Category: End of Year Reviews

What a strange year this has been! COVID caused huge disruption to everybody in many ways and I have been fortunate not to have been badly affected. My major milestone this year was gaining my CPL (Commercial Pilot Licence). Flight instruction has continued between lockdowns and has been 80% IFR related this year. IR training has again almost entirely been in student’s own aircraft, with IMC ratings using the club

This year was definitely focussed on gaining my instructor qualifications, but other highlights included a club tour to Sweden and a long weekend to Scotland in CORB. I’m beginning to understand why so many instructors rarely fly more than 25 miles from base, and have resolved not to let that happen. My training route towards instructing for the Instrument Rating required several steps: Passing 11 CPL Theory exams (I was

Another year with some definite highlights and quite a bit of variety. I finished it off today with a short club fly-out to Shobdon and back from Gloucester as a passenger. The highlight was unquestionably the beach landing at Barra airport in Scotland, as part of a three day tour which saw some pretty bad weather that relented just at the right time for our arrival. I again enjoyed a

It’s been a very busy and varied year’s flying, achieving the most annual hours so far partly due to my CRI (Class Rating Instructor) role opening up some new opportunities. Again the highlight of the year was a week’s flying holiday in California USA – it’s tough to beat the facilities and variety of scenery there. I used our co-owned TB20 more for weekends away than daytrips, visiting the north of Scotland, Scillies

It’s been quite a sociable year’s flying, consolidating my learning to date, although hours were slightly down on previous years. A week’s flying holiday in New England USA was undoubtedly the highlight of the year. During an intensive week, we covered a lot of ground and visited a wide variety of airfields and airports, even flying the Skyline route along the Hudson River next Manhattan. Back in the UK, I flew

Overall, I made some good personal progress this year by achieving a full EASA Instrument Rating in May. The majority of flying hours in 2014 were on club/school aircraft because our TB20 share-o-plane needing a major engine overhaul during the second half of the year, but I found other opportunities flying as passenger with others, joining a flyout with the Bristol Aero Club and a couple of US business trips. My objectives

This has been another really great year for flying, and I’m very fortunate to have been able to do so much. All that early training and initial experience has paid off. Buying into a share of an aeroplane and being able to tour with the family around Germany were highlights – the sort of goal I had in mind when I first started learning. Touring Scotland with the club was

It’s been another great year for flying, and I’m lucky to have been able to do so much. The weather hasn’t been that great, but we’ve had some very good flights, met some great people and visited many new destinations. I made fewer flights, and had less flight time than last year, partly due to spending a lot of time gaining the IMC rating during 2011. My objectives from the

Looking back at my first year as a fully qualified PPL, I’m very pleased with how much I’ve managed to achieve. The major hurdles included: – Gaining an IMC rating. Undoubtedly the most difficult thing I’ve done in flying so far. Frankly this took far longer and cost much more than I had expected. Being able to start my training at Lyneham, which had all the instrument approaches and facilities