My 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
Continue readingCategory: solo
Cambridge business daytrip
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 readingCaernarfon IFR
Low 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 readingIFR Ferry Flight from Coventry to Gloucester
It 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 readingWest Wales business trip
Mixing 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 readingSandtoft
A solo flight After a busy week and uncertainty about whether or what time I might be able to go flying, I took the TB20 for a landaway on my own. I haven’t flown solo for a little while and it does focus the mind. My destination today was Sandtoft, a relatively small airfield with a hard runway tucked just inside the Doncaster zone at the north east corner. The phone
Continue readingIMC Diversion and VFR into St Athan
Solo 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 readingCambridge 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 readingA blustery outing to Compton Abbas
Compton Abbas is such a nice airfield to fly to. Located in the heart of the Dorset countryside, it commands tremendous views across towards Shaftesbury. The route from Kemble passes over Bath, Frome and Warminster, taking about 30 minutes. Today’s flight was in G-VICC, a Warrior rented from Freedom Aviation at Kemble, organised at short notice and so a solo. It helped to remove some of the rust from lack
Continue readingHurtling at almost 200 knots towards Halfpenny Green and Sleap
The forecast was for a pretty windy day, 18 gusting 28 from the south, with up to 50 knots at altitude. I’d not been up in the air for quite some while, so it was about time to take at least a short flight but nothing too adventurous. A couple of friends had hired a Robin from Gloucester and were planning a landaway in the afternoon. We looked at various
Continue reading