UK Instrument Rated Private Pilot and Instrument Flight Instructor
The choice between flying and driving is sometimes quite easy There’s something about a short flight that always seems much more enticing than a long drive – so a tradeoff between about 1.5 hours in the aircraft vs 7 hours in my car seems an easy decision. Even if there’s still 2 hours of driving involved. I had a business presentation to make in Cambridge for an afternoon and tried
Continue reading
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 readingTime for a short Bristol Aero Club expedition with two other members, John and Russ. We’ve flown on day trips before, typically practicing our IMC skills, but all of us were keen to journey a bit further and we agreed on a three day jaunt to Scotland. We’d booked the PA28 aircraft and time off on the understanding that if the weather wasn’t suitable then we might head off in
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 readingLow Cloud but warm and (not too) windy Low cloudbase of 900 feet (broken 600) at Gloucester meant there was very little activity. It was forecast to clear during the afternoon, and the weather looked better to the west, so I picked on Caernarfon as a destination for a day trip in the TB20. Dave, who I’ve flown with at Lyneham came along for the ride. This was very much
Continue readingIt seemed a straightforward job. Fly as passenger to Coventry to collect the Turbo Arrow and return to Gloucester – just a 20 minute flight each way. The weather wasn’t entirely favourable but once the early morning fog had cleared I didn’t foresee any problem. John, my co-owner, kindly offered to fly me up to Coventry and conducted the flight with his usual calm and measured discipline. I’ve not actually
Continue readingMixing Business with Pleasure It’s rare for me to be able to combine business with aviation, but the opportunity came up to visit a couple of sites conveniently near to airfields in Wales. Comparing 2 hours flight time with about 10 hours driving (the roads aren’t very good there) is a very persuasive argument. Not that I normally need one to go flying, but it helps justify the expense. Unfortunately
Continue readingThree pilots sharing some practice Instrument Approaches A plan to share some Instrument flight practice with a couple of IR(R) rated pilots at Bristol Aero Club was thwarted by the club aircraft going tech at short notice. So instead, we all took to the air in my shared TB20 G-CORB and flew to Cardiff and Exeter in turn. Since I can’t instruct, I was P1 throughout and flight time wasn’t
Continue readingIMC refresher club mini-flyout Several club members at Bristol Aeroclub had expressed an interest in sharing a flight to brush up on their IR(R) skills. We’d fly G-BASJ, a PA28 based at Kemble, and on the day agreed a round robin trip to Cardiff, Southampton and Gloucester, making an approach at each. John flew the first leg and we were fortunate to get a vectored ILS on request into Cardiff
Continue readingSolo IMC landaway to St Athan After having to replan the weekend due to bad weather in the Scillies, today’s trip in the TB20 from Gloucester was intended to add a few grass airfields to my list. The strong winds (20 knots on the ground) would make for short ground rolls where reasonably aligned with the runway. But low cloud again stymied that plan. Instead, I decided on a short trip to
Continue reading