Learning to fly, one mistake at a time
Flying is simple isn't it? Take off. Land. Repeat. And obviously try not to get the two confused.
I started learning to fly in my early 50s and have never quite stopped being a student. This is my attempt at explaining why I fly. To myself, to Wifey, and hopefully to you.
I hope you find my antics honest, humorous and possibly even inspiring? That last one is a bit of a stretch, I know. But I love flying, and I love seeing others understand why I fly. If that encourages one person into the air, then I've succeeded.
My goal is simple: keep the number of landings equal to the number of takeoffs. And of course, try not to crash. I'm not an instructor - listen to them not some internet influencer (I was once called an 'up and coming YouTuber - Thanks Flyer Magazine'!!), All you will find here is just me and my experiences. Hopefully you can learn from them before I run out of luck, skill or cash.
The CAA has opened a consultation on making electronic conspicuity mandatory. Every aircraft below FL100 would have to transmit its position, and the owner pays for the privilege. KK's transponder can't do it, so I spent a happy hour working out what this was going to cost me.
If you've been following along, you'll know I've had plenty to say lately about pilot medicals. Health, honesty, the lot. You'll also know I quietly took the soft option and dropped to a Pilot Medical Declaration. Well. Turns out preaching is the easy bit and practising is the hard bit. So I stopped talking about it, bit the bullet, and booked a Class 2.
I love the smell of 100LL in the morning. Apologies to Colonel Kilgore. But my lot may be the last pilots who get to say it. Our KK runs on leaded fuel - 100LL and its soon going to be confined to the dustbin of history.
It was one of the hottest days of the year. Again. KK stayed tied down on her pad, because she's a flying greenhouse at the best of times and she would have been an oven. We all see these CAA driven webinars pop up on the forums from time to time, and being a sucker for punishment, I signed up for one. Was it going to be as boring as it first sounded, or a gold mine? Honest answer, yes to both.
Read more: Runways and Realities review: the boring webinar that became a gold mine
Beautiful day. Blue skies, a light-ish breeze, and my flying mojo at its absolute peak. Every instinct said go. So why did I leave KK tied down and reach for an ice cream instead?
I recently posted a video involving a MATZ penetration, and before I go on let's all be honest, we all love a good penetration. Don't we? I But like so much of what I put out, it managed to cause a controversy. A controversy, over a MATZ crossing? Oh yes.
My recent Kemble airfield review went down a treat, so it seems only fair to show you the other half of that day. Not the bacon roll and the wander round the apron, but the bit that came afterwards. The flight home - this is supposed to be a flying channel after all. This one was a two-up trip with Ed, one of KK share owners, which meant he sat back and I flew and worked the radio and did all the hard work. And no, before anyone writes in, Ed isn't an instructor. That's rather the point. And he did fly us to Kemble in the first place.
Someone left a comment on one of my videos back in January. The video was about avionics installers, the Aspen and Avidyne saga, part two. Nothing to do with weight, medicals, or BMI. And then, buried in a line about engineers being the wild west, @ghoflyer wrote this:
"Looking a lot slimmer! Congrats."
It's a kind thing to say. It's also the kind of throwaway line that does a lot more than the writer probably intended. It's been turning over in my head ever since. So here's the long answer. The borderline BMI, the AME who put me on notice, the switch to a PMD, the Mounjaro, and the small matter of a lawnmower I cannot fly.
This isn't a brag and it isn't a sob story. It's just what being a heavier pilot actually looks like from the inside. One example, mine, and nobody else's.
Read more: Too Fat to Fly? (Now With 15% More Ways to Fail a Medical)
