Just got back a few days ago.
Here is some info for those interested.
Aviator came good and replied to my email, so I called them up in country.
Arranged to go flying the very next day with an instructor, and 2 of my friends, and flew again the day after on my own.
The flying in Cyprus isn't all sunshine and cavok as I (and I guess most people) expected. The mountains were generating a huge amount of clouds off them, and away from the mountains, there are quite a few thermals rising from the parched barron land which made for a fairly bumpy flight. The next day, there wasn't a cloud in sight on the coast, but when we were in the air heading towards Nicosia, we got battered by 2 torrential downpours that put an early end to the flight.
The flying in Cyprus is quite restrictive for such a small place. You cannot fly any further East than LCA itself due to the British Sovereign Base just up the road, so no flying over Aiga Napa or Protaras area (which happened to be where I was staying). There are also quite alot of Danger Area's that aren't actually marked on the charts, so you have to know where they are in order to avoid them. There South of the Island between LCA and PFO is pretty much the only place to fly, except you are not allowed to fly out over the water so I was told by the instructor (although doing circuits at LCA we had to orbit about 1/2 mile offshore for 10 mins while a couple of big boys were around
).
Obviously you cannot go over into the North, so there isn't really much to see, although we were close enough to Nicosia to see the Turkish Flag in the distance. They did say that they used to pop over to Beirut pretty often in the past as it's only around an hours flight, but recent events have knocked that on the head.
The C172 they have is a nice little a/c, in good condition - with 70's porn star red leather seats too !!!.
I also found out that Tomahawk are no longer in business, and Aviator are now the only flying school at LCA which is probably when I couldn't get through to them.
Not a bad couple of hours flying, but not brilliant for things to see and places to go, although the young female instructor more than made up for the lack of things to look at out of the window
