A short flight during break in the weather A break in the January bad weather provided an opportunity to share a short flight from Gloucester to Cranfield and back with John, one of the other co-owners of our TB20. It’s only about 30 minutes flight time each way. We took advantage of their £5 landing fee offer and hoped to practice some holds and make a practice instrument approach. On
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Cherbourg for lunch and wine
Rich, one of the other TB20 joint share-o-plane owners, offered to share his flight with me from Gloucester to Cherbourg for the day. He had originally planned to take along a couple of work colleagues, but they dropped out at short notice. We agreed that he’d fly there and I’d fly the return leg. The weather looked promising, with a broken cloud layer between about 2000 and 4000 feet. This
Continue readingIFR to Cardiff and back
A mentoring flight Wanting to improve my IFR skills, I scheduled a mentoring flight with John, one of the other TB20 owners. He had mentored me once before, flying from Kemble in the PA28, and we flew together recently to Exeter and Newquay with Rich, who has another share. Today’s flights would be short ones in the TB20 from Gloucester to Cardiff and back. The weather forecast wasn’t great –
Continue readingRound trip IFR day out to Exeter and Newquay
Last minute change of plan The original plan for the weekend was to join a Lyneham Club expedition from Kemble, flying a group of Warriors and visiting both the Scilly Isles and Guernsey, overnighting in Guernsey on Saturday night. I’d got as far as submitting an Online GAR form (not used that system until now) on Friday afternoon, before the trip was cancelled due to bad weather – forecast strong
Continue readingFerry flight from Alderney
A short ferry trip outside the European Union The concept of ferry pilots brings thoughts of fearless individuals who fly small aircraft across the Atlantic, surrounded by huge extra fuel tanks and the risk of bad weather, sharks and a cold sea. In my case however, it was just a one hour flight back from Alderney after one of the other share-o-plane owners had flown it out there. Alderney is
Continue readingSouth Wales Tour
After a period of prolonged bad weather and cancelled flying opportunities, both Andy and I were keen to find a way to get a good trip in. We both negotiated to be able to take a day off work at short notice and looked for a gap in the weather. Today looked the best day with good visibility and low winds, so the plan was put into effect. After a
Continue readingDodging the clouds to Caernarfon
North West Wales for lunch I’d been talking with Andy about sharing a flight – it’s been too long since we’ve flown together. He had been keen to fly to Caernarfon last weekend, where his wife was visiting relatives, but I couldn’t make it. So we agreed to fly on Saturday and then delayed to Sunday based on the weather forecast. A friend was keen for me to take him for
Continue readingLAA Rally at Sywell
My first major rally The Light Aircraft Assocation (formerly the Private Flying Association) is a fairly large and well run organisation catering for the needs of private aviators, especially those who want to build and maintain their own aircraft. They have delegated authority to approve the design and modification of so-called Permit (or Annex 2) aircraft, which covers pretty much anything that isn’t an EASA CofA (although there are exceptions,
Continue readingClub flyout to Haverfordwest
Change of destination The original advertised destination was St. Mary’s in the Scilly Isles, but strong winds and a front full of CBs in the south west made us choose an alternate destination of Haverfordwest in the south west corner of Wales. I’d been there before, but not in the Arrow. A long list of interested parties dwindled during the week or two preceding the event, but we still managed
Continue readingIMC practice to Coventry
Rusty IMC skills My IMC skills were getting a bit rusty through lack of use, and I’d been discussing with a couple of other club pilots the possibility of an IMC practice session. The idea being mainly to focus on instrument approach procedures rather than anything else. With a day in lieu owed to me after a period of intensive business travel, the opportunity came up to share a session
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