Duxford fly out

The fleet before the launch to Duxford

At the beginning of September my aeroclub were organising a flyout to Duxford airfield, home of the American Air Museum and many others and served as an RAF and USAF airbase in the world wars. It was a great all round trip for me-to fly up, watch an airshow, gawp at some classical and not so classical aircraft and fly home...(not to mention the lunch provided!)

First introduction to instrument flying! The ribbon like stripes is the motion of the propeller seen through the camera lens

The visit coincided with the Duxford Air Show celebrating the 75th anniversary of the splendid Spitfire. Seven of them took to the skies shorlty before the end of the show and put on a stunning display, what I really enjoyed about it was the aircraft were rarely flown in formation with one another, more of a scattered, 'dog-fight' like display which was so skillfully flown and incredible to watch.

Vickers Super VC10...genius

One of my favourite aircraft is the Vickers Super VC10. I was able to get close to this amazing machine and even board it. I felt proud to board the largest long range airliner built in Britain. Its high subsonic speed meant it was capable to fly into the 'hot and high' airports of Africa and was able to land on many short runways-which was very useful for the developing airports of the late Sixties,early Seventies.

Inside the Air Space museum which houses aircraft like the Avro Vulcan bomber,Concorde and a DH106 -Comet 4 among many others

Then it was time to head back to the aircraft and fly home. Our route took us south towards London (avoiding the controlled airspace with a good safety margin!) then east across the Thames ( Tilbury,Dartford) then past and around Gatwick to make an evening arrival into a quiet Goodwood. It was a great opportunity to experience cross country navigation and witness the operation of the autopilot (Garmin 1000) -such a clever piece of kit. Its a great aid to ensure safety and ease pilot workload, not an excuse for the pilot to catch forty winks whilst the sprites in the autopilot do all the work, a false view often held by the non flying public!

Flying home, crossing the Thames at QE2 Bridge, with a misty silouhette of London in the background. Honestly that was a magical sight...oh how I love flying!

737 sim ( FULL FLIGHT MOTION! )

A second opportunity to fly a simulator presented itself on Wednesday so naturally I was there like a shot. This time it was a 50 ton Boeing 737-300, part of the 737 'classic' family. Our group did a brilliant job, we spent half an hour each as Pilot Flying (PF) and Pilot Monitoring (PM) the role of that job basically involves setting target speeds and headings in the Mode Control Panel, operating the flaps and landing gear etc. One guy in our group flew the aircraft as if his limbs were just and extension of the flying controls-holding the altitude and speed dead on. Amazing. He claimed he had never flown a simulator before...yeah right! I thoroughly enjoyed it, found the whole experience really beneficial, felt really privileged to be part of it, I am so extremely grateful to our organiser. The motion recreated by the six hydraulic legs of the sim pod is utterly incredible. The acceleration and deacceleration and four motions of flight is identical to the 'real' heavy metal that hauls us from A to B and you soon forget that in reality your still attached to terra firma by six hydraulic legs, not flying a circuit around Gatwick at 3000ft!