Wednesday 17th December.
One hundred years ago, Orville Wright set the ball rolling with the first recorded powered flight...
Some ninety-seven years later after agreeing to join Mr SteveR on a flight to Le Touquet, I was totally hooked by the flying bug.
That Christmas, my family clubbed together to pay for a trial lesson at Rochester with which to start myself off. After my third attempt to book a lesson, I managed to occupy the left-hand seat in a Cessna 150 (G-BGBI) for the first time on January 15th 2001 and two years, eleven months and two days later I was able to bring all I had learnt together and be considered competent enough to pilot an aircraft without the
need of an instructor. For me, someone who doesn't hold a driver's license, this was the ultimate challenge.
The previous days for the week building up to this had been blessed with beautifully clear blue skies and today was no exception. Quite a contrast from previous weeks where constant rain and thick fog and scuppered any chance of being airbourne.
I was awake, showered, dressed and enjoying my morning coffee by 07:30, adjusting myself and preparing myself mentally for the day ahead. While consuming my breakfast and grinning as I looked out of the window. I telephoned my examiner and then battled my way to the train station amid the morning rush hour.
Arriving at the airfield just before 11:00 I was able to plan the route I had been given. From Rochester I would be heading to Deanland and then tracking across to the Dover VOR where somewhere along that route I'll be given my diversion.
Once having checked the NOTAMS and the weather, I was sat in G-BIJW with the engine running and ready to go. I taxiied to the holding point of 20L, already by this time it was starting to get busy with everyone keen to be in the air even for a brief moment. At midday we were in the air.
The first leg of the flight was fairly hard work, not so much the route being taken, but beause it meant flying with the sun shining constantly in my eyes. I veered off track a couple of times but corrected myself when it was needed and flew as religiously as I could at 2000ft. Circling over Deanland to indicate that I had arrived at our first turning point, I then switched on the Nav-Com and tuned it to the frequency of the Dover VOR and began to head towards it.
As we drew level with Ashford, I was then informed of my diversion route which was to take me Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey. I did receive a minor slap on the wrist for very nearly blundering directly over Challock, but I managed to avoid a major clanger at the last minute. Once arriving at Eastchurch, it was then onto doing a PFL. I was a little slow making my mayday call as my main concern was making sure I didn't lose sight of the field. Once that was out of the way, I was instructed to climb to 5000ft to perform a couple of stalls. The first one I messed up slightly and was a little annoyed with myself about that but proceeded on with the next stall which was to be done in the landing configuration and that went much better.
Once that was over, it was back to Rochester for the last part of the test. The radio by this time was incredibly busy. I missed a couple of chances to inform the tower of my return and ended up having to circle over Chatham twice before I could get through on the radio. By the time of my return to the airfield, the wind had backed and we were now using runway 16 which I had only used once before when practicing my short field landings well over a year ago.
I began my descent into the circuit and turned downwind for the first landing which was to be a flapless one. The windsheer had increased a fair bit as I approached closer to the factory the other side of the threshold, nethertheless I managed a fairly smooth landing, put the carb heat to cold and then full throttle and we were up again for the final landing.
I was pretty tired by this point, so I was relieved that this was to be the final one and a normal landing too. I was a little bit scrappy with my turns in the circuit but in the end I got us back on the ground safely and taxiied back. Having gone over six weeks since I last flew, I can't really put into words how relieved I was to be told I had passed.
It's been two days already since that time which will certainly mark a milestone in my life and it still hasn't fully sunk in. So I guess you can say, I had my weetabix that morning
Before I close off my part of this account, I want to thank everyone for their notes of congratulations, SteveR for giving me the opportunity to accompany him on a number of flights to help me get to grips with things.
My family for their support and encouragement, the instructors who have been mad enough to train me, Brian Bennewith, the CFI at Millen Aviation who had enough confidence in me to send me on my very first solo and Clive Elesmore for having even more confidence to pass me on my skills test.
Hope I've not mentioned names where I shouldn't have done, if I have, please can the moderators let me know and I'll amend this post.
DJK