France for Lunch

Pea Soup for Breakfast Perhaps this weekend’s flight was just too ambitous.The intention was to reward my family for indulging me in my hobby by flying them to France. Being so close to the shortest day in the year, and not operating from an airfield with lights meant that it would be much more enjoyable to stay overnight. We originally intended to go to Le Touquet, but very few hotel

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Solo to Popham

Change of plan Andy had kindly offered to take me for a flight on the club’s Arrow – an aircraft that I’m not qualified to pilot myself. This is a faster version of the PA28 range, with retractable undercarriage and a “wobbly prop”. Andy had completed two hours of differences training and so was keen to consolidate this with a few flights. I don’t believe it’s worthwhile for me to

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Some solo IMC practice

…with a safety pilot of course! After Saturday’s full day landaway, today’s Bank Holiday Monday flight was intended to be a shorter local flight focussed on IMC practice. I didn’t want to have a full lesson with an instructor so instead had arranged to make a local flight with another club member (Dave). He would act as  safety pilot on our flight from Kemble. Kemble was fairly busy – it

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A breezy afternoon on the South Coast

A sunny day With the weather forecast for Sunday looking like it might be sunny, I had offered earlier in the week to take the family up for a trip across to the Isle of Wight. My normal base at Lyneham is now closed at weekends, and the club isn’t planning further weekend availability until at least  after it moves. I booked a PA28 from Compton Abbas, where I’d had

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Short local with the family

To fly or not to fly, that is the question What a wet and dreich (<– Scottish word for damp weather) day. The forecast really didn’t look that good, and we were drenched in the morning. I’d pretty much given up any chance of a flight after seeing the previous night’s weather forecast. However a closer look at the TAFs and rain radar, together with airfield webcams, held some promise.

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Solo to Welshpool

Time for a solo flight Looking through my logbook, I’ve been taking a lot of training and instruction recently, particularly for the IMC course. With the weather looking good for the weekend, my intention was for a solo landaway – something that would improve my confidence and start enjoying what a PPL enables. During the week there had been some short term changes to arrangements. After taking the differences training

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Solo to Sanddown, Isle of Wight

A solo landaway to Sandown With my IMC course being delayed due to lack of instructor availability, I thought I’d make best use of the holiday I’d taken off work combined with good weather to enjoy a solo landaway. I booked G-VICC which I’d been learning the IMC course on for a few hours, but was asked to swap to G-ELUE because a problem with a faulty press-to-talk button on

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Solo night flight from Lyneham

After my successful familiarisation night flight the previous week, I thought the next step to consolidate this would be to take a short solo local flight one evening after work. With sunset around 8pm local, official night starts at 8:30. I could get to the airfield by 7:30, so planned to fly from 8 till 9. This would be similar to a late return from a landaway, and mean I

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Dunkeswell Solo

Where to go for a Sunday afternoon? Unable to take off until 3pm on Sunday (due to family commitments), but with no hard stop on my return (apart from sunset at 8), I thought Dunkeswell would be a good choice. Although the airfield website quoted 5pm closing time, I rang to see what time I could arrive and depart. They are open for arrivals until 5pm, but you can leave

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Gentle introduction to Lyneham flying club

I’ve enjoyed several flights from RAF Lyneham now. My first few were with other club members, and included a long Navex down to the south coast passing within sight of Popham, Goodwood (near Portsmouth), Bembridge and Sandown on the Isle of Wight. This gave Andy and myself some ideas for future landaway destinations which we hoped to reach later in the year ahead. I also made a solo landaway to

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