii. Although Phil continues to fly whenever and wherever he can, he now avoids wrestling for air space with large commercial jets at his local airport in the UK, and flies purely for pleasure.