Kemble to Bembridge and Isle of Wight

An old favourite I’ve flown this route from Kemble to Bembridge a few times now (Oct 2012, Feb 2013) but it doesn’t lose its appeal. Today I flew with my daughter and one of her teenage friends (Tiobah) who had never been airborne before – neither commercially or privately. I gave the full safety brief of what to expect and we donned lifejackets for the short over water crossing. I

Continue reading

Summer Holiday to France 2014 – Leg 4 of 4 -Quiberon to Gloucester with bad weather

Thunderstorms and Embedded CBs forecast Our two week break was up and we were scheduled to return home today. We’d enjoyed some great weather, sunshine pretty much every day and very little rain. Overnight however, there was an intense thunderstorm with very loud thunder. Worse thunderstorms and torrential rain were to be found at home, with a SIGMET warning of embedded CBs and hail. Not an ideal day to be

Continue reading

Summer holiday to France 2014 – Leg 2 of 4 – La Rochelle to Quiberon

Mid-holiday change of resort After our first week on Ile de Re, we flew direct La Rochelle to Quiberon – about an hour’s VFR flight (compared with 3h30 by car or 5h19 by train). Direct flights to/from the UK to Quiberon aren’t permitted – you must land at an immigration “Port of Entry” first, both inbound and outbound – but there are no such formalities for flights from any French

Continue reading

Summer holiday to France 2014 – Leg 1 of 4 – La Rochelle

A holiday on the Cote Atlantique After the success of our German family trip last year, we had agreed to take our family holiday this year also by flying ourselves to Europe. Not too far, must have a beach/sunshine, not too hot. So the essential criteria became airports near beaches. I had also been enthused by a presentation at the local LAA Strut, where the chairman shared his holiday photos

Continue reading

Project Propeller return flight to Guernsey

Project Propeller is an annual gathering of remaining World War 2 aircrew (friend and foe), flown into an airport by current pilots. Often these passengers take an active role in the flight, either navigating and/or piloting. Mostly male, there are a few women pilots who were involved in tasks such as delivering aircraft from the factory during the war. This year’s event was held at our home airport at Gloucester,

Continue reading

Meet the Parents – Beach trip to Caernarfon

Today’s flights originated with a request from my daughter at University, who asked me to take her flying for the day. To the beach please. Then she mentioned she would be taking her new boyfriend along, and suggested I also bring a friend. So I asked my wife if she wanted to join us for a day at the beach and it became a “Meet the Parents” outing. This meant

Continue reading

First IFR airways flight – Gloucester to Fishburn

Planning a simple IFR airways flight Now in possession of the Instrument Rating on my EASA licence, I had been advised to make use of it. Try a few simple flights on your own, said my IR instructor Jim, not directly over London in poor weather to an airfield at minima cloudbase, but somewhere fairly straightforward in a clear VFR day. So today I flew to see another recent IR

Continue reading

Weekend away to Dundee

A family expedition As a family, we usually try to visit relatives in Scotland every couple of years and have journeyed by various means – such as driving 12 hours each way (typically requiring an overnight stop each way) or flying to Edinburgh or Aberdeen (requiring a hire car). This year I hoped to fly during the Easter weekend, with a backup plan to drive if the weather was poor.

Continue reading

Cambridge through the murk

I had a good excuse to fly this week – a business trip to Cambridge. The choice between over 7 hours by car or 42 minutes each way by plane isn’t a difficult one to make, even after adding an hour to get to Gloucester airport. The TB20 was free as it often is during the week, so I booked it up early. Planning A warm front had been causing

Continue reading