UK Instrument Rated Private Pilot and Instrument Flight Instructor
From groundschool to practical application After running several successful VFR Cross Channel Groundschool courses, it’s been good to take things a step further and sit beside pilots making the trip for the first time. Our club requires that unless already experienced, each member’s first cross channel flight is taken with an instructor, thereafter pilots can fly almost wherever they like. I’d hope my day long groundschool covers most of the
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The idea of flying to France for lunch remains attractive, even if I have done this a few times now. Making this into an airways flight (almost) over London is even better. Adam (who recently passed his IR Skill Test) shared a flight with me in the TB20 from Gloucester to Lille – his first international airways flight – and enjoyed the experience. I was a bit rusty, having spent
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Friends in the Bristol Aero Club enjoyed our week’s flying holiday in California in 2016 so much that we decided to return there again for a week in September 2017. Fewer club members were able to join us this time, so the holiday team this were Deb, Phil and myself. We flew out on a BA Airbus A380 from London, staying overnight at LAX airport and driving up the coast
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I’ve been keen to encourage more qualified PPL’s to make more use of their hard-earned licences and fly themselves to France, which takes between one and two hours from our base at Gloucester. I’ve done this over the summer with various pilots, both through the Bristol Aero Club (which insists on a cross-channel club checkout for less experienced members) and directly with a couple of aircraft owners in their own
Continue readingThe Bristol Aero Club regularly schedules a long weekend August flyout to Northern France. This year they again chose to base themselves in Quiberon for two nights, where I’d spent a week’s summer holiday before. There would be seven pilots in four aircraft, comprising 2 club Warriors, my TB20 and one member who had built his own tail wheel SONEX. We met up in the pub beforehand to plan out
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I’d booked G-CORB, our shared TB20, for the weekend away with my wife. The weather forecast was quite changeable in the days beforehand, and we decided not to go far. The Isle of Man had been on our target list, fairly easy to get to with just over an hour’s flight. The benefit of a shared aircraft is that you aren’t under any pressure to fly long hours or even every
Continue readingThe EuroGA Forum organised a fly-in to Roskilde near Copenhagen which my co-owner Rich and I decided to attend. We took Friday and Monday off work to make this a full four day tour. I suggested a route-plan of Gloucester-Antwerp-Groningen-Roskilde-Rendsburg-Bremen-Texel-Gloucester which was what we ended up flying. Rendsburg was included because it has the cheapest fuel in the area; Antwerp and Texel would be our border control entry/exit points for Schengen
Continue readingMy turn for the TB20 at Gloucester this weekend, and I was considering a weekend overnight expedition to France. My daughters were both keen to come, but since my wife was booked at another event we agreed to take one boyfriend in the spare seat. Flight planning to France seems to be less about what route to take – Autorouter.eu works that out in seconds – and more about researching
Continue readingSeveral Bristol Aero Club members planned a tour of north west France in August but the dates didn’t work out for everybody. David (another member of the club) booked a PA28 from Kemble and asked me if I’d join him for a couple of days. We planned to decide where to go based on the weather forecast a few days before, and might have headed to Scotland or Ireland had
Continue readingWet Weather You might expect lots of sunshine mid-June, when I’d booked the aircraft for a long anticipated weekend away in France with a couple of old friends. They liked the idea of spending time indulging in French culture, away from the bustle of daily life. Living in south west London, I thought the best idea was to fly down from Gloucester to Fairoaks on Friday afternoon and depart from
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