Autumn Flying

Such a beautiful day to fly! Autumn colours and long shadows made this a fantastic day. The flight was out primarily over Reading.

Despite another lesson of forgotten items, FREDA, PAT and aircraft checks I really enjoyed this lesson. I really felt I was flying and controlling the aircraft.

FREDA - Fuel, Radio, Engine, Direction Indicator, Altimeter
PAT - Power, Attitude, Trim

My aircraft was G-JJAN a PA28-181. Despite a bit of amusement with the mic jack plug I found this a very stable aircraft and even managed a very guided landing. Too heavy handed on the controls still though. A little bit of radio work to Blackbushe information too.

A New Hope

Yesterday I had my first flying lesson in two years. On one hand it felt like I'd never been away, on the other I really have a long, long way to go. I'd forgotten lots of basic things like checks, controls and where things were. I was more nervous that I've been for ages.

The flight was on a trial basis and we flew to Theale and did a bit of sightseeing and home spotting - if only I'd brought my camera. My instructor Johan took things fairly easy and concentrated on things like Straight and Level and Turns.

Today's aircraft was G-BPTE a Piper PA-28-181. Found this when I was looking it up! Report

Begin Again

It's been bothering me for a while now that I've just stopped flying. Every time a plane flies over I look up. We're not far from Brimpton and seem to be almost on their flight path so there's lots of that. Somebody practices aerobatics just out of sight. Hell, I wanna do that! Excuses - yes, the money, the house move - so many petty excuses. What am I afraid of?

So after some further prompting from T I've booked another lesson - a trial at Blackbushe to see what things are like over there. A bad weather cancel on Sunday, but at least I've started again! Time to dig out the books and do some work.

Philipp Steinbach talks about the Sbach 342 on Airsports TV

This is the plane I flew in at WAC 2009

Awesome!