How do you eat an elephant…..?

… you nibble away at it slowly!* and thus begins my strategy to study some PPL theory. Rather than be daunted by the sheer amount of knowledge that I need to possess I’m going to take it one small bite at a time. Today I successfully made headway with the following topics

·         Pitot/static instruments

·         Gyro instruments

·         Airspace classification

Not bad for a couple of hours work. More importantly I actually feel that I understand them now.  For example the pitot/static instruments. Not only do I have a better idea of how they work, I have a much better feel for what I would physically experience in the cockpit if they decided to misbehave, if either the pitot and/or the static ports became blocked. That’s really important.

Once I began studying it became immediately apparent to me why I’d found it such tough going previously. I’d been going about it all wrong. I simply don’t learn just by reading, unlike RTH. He’s capable of simply reading “From the Ground Up” from cover to cover. I’m not

As soon as I started making notes and writing the stuff down it was the difference between night and day. The subtle nuances in airspace classifications made themselves clear to me. It was like a light bulb going on. Suddenly I understood. I found some inherent sense in it. Now my mind isn’t intimidated by it, I’m confident it’ll stick.

Success at last. Next time I’m going to look at some Met questions and figure out how to answer them. It doesn’t bother me that I might not know the answers, I’m happy that it’ll give me a clue as to where to start nibbling!

 

 

* This dreadful metaphor was a favourite of my A level chemistry teacher and it has stuck with me for all these years. Sometimes I dread to think of the legacy I left behind in my 10 years of teaching!