A Wet Weekend in Troyes, France

Wet 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

Continue reading

Weekend away to Lannion

Change of Plan The original plan was for a weekend in the Scilly Isles in the TB20 from Gloucester with a couple of friends who had been keen to go there. They had tried to sail their by yacht, but failed due bad weather. Pre-planning confirmed that while St Mary’s airport is shut on Sundays, it is permitted to depart on Sunday afternoon at your own risk. I requested PPR and

Continue reading

Practical Cross Channel Checkout

Two at once After the success of my first Cross Channel Groundschool, I was pleased to be able to followup quickly with the practical side. Two Bristol Aero Club pilots (we’ll call them W and P), asked me to fly with them on their first venture abroad as our club rules require. Originally scheduled for Saturday, we were able to reschedule to Friday in light of the weather forecast, with

Continue reading

Jersey Airways Daytrip

A daytrip to Jersey in TB20 G-CORB, outbound airways FL90 returning VFR at between 1000 feet and 6000 feet on a more direct route. The weather had been poor for flying all through December, with low cloud and strong winds. The forecast was excellent for today, just a couple of days before Christmas, and I was able to share a flight with Ben who lives nearby. I’d been promising him

Continue reading

Recordbreaking Ride to Rotterdam at up to 218 knots

The large number of windmills should be a strong indicator that Holland is a country with plenty of wind. In the aftermath of storm Abigail, I flew to the Netherlands from Gloucester for a few days trip. As with many airways IFR GA flights, 90% of the flight was in glorious sunshine with a brief but intensive departure and arrival. The flight achieved two new records for me – the lowest airport elevation

Continue reading

France for Lunch: Deauville

Excited Passengers A second daytrip to Deauville in France (first was in February) but this time in glorious weather, taking a couple of friends who I’d been promising a flight to for some time. My original destination was Lannion, which I’d not flown to before, but at the last minute I found out they were closed for painting the runway. I had got as far as filing a flight plan the day

Continue reading

Family holiday in Guernsey

Being able to book our shared aircraft for the best part of two weeks makes it possible to use it for a summer holiday. We had done this in previous years, and again took the opportunity to do so with the consent of my co-owners – this time basing ourselves in Guernsey in the Channel Islands. The relatively short distance from home (just one hour flight time) meant that I

Continue reading

Daytrip Guernsey to Dinard

We made a daytrip from Guernsey to Dinard during our two week holiday. I’d been to Dinard a couple of times before – once as a landaway with another pilot, and again when diverted due to bad weather on return from our holiday the previous year. In both cases, I’d not made it outside the airport. Apart from some early fog around Guernsey (the fog horn woke me up early!),

Continue reading

Daytrip to Jersey

From our holiday base in Guernsey, we made a day trip across to Jersey to visit some of my wife’s relatives. It’s only a short distance (23 miles) but technically a different jurisdiction – both are UK Crown Dependencies and each have their own Bailiwick. A full flight plan had to be filed but no GAR forms (there is a special mini-flight plan for inter-island flights between Guernsey and Alderney

Continue reading