Lovely day!

[ATRIXO]

Great day to be out flying instead of desk bound.
Anyone do any interesting flying today? We 'office' bound bodies need to live vicariously on days like this!

[Don D Cake]

Off to do some circuits a Luton soon.

15007KT 090V190 CAVOK 22/13 - perfect.

Here's hoping for a bounce free afternoon :)

[FNG]

Interesting: cack handed aeros (apologies to Pprune Dispatcher).

Less interesting: washing the winter mud off the aeroplane, but at least it made me feel virtuous.

Saw another ppruner first soloing on his new type, but he can tell you about that himself.

[PPRuNe Dispatcher]

FNG - many many thanks for the flight in the CAP10. I'm not sure I'll ever take up aerobatics :o but the CAP10 is an absolute delight to fly, sensitive but not at all twitchy.

Mik

[FlyingForFun]

Ok, I'll admit it - it was me who FNG saw :D

Can't believe how lucky I was with the weather. It was Saturday 4th may - 12 days in advance - when myself and another new group member managed to find a free day in our instructors busy schedule for our Europa type-conversion. I booked the day off work, but told the boss I might need to re-arrange at short notice if the weather was bad...

Well, if we'd booked the conversion for 2 days earlier, or (judging by the forecast) 2 days later, we'd have had to cancel. Instead, we had the most perfect day possible - slightly hotter than ideal, but apart from that it was superb!

The training went very well, with the instructor sending me solo after just 1.5 hours of dual. The Europa is an absolute delight to fly. It's also just hard enough to land that on the rare occassions you manage to put it down smoothly it's extremely satisfying! :D

Unfortunately, we ran out of time before having a chance to head off to a hard runway. But the instructor was happy to sign me off for grass airfields only in the meantime - which means I can take the Europa to Popham on 1st June, so I'm a very happy pilot :)

The other pilot who was doing the type conversion at the same time as me had a little more trouble with the conversion, since he didn't have any previous tail-wheel time. But, by the end of the day, some excellent instruction meant he also got signed off for grass strips, with a couple of conditions for the first 10 hours. So an excellent day all round!

FNG had G-BXFE looking nice and shiny - good work! Unfortunately, although we chatted briefly before his ride in the Cap 10, PPRuNe Dispatcher disappeared before I had a chance to admire the green tint in his face... :p

Oh - and apologies to the bloke who was walking his dog in a field near Stoken Church - I didn't notice you when I chose that field to do a PFL in :eek:

FFF
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[LowNSlow]

I'd love to be flying but I'm sitting overlooking the Ural river waiting for beer time and my hairyplane is in Blighty :mad:

FFF, I take it the the new toy is a monowheel? A tad faster than the Supercub I'll bet :D

[FlyingForFun]

LowNSlow,

What you need is a second aeroplane that you can keep over there! :D

Yes, it's a monowheel - you didn't think I'd go back to flying trikes again did you? Around 40% faster than the Super Cub. And around 25% of the hourly charge - or around 30% of the price per hour including monthly charges, if I fly around 6 hours a month.

It's a close rival as far as fun goes - but I think the Super Cub might just about beat it there. Especially on a day like yesterday, when I'd really like to have had the doors/windows open wide!

When are you next back? Hopefully the weather will hold out for you so you can get some flying in. See you at GatBash!

FFF
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[LowNSlow]

FFF there is a chap trying to sell me an AN-2 but it doesn't have any logbooks.......... :rolleyes:

Good luck with the Europa, the numbers look very favourable. I've never flown one but the monowheel is the neatest looking in my eyes. Aren't they a tad difficult in a crosswind or is that just rumour?

Isn't it nice watching your hourly costs tumbling compared to renting. Just hope the engine doesn't throw a rod or crack a cylinder barrel :D :D

Definately see you at the GatBash. I spent last night training for it :D Oooh mummy my head hurts, pass me the painkillers and the sunglasses please :cool:

Now that you've tasted the addictive cash reducing poison called aircraft ownership, fancy a share in an Argus?