QDMQDMQDM, sorry to disappoint you matey but it all went well! Senna and Jenson are not orphans and as daft as I am they have provisions in my/our wills in case anything nasty does happen.
MLS-12D, you made a good point there and one I wish I'd thought about before we took off, more later.
flyboy6876, I used to live in your neck of the woods and all I can say is - you lucky bugga! There is some fantastic scenery around there and popping over to Rotnest (is that still a weekend haunt for pissed up boat boys?) and along the coast must be wonderful!
stiknruda, they have excellent pedigrees and are typical Ridgies! PS. It's Jens
on, as in Button.
englishal, I wanted to go over our house which is just possible when using 26 at Redhill but yesterday we were using 19 so it wasn't really possible.
To the rest of you, thanks for your replies - it's good to see that there are still many good memories, even for some of our more established Pilots.
As far as the flight went last night, all I can say is that it was brilliant! Well, I could only say that but as ever I'll give out some more information.
I had only planned a 40 minute flight down to Bewl Water and back just to break her in, so to speak and I was gratified that she even came up as she had a bee in her bonnet about going up with an instructor first but she relented in the end.
It was a lovely evening, no wind to talk about with excellent visibility, in fact the lack of wind slightly ******ed up my Nav as I had factored in 7kts so I had to adjust it but no big deal really.
Amazing lack of turbulence which I had briefed her on, not even one little shuffle and G-PD was on his best behaviour (all cars, boats, planes are blokes to me - it aids communication
) so there we were pottering along having a great time. Mrs. Sennadog was enjoying herself immensely and I got her "Jumbo spotting" as we flew below the heavy iron going into Gatwick as I thought it would help her take her mind off things, not that she needed it as it turned out.
We got over Bewl Water and as she was having such a laugh I asked her if she wanted to carry on, which she did so we ended up over Hastings and came back. Unfortunately, she spotted France in the distance and is now demanding to be taken to Le Touquet for lunch with Goodwood next, so I'm going to have to find an experienced pilot to go over with first to get some practice in - shame that!
A few suggestions about the mile high club from her convinced me that she is the ideal passenger (
) and maybe that's something to commemorate 1000 hours with - but not in a Katana.
The only slight downer was the club Headset that she used which had some compatibility problems with my DCs but when I tell you that she talks for England you can understand that this maybe wasn't such a problem - she even managed to be quiet when I held my hand up to listen to ATC which was a bit of a result, normally she just carries on talking.
So, she had heaps of fun but is not interested in taking it up herself which is fine by me and she has a roll of film which she took (hopefully they'll come out) so all in all, a total success.
PS.
Evo, the spare seat for the fly in is looking a bit dodgy mate.