Tea and cake tour 2013?

Parked. On apron at Shoreham, off to pay my landing fee...

This picture does not do this cake justice, it was mighty fine

Sussex coast, after passing Worthing 

Odd name for a post? Well maybe, but it will make sense. Since late last year after reading about various airfields I could visit with my newly gained PPL, I began to notice that a common reputation amongst the UK's many fine airfields is the abundance of decent tea and cakes sold in aeroclub cafes. So what better excuse was there than to fly to these gastronomic delights, whilst at the same time logging flight hours and challenging myself by flying somewhere new each time. This first set of pictures are from my first point of call on my tour-Shoreham Airport. It is literally an 8 minute flight from Goodwood but I wanted to experience landing somewhere with full air traffic control facilities ( ATC) . Very good value tea and cake to be had there as the photograph illustrates! 

Nav to Newbury

Here is a selection of photos from a recent navigation flight I did-

Goodwood-Newbury-Whitchurch-Goodwood

I wanted to gain permission and fly through a MATZ (Military Air Traffic Zone) at Odiham, very good opportunity to improve my amateur RT (Radio telephony) skills!

I flew at around 2000ft dodging the few and large rain/sleet/snow showers. My lookout was kept even more sharp as I passed near the gliding site at Lasham, gliders tend not to carry a transponder onboard so they do not show up on the traffic alert system on the Garmin 1000.

It was a nice, short little nav flight, just to see something different, fly a planned route,fill out a plog (small flight plan), fly through through a MATZ and speak to Farnborough Radar. A few of the pictures illustrate the climbout from Goodwood and the lying snow on the Downs. After this, I passed south west of Lasham Airfield, quite alot of Boeing 737s and the odd 727 airliners there-either in storage or there for maintenance. Also some shots of Greenham Common, outside Newbury, ex RAF/USAF airfield and really quite cool to see from the air. The runway is massive ( whats left of it, before the grass and weeds take over)

Jan&Feb

I'm still here! Despite the long silence.

Here is a selection of 'views' from the past two months. As always the winter months deliver relatively few opportunities to fly, so I took the rare occasions when the weather was ok to fly. Mostly local sightseeing flights with friends and family a few circuits (to keep my license current) with my friend Chris!

I also took part in my first ever group assessment for an airline sponsorship scheme-for cargo airline West Atlantic
Sadly I didnt get through but I am extremely grateful for the experience and found it very beneficial for any more in the future. My initial application got me far, down to the last 25 applicants anyway! So I'm happy with that!

All in all a good few months, to be optimistic for good flying weather in Spring, I have bought loads of up-to-date flight guides, charts and a new headset!

Around the island

My route around the island

Note: this is a post I planned to put out ages ago in November, but as usual I have been pretty busy working and doing the usual christmas festivities, so hear it is, before the year ends (approximately 4 hours as I type away!)

 On one very cold, crisp late November day I decided to do my first 'overseas' flight. Overseas in this context was a grand distance of 5 nautical miles! It took 45 mins to fly the 74nm round trip around the Isle of Wight, routing Goodwood-Southsea (southern tip of Portsmouth)-St Catherines Point-The Needles-Cowes-Goodwood. It was really beneficial to keep up my navigation skills, talking to another ATC unit- Solent Radar, whilst enjoying the views. I was astonished of how small the Isle of Wight actually is, its just a big two-dimensional diamond that has broken away from the mainland. I live so close to it, but have only properly visited it once in my life! That should change next year when I plan to land there at Sandown, a trip I was planning on doing on this particular day, but the runway was in a poor condition-thanks to the previous week's nonstop deluge!

       Approaching the Needles, IOW. Apologies for the picture quality, my camera was massively out of focus!

   The Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth

My trusty means of transport for the small adventure!

The green light

The view from the CAA house, Gatwick, after the Class 1 Medical (I was somewhat more relaxed by then!)

This month has been very productive. A visit to Heathrow for the Professional Flight Training exhibition started November off. I found out stacks of info, met some great people and came home with a headache with the amount of info I absorbed that day, let alone three bulging goody bags. It all relates to my next step ...commercial flying.However lots of money needs to be saved before before then...we will see how that goes! (Unless I am lucky with the few sponsorships out there!) Incidently, it was interesting to find out about a couple of sponsorship/cadet schemes out there in the industry as well as other schemes to help individuals climb the ladder of commercial training. 

I also passed my Class 1 Medical earlier in the month too, so as the post hints, I can now in theory go ahead and plan my commercial training (aslong as I stay fit and healthy!). It was a good move to get checked out with a Class 1 medical first, before big money is spent on hour building and commercial training, as it would be tragic to get through all training only to realise you cannot fly commercially due to a medical problem.

Autumn aloft

The first part of autumn sent us some good flying weather, so I took the opportunity to fly some more friends and family on pleasure sightseeing flights plus a solo navigation flight. The name of this post suggests flying amongst leafy valleys, tinged with browns, yellows and golds but as you can see, alot of my flights were local, focusing on the urban sprawl of my hometown Portsmouth. Many of the photos were taken by a friend of mine, which is really useful when you dont get a chance to do so yourself, because I am, erm, flying!

Home!

Hayling Island

On final for runway 24, Goodwood House

On another flight in early October, I undertook a short navigation flight from Goodwood to Beachy Head and back. Amongst all the local sightseeing flights, I wanted to brush up my navigation skills since the last time I used them was for the Skills Test...a very memorable day! I flew between waypoints marked on the map as VRP (Visual Reporting Points) at 2,300ft flying parallel to the coast. As I reached Lewes VRP, I flew a new heading- south east towards Beachy Head. Overhead Beachy, I did a few turns then headed back to fly my planned route in reverse. Despite the weather being decent, I found it to be quiet in the skies, I guess most people are stuck in some work office at 1pm midweek! 

   Brighton from the North

Approaching Beachy Head, where the South Downs plunge into the sea, aswell as a few suicidal sorts

a deserted beach at Seaford

Annotated map of my nav flight, shown by blue line

Perspectives from the Revival:year two

Sometimes pictures speak better than words, so here's my snapshot from this year's Goodwood Revival

Yours truly

P51 Mustang

 The cosy cockpit of a Hawker Hurricane

             In one day I learnt and absorbed so much information from these beautiful historic aircraft- flight line of Spitfire's and Hurricanes, I suppose I was learning on the job! Much of my interest before came from present day airliners.

  Hawker Hurricane Mk1, this example took part in the Battle of Britain 1940!

     P-47 Thunderbolt

Overview of the Revival-the view from the cockpit of a Douglas DC3