Over-confidence and lack of practice.
Many people have the ability to gain a PPL. A lot of flying instructors will say that they can train anybody to gain a PPL but becoming a “pilot” is a different story.
A person can gain a licence with 45 hours of training and re-validate their licence with just 1 hour instruction per year. Learning to be a “pilot” comes after you have qualified and start flying without instruction. It is pretty naive to consider that a newly qualified PPL holder will spend the rest of their piloting life tottering around the training area at the airfield they trained at. Excuse the cliche but pilots like to spread their wings and visit new places. These new experiences are where you learn to be a “pilot”
Flying to a new airfield, crossing controlled airspace and completing longer flights, all build experience and confidence as a pilot.
A problem lies when even the most experienced pilots can pick up bad habits, become complacent and overconfident in their abilities.
Maybe it is something to do with pilot ego…I don’t know, but is it worth risking safety for the sake of some refresher training with an instructor and have your flying skills critiqued by an expert?
In March of 2018 an aircraft accident investigated by the AAIB highlighted a case of overconfidence and really a lack of constant instruction after gaining a PPL.
A Cessna 152 was making an approach to Beccles airfield in Suffolk. The aircraft was flying from Southend airport in good weather with light winds. On final approach the pilot has realised he is too high and initiated a go around. A perfectly correct decision by the pilot.
On the second approach he had a better approach angle but still deemed his approach to be too high and elected to make a late selection of full flaps to steepen the decent. The rate of decent then increased late in the approach and landed heavily causing it to bounce. The aircraft then hit the runway a second time in a nose down attitude. The result was the nose gear partially collapsing and the prop hitting the ground. Luckily the pilot escaped without injury.
The report submitted by the pilot assessed that he had misjudged both approaches but became over-confident on the second approach and continued. Another factor noted by the pilot was a lack of practice for recover from a bounced landing with an instructor. The pilot had also been unable to fly for a few months and regained his recency with an instructor at Southend which has a large runway.
The pilot with over 300 hours experience ought to have completed some circuits with an instructor at a smaller airfield.
So with a lack of recent training on smaller airfields, a good decision to go-around on the first approach and then a bad decision to continue an unstable approach resulted in an avoidable accident.
See the full report here.
