Uk Aviation Adventures

[Barefootpilot]

I was lucky enough while I was in the UK on holiday to have a friend of mine set up a couple of flights for me. The first one was in the Bannerdown gliding club based at Keevil. It wasn't a perfect day for my first flight in a glider with a bit of cloud around at about 2000' and not much thermal activity at all. My friend had organised a flight with a friend of hers who she said "just works for the RAF" turns out he had just returned from two years in Texas where he was working out the test schedual for the JSF project, before that he was a Tornado display pilot so I felt I was in pretty safe hands! We did three winch launches with flights lasting about 10 minutes each where I was able to do most of the flying. The exception was the last one where Willy did some aerobatics straight of the winch - two loops two wing overs followed by a low level pass to a pull up and landing all from a 1200' launch (I wish the thruster had a glide ratio like that!) All in all a great way to spend an afternoon with a great bunch of people. Now all I have to do is get my licence!

 

A few days after that she said her friend was going to drop in on his way to drop off the log books for a twin commanche he had just sold. About an hour later we hear a helicopter approaching and then landing in her backyard (an approved helicopter landing area!) So off we went for a fly in his Bell 206! I haven't done much flying in helicopters but he let me have a fly and its very bloody different! all was going well with the approach until about 50' and then I had no idea what I was doing but we did keep the Aeromed guys amussed as they watch us wobble around for a little while!

 

I wanted to set up a flight in a new Thruster while I was over there but time beat me so I'll have to save that for next time all in all it was a ball and if anyone is ever in the keevil area I'd recommend dropping in and saying hello.