Thanks for your reply Peter, what you say is pretty much what i have been told by Every instructor + Examiner that i have personally spoke to at my flying school and others local -which is (well, was) Rochester, however i shall be doing my last 10 hours at headcorn. They all say that crossing the channel really isn't much of a challenge so long as its planned well and in the event that a drop in vis hides my horizon, then i just scan my altimeter, gyro and VSI periodically and stick to my plog workings until i can clearly see land again. I will have to do a cross channel check with my flying school with the instructor before i am allowed to go solo, they say that altho the flying is easy, its the France end that can be daunting as French ATC like chatting in French and sometimes there English is not all that easy to understand, so that combined with un-familiar airspace / airport, it can become all a little stressful if things start going not to plan!
Btw, some of you mention flying close to the MTOW and how its very different to what i am 'probably used to'.. Well, i am training in a 152, my instructor is 'at a guess' 17 stone and i am 13 stone, we quite often have full fuel onboard too, I can only guess that this much exceeds the 152's MTOW? and on the other end of the scale, i have flown the 152 solo with about 25L fuel remaining and the thing took off like a helicopter! Either way tho, i did not find the weight difference any more tricky to manage at the light end or the heavy end, i found i just adjusted my flying to suit it - ie, when heavy, slightly more RPM whilst cruise, slightly more power on approach etc, little more gentle on the controls etc.. I guess i get this from years of driving Articulated lorries / fuel tankers as they obviously handle differently when there empty at 13~14 tonnes or full at 44 tonnes, especially with a liquid load.
With regard to flying my Gf's parents to France on there first trip, i can assure you it will not be there
first time up in a light aircraft with myself! My gf came along on my very first lesson in a pa28 and she was sick and to make it worse she passed me the sick bag as she got out of the aircraft and the bag split and went all down my leg
I myself got a funny stomach whilst flying on a couple of my early lessons too, so with that experience i shall certainly be doing some local flights in a 152 to start with so my passengers can get a feel for it etc.
** By the way, thanks to everyone else's replies also! So much advice and information in this thread, its hard to remember who said what! bare in mind tho i have read all and taken onboard any advice! Thanks loads
