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This weekend I took to the (moody) skies again in the brilliant Aquila A211 at Teesside Airport. After a very dodgy takeoff on my 1st lesson in the Aquila, and a landing that required instructor intervention to arrest our descent rate over the runway, I approached this lesson with some trepidation – and a lot of humility.
This lesson is a big turning point in my journey towards my pilot’s license. First, I’m moving flying schools and, second, I’m changing aircraft!
After just over 4 months since my last flying lesson I’m resuming my navigation training, this time with a solo navigation to historic Durham City. I brought the GoPro with me so you can join me on this flight from Eshott in Northumberland to Durham and back, through the controlled Class D airspace of Newcastle…
My 22nd lesson turns into a photo blog of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Durham from the air at sunset
I recently wrote about decarbonising General Aviation (GA) under the heading of “Futurology”, but it turns out that that future has already started to arrive, and our travel to a future of carbon-neutral GA is accelerating.
My first solo navigation exercise, 61 nautical miles through the afternoon September sun, with a nice surprise afterwards.
We’re closer to slashing carbon emissions from aviation than we might imagine.
The night before this lesson I checked the weather. It said the skies would be clear but the wind would be 13 knots (~15mph) gusting to 22 knots (~25.5mph) from a heading of 250 degrees (i.e. from the west-ish). When I arrived at the airfield the wind had picked up considerably and there was a…