Perspectives from the Revival

Just a small selection of some favourite aviation related shots from the Goodwood Revival back in mid September.

The Boeing B17 Flying Fortress 'Sally B'- one of the largest aircraft to land at Goodwood

Hawker Fury MkI

Starstruck! This aircraft, a Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX 'MH434' starred in the 'Battle of Britain' film

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!

737 sim

A recent visit to an FTO (Flight Training Organisation) gave our group of three wannabee pilots an opportunity to fly a Boeing 737-700 simulator. What a brilliant experience. I found it hard work-realising this aircraft does not fly like a Cessna 172! It was easy to ignore the flight instruments (like the attitude indicator-displaying the attitude of the aircraft nose and wings in relation to the horizon) and believe you were flying straight and level visually when in fact the nose was pointing downward resulting in a gentle descent! However it was a brilliant experience and one I'm very grateful for, I just knew that I wanted to do more of it in the future.

A Boeing 737-400 on final approach to Runway 26L at Gatwick

We each flew a circuit from Gatwick's runway 26L lasting around 10minutes. None of our 'attempts' at landing were brilliant, but indeed safe! Some practice there needed I think. Luckily I have another chance to fly in a Boeing 737-300 simulator at the end of August, cant wait, till then back to flying the marvellous little Cessna.

Flying without flaps

Been making good progress with further solo flights, consolidating what I have learnt so far whilst building experience and flying hours. Flapless approaches result in a much shallower descent angle and require small power changes-because of the absence of flaps which create drag and steepen the descent path. Glide approaches are more or less the opposite-steep descent path when flap is selected and a might tighter circuit flown around the airfield. Its a brilliant exercise for practising judgement-when to cut the throttle, is the aiming point within gliding range? how will the wind affect the gliding range? which is an airspeed which will give you the greatest gliding distance available.

Up close and personal to a PC12 NG

A recent avaition exhibition held at Goodwood gave me the opportunity to nosey around some fabulous aircraft-perhaps the Rolls Royce's of turboprop business aircraft. I had the chance to hop on board the Beechcraft Kingair C90GTX, Beechcraft Bonanza G36 and a PC12 NG. I dont think my income would allow me to own one of those, but I certainly wouldnt mind flying any of them one as a commercial job!

The Reds making the usual 'impressive' visit

New job

Cleaning the leading edges of wings/stabilizer and propeller of aircraft...result-better appearance and improved aerodynamic performance

So to help lower the cost of my flying lessons I decided to help out at my flying school- cleaning their fleet of Cessna 172s...a job that is in demand all year round-by summer its removing the bugsplats (the result of an unfortunate meeting between a fly and an aircraft) and come winter-the splatters of mud kicked up from a grass runway.

But I very much enjoy this job,as it is satisfying and working around aircraft in an exciting and friendly environment.

Through the lens

Just a selection of a few favourite shots from a recent visit to Heathrow...I dont think they came out too bad, considering the camera is embedded in my iPhone!