Another hour of solo circuits today in beautiful blue skies. Just starting to get bumpy towards the end and had a "G-xx, say again circuit direction" at 500ft and climbing after a brain fart and called the next one to land. Pretty pleased though. Hopefully move on to some Nav before I have to head back to work in a couple of weeks.

^^^ That sounds like an action packed flight! Awesome. To me, doing all of that seems a lifetime away. I'm just learning basics like how to fly straight and level - and that seems challenging enough!

Nice RAF sightings too - jealous?!

Damn you all - Making me want to buy another plane...!!!

Radio controlled plane, right?

All I can say is, it has been worth every penny and hour/day/night I studied to have the chance to sit where i do now and fly the queen of the skies.

I self funded so maybe I have little more pleasure in finding myself sat in a 744 than those gifted into it with a silver spoon, not saying I am jealous of them but the heartache of watching you hand over £k's that you know will take a long time to pay back was a hard thing to bare, but I feel it was worth it.

The 744 is known as the old mans airplane, nothing happens quickly as the inertia of a 300 tonne + aircraft is a little more to shift around that a warrior which I fly from EGBW when I am back home.
I love GA and those on here going through their training for the PPL will get the same sense of achievement of pushing the throttle on there first solo as I do when lined up for departure out of Hong Kong.
It's flying, no matter what your in enjoy it, its a fantastic achievement and opens you up to a whole new world of personal travel too

The old aviators debate. Do I stay poor by spending all the money I earn flying for a hobby, or by going professional and possibly earning nothing at all.

Had a C182 based at blackpool while I was in the UK. Not flown since I got to Swiss as RC ones are all I can afford here...!!!

Spent Friday morning at Aeromega Helicopters at Cambridge Airport. A mate of mine instructs there, so seeing as the weather was so perfect and he was teaching one of his students, it was a perfect opportunity for an hours lesson in an R22.

We spent 20mins at Hotel 1 (one of the training areas, on the far side of the runway) trying to master hovering trying one control at a time, a landing, take off and general machine handling. I pretty much felt comfortable hovering within about 20mins. Sometimes it was a bit more difficult due to a bit of wind which popped up whilst we were in the air, and the initial takeover of all three controls when I first added pedals caught me by surprise a little, but felt pretty good at just holding it in place after the 20mins.

Then we called the tower to say we wanted to do some circuits. First circuit I followed through the actions during the climb. Once at 500ft, I took the stick and climbed to 700ft, and was able to maintain speed, altitude and bring it round the circuit and onto final descent, where I again then followed through the control motions of the transition between the descent and hover. I was slightly fast on the approach but we still made Hotel 1.

Second circuit was much better and very little input from my mate who just again helped me on the transition from descent to hover.

Totally amazing, and great to be up in the air again after so long, as my last/first trial lesson was 10 years ago when I was 14.

Beautiful sunny morning, freezing cold but still air and a perfect flying day:



Robbo's in the hangar:



Brother having a sit in a Europa XS. Looked great! 35mph (4gal/hr) at 120kt cruise, you can service it yourself as long as you get it signed off by an approved aircraft engineer, £30,000 for the kit, but then you have to buy the engine and spend a few 000 hours on building it. I thought however, that for £60k and some time, it looked a really good way of getting in the air. Knocks the socks (in my opinion) off a 152 which seem so ancient now. Also, you can stick mo-gas in it, so much more flexible as to where you can go as well as not being restricted to airfield fuel prices. It was also astonishingly quiet compared with all the other planes flying that day. The guy had also recently rewired it, and stuck in a repilca spitfire engine start button which was a nice touch. It is not, however, a helicopter .

All in all, a fun day out.

G-BVUV I built that :-)))

Interested to know why you think they're not nice to fly? Quirky on the floor but lovely to fly IMHO

Taken from the LAA magazine review of the Tri-Gear

"Taxying was straightforward with the gear doing a good job of smoothing out the bumps on the grass field. Once moving, steering can be carried out using rudder alone, the differential finger brakes only being required in tight corners.
Checks completed, it’s time to go and we carried out a formation take-off with the Cessna 182 cameraship. We unstuck at about 50kt
and quickly established a cruise climb at 90kt, bringing the power back to max continuous, flaps up and propeller to the climb setting.
Once levelled, it was time to formate on the cameraship. A low wing design is good for this aspect of flying and the light, well harmonised controls of the Europa made it easy to hold formation and move ‘around the box’. The idea is to present the aircraft to the camera as we searched for the most interesting lit parts of"

http://www.pilotfriend.com/flight_reports/reports/... Point 6

"Stability and Control
The control system is smooth and well harmonized with no detectable slop or play. Direct aerodynamic loading of the control surfaces provides all pilot feedback through the control system, contributing to an excellent sense of "linkage" with the aircraft. Light breakout forces, minimal adverse yaw, and the Europa’s quick, fluid response to control inputs make manoeuvring the aircraft easy. This combination of qualities should make the Europa a good platform for Sportsman-level aerobatics"

And of course, let's not forget the wing was designed by Don Dykins who's no slouch in the area of harmonic controls

Whether the one you flew hadn't been set up well could be a possibility. The one thing the press generally commended the aircraft on was it's flight characteristics ;-)