Rich Stokoe

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…

As usual, I had been glued to the weather reports for the days leading up to this lesson and, as usual, the weather forecasts were completely wrong. The Plan (A) Over the past 6 hours of flying I’ve stayed within the circuit at the airfield, going around and around and around. I estimate I’d around…

Buckle up because this is a big one. This trip to the flight school was full of events, learnings and concluded with my first attempt at one of the nine theory exams you must pass before you can be granted your pilot’s license. Read on to see how I did. And this time I remembered…

This trip to the airfield was challenging, enlightening, embarrassing and involved an unexpected encounter with a YouTube star. I walked into the clubhouse and met with the Chief Flight Instructor at the school who, like Jiminny Cricket to Pinnochio, would be doing his best to turn me into a real pilot. We quickly briefed that…

Clouds covered the sky and grey cotton wool balls hung lower than the overcast here and there. As I steered the car north I thought it might end up being a ground school day. My instructor was stuck in the Caribbean. He flies heavy long-haul jets for a large airline and his A330-300 had a…

So, in case you didn’t see it, this isn’t actually lesson 15, lesson 15 happened a couple of weekends ago but the weather was so bad my instructor and I abandoned the lesson after only 10 minutes in the air, so I’m not counting it… My instructor also dropped a bombshell, he was leaving imminently…