blog
Capt Priecel at last! – After FIVE years student Juraj passes his PPL
13th of September was a good day. I become a helicopter pilot. After five years.
My decision to become a helicopter pilot was inspired by a trip of a photographer Michael Poliza where he flew over a period of 3 months from Hamburg to Cape Town and as a result of it he published a book “Eyes over Africa” sharing photographs of landscapes, animals and tribes living in areas that would be very difficult to access without a helicopter. And so I decided to learn to fly in London – which I consider one of the most challenging environments to fly, due to all types of weather changing frequently, dense traffic and high standard of training and infrastructure available.
I started my training for PPL-H in 2018 when I contacted Paul at Flying Pig & Elstree Helicopters and shortly to fly. Still balancing work and travel I passed all exams within my first year but my training was interrupted by Covid when I could not get to the UK for 2.5 years. By then I left the UK and started to live between Prague in summer and Cape Town in winter. And when the traveling become again feasible I had to retake all my expired exams in 2022 again.
I started to travel to the UK for the sole purpose of completing my PPL-H training but again I did not find enough time to do so in 2022 before leaving for winter to Africa. So it did feel really good to get to the position where Paul texted me that my final exam is planned with Leon at White Waltham. Initial brief was that that the exam will start at 1pm but shortly after I started to plan my Navex I was told we need to be at White Waltham before 11:00. Always good to get a bit of pressure ))). I landed there at 10:55 and the day could start. Leon is one of the most experienced heli pilots and examiners and I really enjoyed flying with him. He kept asking me to demonstrate one thing after another but with all the training I had under my belt I felt confident and we were getting through the list quickly. When he nominated confined area where he wanted me land I had to change it twice as people with dogs started to walk towards it shortly before I was about to commit to landing. But all went well, shortly before 1pm we were back and Leon shook my hand and congratulated me on becoming a pilot.
This part of my journey is complete and I am looking forward to the next part. I am planning to take advantage of heli trips will be and I also want to say thank you to all pilots that were training me and specifically Paul who not only has a wealth of flying and technical knowledge but is really putting effort into adapting training to the way various people learn. Thank you Tony for all your support, cheers and morning cups of coffee and Elaine for coordination and finding the timeslots that would work around my often packed calendar. See you all soon.
by Capt Juraj Priecel
See Juraj in action on the last leg of his qualifying cross country below…
