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, to my neighbours, to my followrs, detractors 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.
This started as a simple this is what I did today diary, but has mutated into more of a discorse on GA flying in the UK, and sometimes the rest of the world. as a GA pilot we have a responsibility to keep up with the goings on in avaition, and being an ex journalist I still have a interest in news reporting, so from time to time you might get something pop up I have noticed. The ideas and text are mine, and yes some of the cartoons are AI, I can take photographs but my cartoon skills are non existant.
I hope it helps, I hope you enjoy my small spot on the internet, and if there is anything you would like to see, just drop me an email.
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)
Five years ago today I flew an aeroplane on my own for the first time. One circuit of Elstree in a PA-28, fifteen minutes in the logbook, and a right seat so empty it was practically shouting. If your own first solo is somewhere ahead of you, this is the post I wish I'd read the night before mine.
Read more: Your First Solo: What It's Actually Like (Five Years On)
I drove to my own airfield the other day, walked up to the café I've eaten at for years, and couldn't get a table. Turns out the national press had found the place first. Here's why that's the best problem an airfield can have. And why I still ended up at a drive-thru.
Last week I didn't fly because it was simply too hot. Thirty-three degrees the day before, density altitude doing unhelpful things, the kind of bumpy air Caz politely declines. So the plane sat in the sun and I stayed on the ground. And then I decided to I spent the evening in a portacabin with no air conditioning, and have a chat with the CAA.
Look, mum, no instructor! Yes it's true. I flew without an instructor and, more importantly to me anyway, I've managed to create another video from another flight in a month. God, is my channel coming back to life? Could I be doing more flying? Yes.
There's a man carved into a Dorset hillside who has been showing off for about a thousand years. The Cerne Abbas Giant. Fifty-five metres of chalk, a club in one hand, and absolutely nothing in the way of clothing. You can probably picture him. Most people can.
There are some people you carry with you long after you've stopped sitting in their classroom. Léon Ellison was one of mine.
Léon was one of my electronics tutors at Royal Holloway. A genius and a gentleman, in that order and both completely. The kind of teacher who made hard things feel reachable, and who treated a slightly-lost undergraduate like the engineer he hoped you'd one day become. I owe him more than I ever told him.
It's true. I hadn't flown in months. November last year was the last time I was in the air. There was an abortive attempt to go night flying in December but circumstances canned that idea. So weather, work, more work, and then the annual appearing just as the weather improved all combined to keep me from flying. Well, that is my excuse, but the real answer is I also got a little lazy, finding excuses to not get my flight bag out and plan a flight. It was easier to start up Netflix than start up SkyDemon. The aerodrome was still there. KK was still there. I just kept finding reasons not to be there.
