Originally Posted by
Genghis the Engineer
TCT's post above is interesting - as basically she admits that she paid somebody else to do most of the legwork of the "remarkable feat of navigation" for which she was originally given the award.
G
Exactly, I've been on a handful of solo long x country flights of a few thousand kilometers, multi day journeys as a private pilot in a slow single.The hardest part is sitting in the hotel in the morning agonising over those route & weather go or no-go decisions. You stress the hell out of yourself second guessing your choices and understanding of weather and route info available. It's you and you alone that are making those calls. Getting hand fed how, where and when to do the flight leaves only adherence to the plan which in TCT's case the chase plane can provide guidance and supervision on. Auctually flying the aircraft is a simple case of following your PPL training for a SEP day vfr flight. Nothing remarkable and certainly no great feat. Now buggering about in a drafty hangar on cold wintery nights for several years riveting and screwing together a pile of metal then actually having the bottle to go airborne with it, as many LAA members do, that to me is a remarkable feat worthy of recognition (or possibly commitment for phsyciatric evalation)