How many hours of training did you receive before flying without a more senior pilot with you? The L39 type rating requirement is a thousand hours but it won't be in the jet itself. I plan to do aerobatic training and everything but last I checked the Jet Warbird Training Center program was under 20 hours over a few days which terrifies me. Is that really enough training?
Matt Guthmiller also has some recent videos on getting an L-39 up and running, and his first flights in it.
That definitely makes me feel better. I've gone into pilot training with a lot of fear and it's always come out "omg this feels like home" so I'm hopeful once I'm in the L39 it will be a similar experience :)
What other airplanes should I practice in for the 1000 hours authorization after getting my PPL in the 172? Once I get it I'll join PlusOne Flyers here in SD so I should have a diverse set of planes to practice with.
Edit: I have my email in the profile if there’s any way you could share the video. I’d love to see all the content from the ground school portions especially
My recommendation is, 1) get your instrument rating and fly IFR enough to get comfortable doing that, 2) get some aerobatic lessons, including some unusual attitude recoveries, in any aerobatic plane, even if it's a Cessna 152 Aerobat, and 3) get some hours in a fast, slippery plane that requires you to plan your descents from 30+ miles out; could be a Cirrus, a Columbia, a Mooney, a Lancair, or a Bonanza, etc. Retractable experience is a plus too (get 10-20 hours in a Piper Arrow or something). And be prepared to pay for it all!
Thank you! For what it's worth, it really shows! The vast majority of L39 videos online are low effort vanity dumps from hangar to hangar taken by a GoPro or two poorly positioned in the cockpit - you can rarely see the instrumentation, checklists, or anything remotely useful.
Your video towers above others. With the amount of cockpit detail visible in the main 3rd person view and in the B-roll like the red levers. Your hands visible on the throttle and stick so it's easy to see what you're doing and when the instructor has control. Beautiful exterior view from the wing during simulated emergencies and landing gear retractions. Down to the instructor's commentary during the nose tracking exercise with visible turbulence. Oh and most of the time, glare permitting, I can make out all of the gauges! ALL IN 4K!
The classroom videos are just icing on the cake with a cherry on top. One thing I didn't quite get though... what was the strap thing? :)
> My recommendation is, 1) get your instrument rating and fly IFR enough to get comfortable doing that, 2) get some aerobatic lessons, including some unusual attitude recoveries, in any aerobatic plane, even if it's a Cessna 152 Aerobat, and 3) get some hours in a fast, slippery plane that requires you to plan your descents from 30+ miles out; could be a Cirrus, a Columbia, a Mooney, a Lancair, or a Bonanza, etc. Retractable experience is a plus too (get 10-20 hours in a Piper Arrow or something). And be prepared to pay for it all!
Pretty much the plan I had, though I was planning to do aerobatic training with CP Aviation focusing on recoveries (I'm not an adrenaline junkie, just paranoid) before jumping into IFR. Any reason to do IFR before aerobatics?
A Mooney with long range tanks has been my plan for years because it would allow me to visit family in a single hop with a reasonable enough travel time to do it every other weekend (easy 5-10 hours per week), so that's encouraging. Once again, thank you!
Side note: how tall are you, if I may ask? That cockpit is cramped.
Edit: to add a little to this since I started thinking about it, while the total flight time seems fairly low, we would go fly in absolutely any weather short of an actual thunderstorm, and the IPs for the most part made the students do the flying/navigating/communicating/planning/etc. Flying close formation in drafty clouds with pounding rain would humble a low-time pilot, and occasionally it'd be bad enough to get a grunt out of the mostly drowsing (it seemed) graybeard in the backseat. My last assignment in the AF was to go teach UPT (at the base I learned at), and hoo boy, did I see that the vast majority of the stress that the students underwent was mostly self-induced and the flying was about as basic as we could do - it just seemed (and was) hard for the students because we all were so, to paraphrase a great philosopher, unknowing about our unknowns.
Anyway, I'm sure you'll do fine learning to fly the L-39. It's a popular and comparatively affordable jet airplane I understand and looks like fun.
How different are the T-37/38s from common civilian trainers like the 172? How good were the simulators back then (I haven't use any sims outside of consumer stuff so I have no real point of comparison)?
What do you mean by pursuing training without rush or struggle? Looking at the cost of fuel and rental for the first thousand hours, let alone the cost of the jet with new TFE engine, I'm much more scared of stretching out the training so much that I'm always rusty.
> to add a little to this since I started thinking about it, while the total flight time seems fairly low, we would go fly in absolutely any weather short of an actual thunderstorm, and the IPs for the most part made the students do the flying/navigating/communicating/planning/etc. Flying close formation in drafty clouds with pounding rain would humble a low-time pilot, and occasionally it'd be bad enough to get a grunt out of the mostly drowsing (it seemed) graybeard in the backseat.
That sounds scary - I've been taught so far that bad weather is one of the leading cause of GA fatal accidents thunderstorm or no. Were your trainers or the jets themselves just better at withstanding adverse weather? Or are we civies too risk averse? I can't imagine doing it in close formation.
