DJ Chris Evans
 

Any one know if he is a pilot? and if so, where he flies from?

I only ask because on his R2 show yesterday, when talking about choppers flying up the Thames, he mentioned they must have been flying "Special VFR" - which is not a phrase a non-aviating jock would tend to know....

Thanks for that v prompt answer. The power of PPrune!

And what a thoroughly nice chap he is as well, very down to earth.

I went to a party on the roof of a block of flats in Docklands about 25 years ago. They overlooked Tower Bridge and he lived in the top floor penthouse.

He let us use his private lift to get all the disco gear up to the roof. He had a Ferrari 328 and a mint Rover 2000 (spare tyre on boot) in the underground garage.

Sorry I just had to mention it, I don't get out much!

Noel Edmonds was also a big aviation fan and Helicopter pilot. Is he still flying or given up?

Pace

That's an interesting article about Chris learning to fly a helicopter - although the accompanying photo looks remarkably like a PA28 cockpit....

He did have a Robinson R-44 registered in his name, with a photo of him flying it on G-INFO.

If IRC Noel Edmonds gave up flying helicopters many years ago after a few people he new who were chopper pilots were killed in flying accidents.

Saw him
 

Spotted him at Fairoaks "Hanger Cafe" a few months ago. I presume he is well versed in some sort of flying....

There were some notable accidents to media people - notably like Mike Smith but Noel Edmunds was not reckoned to be in the same class of pilot as him; I think perhaps NE gave up because the helicopters themselves repelled him. He hadn't the reputation of being the nicest of people.

Noel Edmunds gave himself a very nasty scare in a 109 a few years ago and I understand he decided to desist from flying RW while he was still ahead.

And yet you press on Shy!:ok: Your lower back must be sore by now,AND YOU'RE PROBABLY A BIT DEAF TOO?

CG

He knows I jest (he did enough at my expense!).

Eh? Sorry, I couldn't hear over my creaking bones.

Believe me, it's only because I have no other option....
The looks have long gone :8 , so the Gigolo thing as a second career never happened :}

(And seeing as I could spell, I never made the grade as a schoolteacher :E ).

Never a truer word spoken :ok:

My speeling was so ShyT, they made me the Head. (Done all the "Call me Dick", jokes.)

CG

On surviving some of your landings, the principle holds good for pilots too!

Don't know what you mean...those aircraft were broken before I landed them! :p

Ol' Chris Evans would be lost in this banter-fest eh? (God knows I am.) But still rich. :( Git.

CG

On a serious note, I can't see how any relatively busy "celebrity" can stay current enough to fly anything more than a kite.

David Essex learnt to fly helis at Fairoaks.
Gary Numan learnt on fixed wing at Blackbushe and was a frequent visitor at Fairoaks in his Harvard in the mid 80s.

Back in my plane-spotting days at Squires Gate (Blackpool International nowadays), I used to see the comedian Jimmy Edwards in his Aiglet Trainer G-AMMS which, coincidentally, is for sale at the moment.

Regular visitor to Blackpool was Freddie Star in his Jet Ranger G-JOKE. Late 80's.

Not so regular visitor to Blackpool was Noel in his/a Jet Ranger G-ONTV. Late 90's.

Well, here's a real celebrity name for you: Don MacLean...and as part of a group, I purchased a PA28-180 from him in the mid eighties....

At this point, I feel I should point out that he wasn't actually Don Mclean the singer, he was the Brummie comedian on Crackerjack.

I understand the aircraft mirrored its previous owners career by unfortunately crashing at Coventry some years later.

Of course we should not forget Alan Sugar who I believe stuffed his Cirrus at Barton?

Pace

Oh Sugar! This one.

Air Accidents Investigation: Download PDF document

Was at Blackpool the other week with a new identity.

GINFO Search Results | Aircraft Register | Operations and Safety

Peter wrote:

Well, two of the names in my log book are J. Travolta and T. Cruise. Both were very impressive, for hobby pilots; well up to professional standards.

And aeros with G. Numan were very good indeed, and I think it's a shame he's no longer flying. Lovely bloke, even if his music wasn't to my taste.

(I'm not letting stage names get in the way here).

So, Peter, was this another off-the-cuff opinion, or did you have any evidence at all on which to build the foundations of the platform from which you so confidently cast your aspersions?

FLH - are you my ex wife by any chance?

You seem to contribute very little here but do follow me round, and every so often you pop up like

http://dev.physicslab.org/img/908c40...fc7d762f36.gif

and throw in some daft remark.

More likely though, you are one of a couple of individuals who post here under another name... and your location is PROB99 a fake.

You instructed John Travolta and Tom Cruise? That should narrow it down a bit - if true, which is highly unlikely.

Have we met?

Peter,

I've explained that I do try to mop up the detritus you leave behind with your ill-informed opinions and half-baked expertise.

In this case, you made a sweeping generalisation which my experience (where did I say I had instructed them?) shows to be invalid. You appear to have made it without the benefit of any relevant experience.

As I've said before, you would do well to learn more and teach less.

I'm in the UK now for a short while, but PROB100 you're wrong on your allegations (there's a surprise). We haven't met. I don't expect to gain anything from the experience if it comes my way. Walter Mitty was never my style. You got my back up because you spend so much time preaching, yet, to extend that analogy beyond breaking point, you didn't pay attention in Sunday school.

If you didn't instruct them, how come

Errr, because we flew together, perhaps?

I'm a bit bemused by that comment: I can't think of many jobs other than being a celebrity, that provide both the income and free time needed to fly regularly. All of my friends in the professions (medicine, law, finance) are worked to the bone.

One of my colleagues recently got a job as a surgical registrar attached to a research institute. He hadn't finished his basic training, but pointed out that he hadn't taken any holiday over the past two years, and had therefore got 2 months more experience than he was due to have at his stage of training. Perhaps this is an extreme case, but I can think of lot of my colleagues who work nearly as hard.

My understanding is that the statistics bear this out - people in unskilled occupations work lower hours than ever before, but professionals are working longer hours than ever before. I suspect this is a big part of why GA is dying out as a hobby. Possibly not so much when it comes to keeping flying, as when it comes to find time for training and ground school.

Perhaps I have an overly rosy view of what being a celebrity involves... But you do hear about actors/actresses having kids in their 20s, which seems rare in affluent areas of the UK.

Peter

I suspect I know FLH, he has seen it and done it. He flew Tom Cruise and many other celeb pilots from North Weald. A significant number of today's display pilots owe a lot to him.

If it is him forget your ex wife, his wife spits out stropy pilots for breakfast.

Wide, he probably thinks it me under another guise as I am one of the other people who likes to correct his frequent drivel. :p

FLH, be careful when Peter is upset he spends a lot if time trolling the Internet to character assassinate people in order to take the heat of himself. Have a look at his history as IO540.

You are welcome to any opinion you want as long as it agrees with his.... :p:p:p

I resent that.

I took Chico flying from Blackpool once... Lovely bloke :)

That's an interesting way to populate a logbook.

Celebs
 

Of course, there is that bloke from a well known motoring programme who flies who clearly failed to appreciate the importance of not registering a UK aircraft to your home address. Maybe someone at White Waltham could point that out to him.

What I was thinking of is that a full time working media person is not going to have a huge amount of time, despite having loads of money. Big-name actors like Travolta or Cruise work flat-out when on a movie (several months?) and the rest of their time is theirs. Travolta would have spent loads of time getting his (IIRC; one can look it up on faa.gov) CPL/IR and his type ratings.

Normal working professionals tend to have little time, as you say. Throw in a 1hr+ drive to the airport (pretty common if you live in London) and it makes GA even less attractive.

The English Don Maclean still flies; he was at Fairoaks about a year ago in a '182 from somewhere to the west - can't remember if it was Bodmin or maybe Compton Abbas.
Tom Cruise got 'lost' taxying out at Farnborough once, missing a taxiway onto the runway which he had specifically been told to follow (in G4 N328KC).
Gary Numan briefly owned a PA31. On an early flight in IMC, he set up his own 'private' letdown into Blackbushe. I don't know what went wrong but we finally convinced him he was on final for 27 at Lasham not 26 at Blackbushe.

I used to rent a PA28 in Bournemouth which was used by Freddie Star for flying lessons in the early 70's. He used to have everyone in fits of laughter, how they managed to teach him anything I do not know.

Peter

If we go back 30 35 years GA was in abundance especially in the USA.Many manufacturers churning out a large variety of aircraft for lawyers to Doctors to Joe Blogs in the street.
Infact many of those aircraft still plough the skies.
GA is a form of transport or should be and there lies the problem.
In the USA it was a viable form of travel between the cities often hundreds of miles away and owning an aircraft could assist their working efficiency.
It was not just a leisure hobby!
Now costs and regulations and restrictions have increased so dramatically that I would not like to forecast the Health status of GA in 10 years?
Other than sport flying microlight types I doubt GA will exist in any form that it used to do.
With EASA at the helm I cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel for the future health and expansion of GA in Europe.
Celebrities and Stars have the same free time as most of us but their destinations and aircraft type like the rest of their lifestyles are more exotic
(Private Jet to somewhere hot for the weekend) The costs there are so huge That I often wonder how long that sector of aviation will survive?
Oh well the people carriers for all around Europe??

Pace

The costs there are so huge That I often wonder how long that sector of aviation will survive?
Oh well the people carriers for all around Europe??

I agree with that. With the ongoing calamities (financial), there will come a point - as in the US - where this corporate mode of travel, may come under scrutiny. Nice way to travel though:cool: