— William Shakespeare, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ Act V. Scene I.

In July 2011 I ended up at Gamston Retford for the day, meeting up with the UK sales manager of Diamond and taking a DA42 for a trial flight. At the time I was beginning to worry about the whole AVGAS issue, the cost of fuel and running the SR22 as well as the need to find an engine which uses something other than 100LL and the costs associated with any upgrades on the SR22’s in the fleet.

The DA42 was a very nice aircraft to fly, however it felt a little bit like driving an old generation Skoda compared to the more refined SR22 which I’d say is like driving a BMW 5 Series for comfort and luxury. I did however notice how much quieter the engines are on the DA42 as well as how much better the visibility is without an engine in front of you, and the performance of the DA42 on a single engine and dual engines was definitely noteworthy. I enjoyed the flight, but I wasn’t convinced and remain an SR22 fanatic!

One nice touch, and I really do wish I’d thought about taking a picture while I was there … I ended up parking the SR22 next to the DA42. To my surprise, parked next to the DA42 on the other side was G-BNTD the PA28 I had learned to fly in at FlyTeam. I thought it was quite ironic having the aircraft I’d learned in, the aircraft I’m now flying, and the aircraft I may well end up buying all next to each other…. alas it wasn’t to be!

August to January was very quiet from a flying perspective. I found myself flying with Jon Page of TAA briefly to practice before renewing the IMC rating, and then not actually getting around to renewing the IMC (being lazy as I still have the IR which I can’t use in an N-Reg anyway), and then all of a sudden September has blurred into Christmas and then we’re into 2012 and January!

In January I ended up in Le Touquet (LFAT) and Calais (LFAC) again doing the requisite training flights and 6 approaches to keep the IR rating alive, and then I ended up in Swansea (EGFH) overnight seeing a shareholder and customer, trying to persuade them to do more with Fido as a business. Sadly it doesn’t seem to have worked, however it is important to keep in touch with the bigger clients and investors, so these trips are still important.

Actually, quite depressingly, other than Swansea (EGFH) I’ve not really been anywhere new in the last 12 months, unless you want to count the total balls up that was supposed to have been a flight to the Isle of Man on 21st May 2011 which was supposed to have been a Birthday treat, but nearly ended up being my last ever flight!

Look out for the upcoming article “12 months on, What did I learn from that” which tells the tale of my flight on May 21st 2011 when I encountered delays, an unchangeable “must get there” mindset and bad weather.

Over the last 3 years however I have trained for and passed the JAA PPL and gained the IMC rating and a night qualification, and I have also travelled to the US and gained an FAA IR.

In fact, between Jan 2009 and Jan 2011 I had logged more than 100 hours, and visited many dozens of airfields. Some of the best flying has to have been in the USA, where they are just so amazingly GA friendly and the airfields are so well kept, with $0 landing fees and everyone is so willing to help out!

Compare that to the nightmare we have in the UK, the “nimby” attitude of people who’ve recently bought houses near to airfields and then complain about the buzzing sounds they hear at weekends. Wait until they succeed in closing those airfields and they then turn them into housing estates or super markets, then listen to the noise, deal with the increased traffic and general disruption!

Anyway … having had such a flying start (pardon the pun) to my GA ‘career’, I have only just managed to log 25 hours in total in the last 12 months. What happened to clip my wings so much?

Well the price of fuel has sky rocketed … so has the cost of rental due to increased maintenance costs (some of which is to do with the USD/GBP rates as most spares are bought in USD.

Add to that the fact that most of my flying has, in some way or another, been work related (visiting clients, doing lunches, visiting potential investment sites, and so on) … and work has somewhat dried up over the last 12 months as the UK seems to be heading deeper and deeper into recession .. despite the claims from No 10 that all is well

And then, when I’ve had the opportunity, or found the need to go flying, either the weather has been bad (and there has been a lot of that this year) – too bad to justify a flight even with an IMC and an IR rating! – or when I’ve planned a trip I’ve discovered the nearest airfields are closed, and I’m now looking at flying into somewhere “big” like Doncaster Sheffield and then driving for an hour or more to get to my destination. When you’re looking at going to Sheffield for a meeting, it is only an hour or so from London anyway, so I end up driving there instead – and spending 4 hours stuck on the motorway coming back. (Ditto Staffordshire).

So, I find myself having flown barely enough to keep the precious ratings (which I worked so hard for) alive. Having logged a few hours and the approaches I need to keep the IR alive back in January, I find it has been another 4 months and I’ve not had the time / opportunity / etc to get airborne. I’m back to booking time with instructors to ensure my skills are still enough to be trusted with passengers, etc.

So the plan, for the rest of the year, is to try and get some flying in! Whether it is business or pleasure, it needs to be done. If I don’t, then my license and ratings will not be worth the time and money invested in them, and my sole will surely have withered and died in disgrace!

Someone once said to me that the hardest thing about getting your license is finding the time, and the weather to be able to keep the skills up enough to be competent enough to go solo and then pass the test. Having been there and done that, I think they lied .. the hardest part about getting your license is the actual keeping of it once you have passed the test! (12 hours in 2 years is just enough to keep your license, but not enough to be safe and to justify having the license in the first place I don’t think!)

— Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Let me know what you think, and if it is of any use to you!

Wilbur Wright

The plane turned back to the airport, but crashed after making an emergency landing.

Investigations are currently under way to determine what went wrong

Lost in Cloud

In the end, we needed to stop off in the Isle of Man to see my parents, so the planning became quite “simple”

In the end we went EGLD HEN DCT OX DCT WBA DCT HAW DCT IOM EGNS

Then EGNS MIKEL BLACA TRN TABIT VFR DCT Broadford (EG18?)

The flight there was pretty uneventful

The return trip was a little more fun … we hit some unexpected icing, which thanks to the TKS anti ice protection with the Cirrus SR22, and an expedited climb to FL095 meant that we were soon on top of the cloud and enjoying the glorious sunshine.

Considering the forecast was CAVOK and 9999 I was initially a little concerned that the cloud seemed so prevalent, and so low (FL040 through to FL075 was thick, and there was still some cloud up to FL090) however quite amazingly, as we crossed the FIR from “Scottish” into “London” the sky cleared, and visibility was awesome!