At our Club the LAA strut has been running a small series of seminars, which all lead up to a practical trip to France for a weekend.
The first presentation was on Sky Demon/Tablet based Navigation. The second on Reducing infringements and then Planning the flight to Calais using Paper and Sat nav charts avoiding airspace, gliding clubs etc.
The Last one will be Simulating the flight using the facility on Sky Demon and making all radio calls as required during the flight. The emphasis will be on infringements and any gotchas that may arise during the flight. This will include transits, altitudes, flight plan activation etc.
We then hope to fly in company to Calais and St Omer one weekend in the Spring.
As a small strut we expected no more than a dozen to attend, only to be pleasantly surprised that over 30 have been to the first two and hopefully the same amount will be there on the 22nd.
As one of those presenting, it was nerve wracking to stand before so many unexpected peers, but really gratifying to see so many who actually wanted to benefit from the experiences and skills of others.
As a strut we were only hoping to improve our own skills by using each others experiences to extend our flying, but after the number of pilots/ students that are coming to the presentations, is there something we can all do to encourage this?
Reading the forums on this and the other place, we have ideas to develop a further series of seminars.
Remember we aren't professionals, just pilots with a reasonable amount of experience, who want flying to be safe and fun.
Oh and by the way, I pinched lots of stuff from Irv's Fly on Track and the NATS websites for the Infringement presentation.
Also posted on the other side
Alan