During the summer of 2020, when everything else got cancelled, I started working towards my life-long dream of obtaining my private pilot license. This is a summary of what I did.

Getting the skill test done turned out to take a bit longer time than I would like. The weather wasn’t the best, LN-HOG was in for it’s annual check, the airport had really bad opening hours, and I had to switch examiner. I eventually just decided that it wasn’t worth waiting for the perfect oportunity anymore, so I decided to drive down to Sola instead. This meant that I had to use an unfamiliar airplane, and fly from a much larger airport (which I still didn’t know as good as I know Karmøy). But it was time to just get this done now!

Today is the day. The day I’m (hopefully) going to finish the training for my PPL(A). After doing the final preparation lesson on the way down to Sola, it’s time to do the school check!

Today is the day. The day I’m (hopefully) going to finish the training for my PPL(A). The plan is to fly down to Sola, doing the preparation for the school check along the way down, and then hopefully complete the school check.

It’s unusually cold outside now, but we also got clear skies! So with the longer opening hours today (being a Sunday), this was the perfect day for the second and final solo navigation/cross country flight! This time I had to do a full stop landing on two other airports. In addition to this, I needed 3 hours of solo navigation time. So I spent the day yesterday planning a route from Karmøy to Sola followed by a long sightseeing route from Sola to Flesland.

There was a lot of crosswind when I started working on the basic maneuvers, but almost none when I was working on my landings. So I needed more training on crosswind landings.

With okay weather, daylight, suitable opening hours, and an instructor that could sign my solo endorsement - everything as ready for my first solo navigation/cross country flight.

The third stage check was the navigation stage check. As with the other two, I needed another instructor for this check. It took a total of four tries to make this lesson happen. In the end, I had to travel to Sola and rent one of their airplanes.

The next lesson on the plan was the third stage check (requiring a different instructor), which had already been cancelled once. Since I wanted to get back up in the air, and felt like I wasn’t good enough on steep turns, I decided I wanted an extra lesson.

The first lesson of the year was a big one - navigation via two airports. The plan was to fly to Voss and Sogndal, but due to difficulties with PFLY (the agreement that allows us to use Avinor airports outside of the regular opening hours), and bad weather, we decided to do ENZV Sola and ENCN Kjevik instead.

Today’s lesson was the third day in a row - what a perfect way to end the year! The next lesson on the plan require a bit more time and better weather than we had. Since I wanted to fly anyway, we did a bonus lesson instead.

The weather was good, and the next lesson on the plan was the second solo to the training area. The limited opening hours and daylight got me a bit stressed, so I forgot a couple things (nothing critical). But things went much smoother once I got in the air and could focus on flying.

The weather wasn’t the best I’ve seen on this first working day after Christmas, but it was just good enough for a lesson. I’ll take that!

The next lesson on the plan was the fourth solo, and the first solo outside of the traffic circuit. Aviation is full of milestones, and this was another one.

After a navigation lesson to ENBR, we continued with the second part of the Instrument 2 lesson, which we started on yesterday.

I was expecting December to be too dark to be able to do much flying with the very limited opening hours we have. Yesterday we managed to do two lessons in the two hours we had available, and today we managed to do two more! The first lesson of the day was Navigation 1, a trip to ENBR, Bergen International Airport, Flesland.

Today I got a full solo lesson and half of the second instrument lesson in the two hours the airport was open. I’m very happy with that!

Only a couple days since my previous solo, with the weather and the opening hours I have to take what I can get. And today I got a full solo lesson and a half instrument lesson in the two hours the airport was open. I’m very happy with that!

This was my second solo, and the first time solo at Karmøy - my home airport. The plan was to spend an hour in the pattern, doing as many landings are possible.

Since we only did half of the Instrument 1 lesson on the way back from Sola, we decided to combine the remainder with the first part of the next lesson.

After my first solo, we had a short flight back to Karmøy, with planned arrival just after opening. To get the most out of the flight back home, we used it to do the first part of the Instrument 1 lesson.

After the solo check, I didn’t even have time to think before I suddenly was in the airplane alone. All alone.

After the preparations, it was time for the second stage check - the solo check!

The next three lessons on the plan required a trip to Sola, so we had to leave Karmøy at sunrise due to the very limited opening hours. The plan was to do preparations for the solo check on the way down.

Only a couple days after the first emergency procedures lesson, it was time for the next one - which also included the first introduction to instrument flying.

After debriefing the previous lesson, we continued with the next lesson on the plan - emergency procedures.

Almost a month after the previous lesson, it was finally time to get back to more training in the pattern.

The next lesson on the plan was more landings, but this time on a different airport. The plan was to fly to Stord Lufthamn, Sørstokken, and then do a lot of touch and go there. This meant that I got to make my first navigation plan/log!

After five cancellations (due to clouds, rain, fog, wind, and heavy turbulence), it was finally time to head down to Sola to do the first stage check.

Less than ideal weather conditions still made it difficult to continue on the lesson plan. So we continued, for the third time, with pattern work while waiting for weather that was good enough for the stage check.

Less than ideal weather conditions still made it difficult to continue on the lesson plan. So we continued with pattern work while waiting for weather that was good enough for the stage check.

Less than ideal weather conditions made it difficult to continue on the lesson plan. The next on the plan was a stage check, which we had to fly down to Sola to do. Since we couldn’t do that, we skipped ahead a bit and continued with my first pattern work lesson.

Almost a month since the previous lesson, but that was mainly due to my three week vacation in August/September. It felt great getting back to the airport (after yet another cancellation due to weather). The weather wasn’t amazing this day either, but it was good enough for the maneuvers we were going to do.

The first attempt at this lesson was cancelled due to IMC, so it was nice to see clear skies above the airport! The main focus for this lesson was steep turns, slow flight, stalls, and the usual maneuvers including a new one: turns around a point

With the limited opening hours, I have to take whatever flight lessons I can. We didn’t know if the weather would be good enough when we booked this the day before, but the ceiling ended up being high enough for what we needed.

A thing you’ll learn quickly when starting with flight training, is to expect cancellations. The first attempt at this lesson was cancelled due to low clouds and rain. We got clear skies and very little wind for the next attempt, so can’t really complain too much about this one!

I decided to start on flight lessons in parallel with the theory, so almost exactly one month after the discovery flight, I had my first flight lesson And this time I got to do almost everything myself!

A couple weeks before my discovery flight, I noticed something that made me stop when I scrolled through my Facebook wall. The local airport, which I of course follow, shared a posts from the local flying club, which I amazingly enough had never heard of. The Facebook post that started it all Can I really do this I’ve dreamt about learning to fly for a very long time, and with the option to do it only 15 minutes from home, I didn’t have any other choice - I had to give this a try!