As part of my balloon flight training, my instructors have asked me to write up notes about each flight, highlighting what was good, what I learned, questions & what wasn’t so good. The idea is that this will help solidify the learnings from each flight as well as being a good source to review when “couch flying” on those days when I can’t actually get into the aircraft.
I’ve found this to be of fantastic assistance to my learning and just wish I’d done it when I was previously learning to fly fixed wing aircraft. I’d have probably picked up a lot more & progressed faster if I’d done this.
My instructors (Pete & Paul, both commercial pilots) have also recommended that I write notes about my flights even after I have my license, especially as I’ll be working to build hours towards my commercial license. Having a source of notes to review can do more for helping me learn from my flights than the small amount of space available in a daily log entry :)
While I was out in Mildura doing my first week of balloon flying, I was sleeping in a tent plus studying hard for my theoretical exams. As such, keying my notes into a computer from the start just wasn’t going to work, so I wrote them out in a notepad. Now I get to transcribe them into an electronic copy for Pete’s records, so I figure I’ll write them up on the blog so others can have a read too (what the heck :)
Track these entries via the “Flight Notes” categories, adding the “Balloons” category if you just want the entries about flying hot air balloons (I may start writing up flight notes for future fixed-wing flights as well :)
