UK Instrument Rated Private Pilot and Instrument Flight Instructor
Making the most of Aberdeen It was a glorious day – lots of sunshine, relatively little wind – and today’s flight would be a straightforward jaunt from Aberdeen down to Sywell where we planned to overnight at the airfield hotel. I wanted to make the most of our short visit up north, so we spent the day visiting relatives and enjoying some time at the beach. It had been a
Continue readingThe main purpose of our Scottish weekend trip was to visit relatives in Aberdeen and I’d asked ahead about the cost of landing and handling there. I’d been put off in the past because quoted fees have totalled several hundred pounds and instead I’ve landed at Dundee. Nowadays Aberdeen airport (and the local economy) are much less busy and the handling fees can be negotiated down to a more reasonable
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Planning Ahead I’d booked our TB20 G-CORB for the long bank holiday weekend, blocking off Friday through Monday for a trip with my wife up to Aberdeen to see my relatives. We wanted to stop off somewhere for Friday night so I took the opportunity to visit somewhere that’s been on my bucket list for a while. Glenforsa is a grass airstrip on the Scottish island of Mull with a
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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
Continue readingOne of our Bristol Aero Club members booked a PA28 at Gloucester and asked around if anyone wanted to fly with him. Mid-week can be difficult for many but I was able to join him. John has made a long bucket list, and the top one on his list today was Elvington – the country’s largest independent WWII air museum, set up to look like a working RAF base. It’s
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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
Continue readingMy shared TB20 was back from its Annual, and I took a day out from my FI course to enjoy a solo flight. Apart from one trip to Liverpool in October, I hadn’t flown it since August. The Annual hadn’t found anything particularly unusual but a small part for the magneto took some weeks to source and fit. Combined with poor winter weather, that meant a downtime of over 2
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Bristol Aero Club is one of the few GA clubs with aircraft and instructors equipped to train disabled pilots. Each year we take on two or three FSDP students for an intensive 2-3 week course and usually get them to first solo level. Some become members and we’ve recruited one or two others directly. Private flying isn’t a cheap sport, so finding a pilot with the combination of disability, adequate
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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The flight instructors in our club at Gloucester work hard and fly a lot. But like many, they may rarely fly very far away nor do much IMC. I took two for a short demonstration flight to Cardiff and back in the TB20. One had no IMC rating, the other had one but it has lapsed. Neither had much experience of retractable/VP aircraft and autopilot with most of their instructing
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