Skills Practice

I've had a few lessons since my last post covering navigation aids (VOR), glide & flapless circuits, stalls, PFL, diversions, steep turns and slow flight. I'm not convinced of my skill level in these things but Barry seems fairly happy. Certainly I am better at PFL and things like stalls and steep turns seem to come fairly well. I'd slipped into a few bad habits like using the artificial horizon in turns rather than looking outside - now much better.

I haven't flown for a three weeks for various busy / servicing aircraft reasons. I still need to do my final Principals of Flight exam - that's this week's job. The weather today wasn't brilliant with gusty wind and clouds at 1200ft for so. Perfect weather for circuits though. They went pretty well with three normal and one flapless approach under my belt. I always seem to fly better after a little break.

Today was cool from another point of view though. We were on the apron about to do power checks when Barrie pointed out a small business jet that he said was Bruce Dickinson's. It was a nice little Eclipse 500. As I went through my power checks a figure in a baseball cap and hi-vi came out and was checking it over. Bruce? I carried on with my detail and they came on the radio with an engine start request. The tower replied calling the pilot Bruce rather than using the call sign. It was him! They were departing for Fairford - the Air Tattoo is this weekend. A circuit later and they were at holding point Alpha waiting for me to touch-and-go before they were cleared to take off. Bruce Dickinson giving way to me - awesome! After the turn at 500ft Barrie took the controls so I could watch was they took off and headed West.

Here's a photo his aircraft - not taken by me I'm afraid but a local photographer Neil Randell. Note the Trooper badge and the Iron Maiden style name tags.