Fantastic day today, did my Microlight Flying Test

Today was the day I have had multiple multiple butterflies in my stomach as it was time for my Microlight Flying Test - which if I was successful would mean I'd be no longer a student and would have my full PPL(M) Pilots Licence.

We were supposed to be doing the test last week but rain stopped play, so the test was rescheduled for today.

The forecast was pretty much perfect, almost no winds, clouds at 3,000 feet or more, and calm conditions predicted all day.

Last night I seemed to hardly sleep a wink. Awake at 3:30am, then 5:30am, and then I finally got up at 6:30am.

The rest of the day has been a bit of a blur, I was second of the three students doing their flying tests today and the long and the short of it is that I passed!!!

I was as pedantic as I could possibly be with pre-flighting the aircraft and with all my takeoff and en-route flight safety checks, the exercises went pretty well, including the three emergency "engine failure" landings which I successfully got down to the target field OK (I was really worried about these), and the only thing that really didn't go as well as it could have done was the intentional stalls when turning .. when I couldn't get the aircraft to stall at all. More practice of this manoever required!

So now that I have done all 5 of the theory tests and passed them as well, and now today having passed the practical test, the paperwork is all filled in and I now have to wait for the CAA to send me my licence in a few weeks time.

Yipee !!

See previous articles about learning to fly a Microlight aircraft

Flying update

I last wrote about my burgeoning career as a Microlight pilot in September and October 2009 when I announced that I'd finally been cleared to fly solo for the first time, and then went solo again a few weeks later.

There's not been much flying since then as the weather has been awful and I've had flu both of which have kept me on the ground. In fact I've not flown at all since October.

But that's all changed now.

The big news is that I have bought my own Microlight aircraft, a Medway Microlights Raven, G-MWLB. She's (it's ?) a relatively basic 2-seater aircraft with a cruise speed of 45-50mph, a practical top speed of 70mph, a 20 litre fuel tank and so a practical range of 70 miles or so. But at least it's my own aircraft and I'm up there rather than down here.

In October I did a little bit of flying in the Raven (with the instructor accompanying me), then on Sunday I flew a couple more circuits before the instructor announced that he was getting out and leaving me to it! I was expecting to require much more conversion training onto the new aircraft so was very surprised to be "let out" on my own so early on.

But the instructors were confident in my abilities and by the end of Sunday I'd clocked up another 45 minutes of solo flying, but this time in my own aircraft.

On Monday the weather was good again (although flipping cold) so I was down the Microlight centre again, did some more solo circuits, takeoffs and landings, then the instructor sent me off to fly to Grafham water which is about 20 miles North of the airfield. It was great to actually fly somewhere different for once and to enjoy getting used to handling the aircraft, and of course to putting my navigation skills to the test by keeping on course and not getting lost on the way.

So after what seems like an interminable time I feel I'm actually over the "hump" of learning; I can fly more when I want to rather than when an instructor is available, and I can focus on polishing my skills. The landings still need some more finessing as the Raven flies much slower than the school aircraft and thus the landing approach is a lot steeper than I'm used to - but practice makes perfect.

And I'm up to a massive 3 hours 45 minutes of solo flight time now!

Been solo Microlight flying again

After my first Microlight solo flight

Just over a week ago I wrote about finally throwing off the shackles of the flying instructor and taking my first solo flight in a Microlight, and the above picture was taken immediately afterwards - just look at the mad grin I've got!!

Well today I've been back up there again.

I fortunately didn't have any meetings to go to today and the wind was forecast to be 2mph all day, so after taking the kids to school I was off to the Microlight centre for the day.

Although it got a bit bumpy in the middle of the day as with the unseasonable October sun heating the air up and causing thermals, it's been a beautiful flying day.

As I've still got limited solo experience the instructors still want to take me up for a check-flight before they let me go up again on my own so I did a couple of successful take-off's, circuit's and landings before they let me go up again solo this morning. I'd been warned that the second solo flight is the most dangerous I'll ever do; and like the first I had quite a bit of difficulty in getting the plane to land where I wanted it to land as it was so much lighter with just me in it.

But I did get down OK after a couple of attempts and go-arounds and the dread momment was over.

Later in the afternoon after the thermals had died down it was up for another check flight, all still looking good and I was cleared to do 4 circuits of take-off, fly around, land, then take off again - 4 times in total.

It's been drummed into me that if I'm not happy with the landing then it's OK to put the power on, abort the landing and go around for another time. As I'm still a bit lacking in confidence of my own flying abilities I've been putting this into practice with 3 attempted landings for both my first and second solo flights. This afternoon though I was much more happier and confident and brought the first three circuits straight back onto the runway each time with no abortive landings. The fourth and final time though it wasn't right (twice) so two more enforced circuits before I was down and safe.

So I've now done a massive 1 hour 10 minutes of solo flying and 6 successful take-off's and landings all on my own. I feel I'm really starting to get more confident now so hopefully this'll be "full steam ahead" towards my cross-country navigation and general flying test.

Happy happy day !!

Flying Solo at last !!

I have only mentioned a couple of times before about learning to fly a Microlight aircraft back in June when instead of flying to France we ended up flying to the Isle of Wight.

Truth is there's not been much news to tell.

I've continued to fly round and round in circuits round the airfield, not really getting much better, and seriously thinking of jacking the whole thing in.

And then the Chief Instructor at Bedford Microlights took me under his wing and I've been flying with him for the last couple of months; and have finally been making progress.

A couple of weeks ago I had some really good landings in the morning but couldn't fly in the evening as the instructor had hurt his back. Then yesterday I was flying really really well but it got too dark, and then this morning it all came together, we did some more circuits, I landed it without any help from the instructor and when we taxi'd back to the clubhouse he announced he was going to get out and let me go off on my own !!

Ulp ..

I'd been warned that the aircraft would take off and fly much faster with only one person on board instead of two and despite having a big container of sand as ballast behind me it certainly made a big difference to the handling with just me onboard.

Did my checks, lined up at the end of the runway, taxi'd along and then I was off - beyond the point of going back.

The Microlight shot up in the air like a rocket with just me in and before I knew it I was at 500 feet circling the airfield.

Round the airfield circuit once, twice then a third time, having to reduce the engine revs as with less weight I kept on climbing higher and higher.

Third time round I lined up for landing, aimed at the runway and down we went. Everything lined up right on the centreline and the aiming point, cleared the trees and then shot past where I was intending to land. With less weight on board I'd mis-judged how much more the aircraft "floated" and I wasn't where I wanted to be to land.

Put the power on and climbed up to 500' for a second attempt.

Second attempt the same happened, I mis-judged the weight difference and had to abort the landing again.

Third time lucky I deliberately aimed short to take account of the different flight characteristics, and this time I was in the right place at the right time. A bit of a bounce on landing which I thought wasn't perfect but those that were watching said it was a fine landing.

Anyway I was able to walk away and the aircraft wasn't bent so I call that a success !

Taxi'd back for the obligatory photos and a grin from ear to ear.

Even now (some 12 hours later) I'm still really excited about having gone solo for the first time. We of course had to have the champagne at the end of the day and I'm looking forward to my next flight which unfortunately won't be for a couple of weeks as I've got work and a visit up North in between times.

Still some way before I fully qualify as a Microlight pilot. I've got 4 exams to do, more practice at the core skills, cross country navigation to learn, plus a "fitness to fly" practical to pass with an examiner, but at least I'm on the way now.

If not France then flying a Microlight to somewhere else over the sea ...

A couple of days ago I wrote about my cancelled Microlight flight to France due to strong winds.

Afterwards I kicked my heels at home for a couple of days, moped about not doing very much, and got in my wife's way quite a bit. On Wednesday we went to the garden centre to buy some plants to fill in the gaps where the weeds used to be (Liz has been busy tackling the new garden), and when I got back I gave the Microlight centre a ring to see if anything was happening.

France was still off but they'd decided to go to the Isle of Wight for the day if I was interested - absolutely! - and I had to get down to the centre that evening to plan the route.

And so all of a sudden it was action stations again, hurrah.

The route down to the Isle of Wight was (on paper) reasonably straight forward, I would fly the first leg down to Popham (near Basingstoke), another student would then fly to the Isle of Wight and I'd get a lift with another experienced pilot, then we'd swap over, I'd fly along the coast to The Needles and to Clench Common (near Marlborough), then swap around again and the other student would fly the final return leg to Sandy. We spent hours pouring over the maps, marking the key waypoints and things we expected to fly over like railway lines, motorway junctions, high-voltage cables and big towns, etc.

Microlights ready to fly

Next morning I was at the airfield at an unreasonably early 6:30am to the sight of almost complete cloud cover at 2,000 feet. Occasionally it briefly cleared a bit until the next wave of cloud came in.

Nevertheless off we set off on our adventure into the wild blue (well grey) yonder.

All the route and map planning and preparation obviously paid off as I was very successful in following the pre-prepared route. My navigation was pretty much spot on as we marked off waypoint after waypoint, flying along just under the bottom of the clouds with occasional drops a bit lower when the clouds descended. Flying over the Chiltern's and opening up over the M40 cutting (as seen in the opening credits for 'Vicar of Dibley') was especially great as the ground rises up considerably and with low cloud and a tall radio transmission mast to get past it all got a bit interesting!

With the low cloudbase we weren't able to fly high enough over Aylesbury, Reading and Basingstoke as planned so I had to skirt round them. And then right in front of me was Popham airfield as expected. One circuit round overhead, a call on the radio to the control tower who couldn't hear us even though we could hear them OK, then I was on finals, turning past the petrol station to land with a bit of a bump on the long grass runway.

Not the gentlest of landings but quite safe. I taxied the plane up to the refuelling point and as I turned the engine off I was surprised to see that the Microlight behind me had been caught by a gust of wind on landing and had turned over on its side. Fortunately neither the experienced pilot or his passenger were hurt but the plane took a bit of damage and has had to go off for some rather expensive repairs.

I found out afterwards that not only had my instructor let me fly and land all the way on my own but he'd also been sitting on his map so had been totally reliant on my navigation skills!

Portsmouth docks and Isle of Wight

After the obligatory coffee and bacon sandwich break we took off again due South towards Portsmouth, the Solent and the Isle of Wight.

This time I was sitting in the back as passenger so was able to take some photos of the journey as we flew down the A33, over Portsmouth, past the naval docks and Spinnaker Tower, and over the Solent. Flying over Ryde we soon arrived at Sandown airport.

More coffee, bacon sandwiches, some chilling out in the sun, some of the group went to Sandown itself but unfortunately we didn't get time to make sandcastles on the beach!

Another Microlight flying alongside

By the afternoon we were running out of time so had to change route plans, opting instead for the direct route back home stopping off at Popham again for fuel. This time I flew over the Solent up to Popham and was the passenger for the return leg from Popham to Sandy, flying over Leighton Buzzard, Woburn Park and past the mighty airship hangers at Cardington.

All together I flew the Microlight for over 115 miles in one day so it was a well deserved beer when we finally landed back at Sandy at 8pm.

The next day I was absolutely exhausted and got up very late so it was a good job I didn't have to go to work !

I've filed a few more photos from my Microlight trip to Popham and the Isle of Wight over on Flickr.

Strong winds prevented a French flying break

I've mentioned before on this Blog that I have been learning to fly a Microlight aircraft over the last year or so.

Admittedly I've not really written all that much about my new-found weekend pastime, partly because I do try (at least occasionally) to keep this Blog on-message (i.e. keep my ramblings focussed on 'running a French holiday Gite in Rural Brittany'), and partly my lack of postings on this subject has been because I've not had much interesting or exciting to write about.

Until last week that is.

So far my Microlight flying has been proceeding fairly well and I'm at the "circuit bashing" stage of practising flying circuits around the airfield. The take-off's are fine, the flying round in the prescribed rectangular route on a straight and level attitude is fine, but the tricky bit is the landings! Basically I just need more practice to get them consistent. And boy have I been practising flying circuits and in particular the landings for some time now.

Last week though was different as my Microlight Club had organised a trip to France.

My previous flying excursions have been limited to bits of Bedfordshire in and around where we live so I tend to have at least some familiarity with the area, and one cross-country journey of some 40 miles or so up to Deenethorpe airfield in Northamptonshire where it has to be said that I got somewhat lost and it was by more luck (and the instructor in the back of the Microlight) that we got there and back at all.

Flying to France was to be on a whole different league - of getting lost on a really advanced scale if nothing else!

We were all due to fly out on Tuesday morning, down to Headcorn in Kent, refuel there then continue on to Folkestone, fly straight over the channel to Cap Gris-Nez, round the back of Le Touquet, and then on to Abbeville where we'd land and stay over at the airfield. All going well we would do some local flying in France, perhaps up and down the French coast, then fly back to the UK on either Wednesday or Thursday.

As I'm not qualified yet I was taking an instructor with me and was planning to swap over at the different way points with another student who was travelling with an experienced pilot.

All in all I was really really looking forward to it, it was to be quite an adventure. Everything was ready for the trip, I'd bought a couple of brand new life-jackets off ebay as apparently there's a 15 minute or so 'bit in the middle' of the channel where if you have an engine failure in the Microlight you're too far out to glide down to a dry landing (ulp); I'd bought a 2 man tent from a car boot sale; I'd packed the absolute minimum needed for the journey and we were all set to go.

Unfortunately the weather didn't play ball and it was clear from the Met Office forecast that it was going to be high winds with 30mph gusts for our designated departure day.

And for once the man from the Met was right the weather was lousy and so instead of an enjoyable flight across the channel and an evening enjoying French wine and food I kicked my heels around at home, bored and very despondent. After all the build-up and excitement of the trip this was a mega-anticlimax.

Couldn't face doing any more unpacking at home (still 8 months after our house move there's plenty to unpack still) so I grumpily turned on my laptop and got on with doing some work.

Grumble grumble