Clear of Cloud

Be Your Own Pilot

There are traits that people assume of pilots: intelligent,analytical, confident, highly-skilled, adrenaline loving, mechanically minded. One problem with stereotypes is that often we use them to judge ourselves. Occasionally we measure up to these random yardsticks; sometimes we beat ourselves with them but really, we should never define ourselves by them. Pilots are not their stereotype and neither are you. Recently on social media I saw a woman identify herself as loving all things aviation but “liking dresses and girly nights out and not knowing anything about [her] car”. The picture she painted is atypical of the cockpit caricature but none of the things she described are actually mutually exclusive to being an aviator. Sure, many pilots love hanging around around oily hangars and drinking lukewarm tea from chipped mugs but if that’s not for you, don’t let that stop you from joining in- you are just as much a... Read more →

A Smooth Sea

A prospective student had asked about my skills recently and it prompted me to ask some questions of myself. Could I actually fly in a crosswind? Most of my recent flying has been in very benign conditions. With two summer storms striding in from the Atlantic it seems the wind either grounded everyone or been non-existent; at least when I had time to go flying. It had been far too long since I had asked my hands and feet to do some real work Last Saturday I had a couple of hours free of domestic responsibilities and it was blowy out there - easily ten knots across the runway. It was the sort of afternoon that I knew the airfield would be lonely - all of my hangar-mates have answered their own questions through the decades. Sure enough, when I got to the airfield the overcast galvanised doors were drawn... Read more →

Improvement ! An Event or a Trend

It is not easy to be a pilot and your own safety/training manager -and that’s not a lesson on the PPL syllabus. One of the challenges of being a pilot outside of the club environment is that pushing for improvement is solely down to you. There are no club instructors encouraging you; raising questioning eyebrows or offering decades’ of advice succinctly over a cup of tea. If you really want to become a better pilot, you have to do it yourself. You have to own the process of observation, analysis, correction, practice and improvement. This weekend I went flying to a nearby airfield. Apart from catching up with some of the locals I set myself the goal of maintaining better height and speed control than when I’m pootling about the skies. I put the camera away, which is usually the biggest distraction in this landscape, and focussed on attitude flying... Read more →

Depart 18, Maintain heading

The fire is on, the office lights are on and I’m looking through a rain speckled window. Another year is being pushed back into the hangar and it’s time to write up the logs. The Luscombe’s permit fell due at a bad time and other priorities took over working in a dark, cold hangar. The last couple of months have seen nothing but desk flying and I think Head of Domestic Ops can’t wait to get me out of the house and back in the left seat. Like all pilot’s I get severe withdrawal symptoms when I haven’t flown and a sense of depression has definitely set in this winter. As I look back at the year to write this, I find I’m a little more happy with my flying lot than I expected. 2018 has actually been pretty productive, exciting and a little surprising. Having booked a Class Rating... Read more →

Ready to Teach?

I may never have been so apprehensive boarding a commercial flight. Delayed boarding at Shannon, darkness and rain descended as we line up on runway 24. Throttles are opened, runway lights blur in the drizzle and we are shoved into the murky skies. We are committed to flight and I am committed to the upcoming week, whether I’m ready or not. Tonight’s flight was heading for Stansted but my final destination was to be Andewsfield Aviation just a few miles down the road where I’m signed up for the Class Rating Instructor (CRI) course. We pilots are largely a self-assured bunch but as I thumbed through the notes Andrewsfield had sent me weeks earlier, overhead light on, elbows digging in I really wasn’t sure I had done enough work to prepare. There were technical revision questions, briefing notes, learning theory and patter notes to be read. At home I had... Read more →

Two Procrastinators in a Plane

I finally got around to bringing my Dad flying this June. The irony that it has taken three months to write this post is not at all lost on me. After all, it was over 10 years since my Dad last saw me at the controls of an aircraft. That last time was a sunny May in 2007 when I landed as a student in Abbeyshrule on the first leg of my qualifying cross country. I had told my family that my cross country was on the cards and so my Dad, camera in hand, took time off work and made the trip to Longford. I suspect my late Mum, despite her confidence in me, just wasn’t going to risk being a distraction but I’m also guessing she tried to dissuade my Dad from coming to see me. This time I’m glad he persisted. My arrival at Abbeyshrule after a... Read more →

Aerobatic Myths and Lessons Learned

I should dispel a couple of myths about aerobatics - or at the least the myths I held to be true. First, aerobatic flight is not stunt flying, it’s simply a progression what you should already know and understand of flight. Secondly, Youtube lies. Aerobatic flying is not all high-energy twist, turns and vertigo-inducing tumbles. Once you’re used to the sensations and viewpoints, beginner maneuvers are actually pretty sedate.Thirdly, and perhaps surprisingly, learning aerobatics does not necessarily make you a better pilot. I’ll talk about that later. What have I learned from my aerobatic shenanigans in Cambridge? Obviously, I learned to fly some aerobatic maneuvers - most of the easier figures on AOPA Beginner syllabus There have been few other lessons too First, I should be sensible in setting learning goals. Last year I had expected too much of myself or perhaps I had underestimated some of the new challenges.... Read more →

Losing Limitations

I’m beginning to wonder how often we set imaginary limitations on ourselves? Before my recent trip to Cambridge I would never have considered ever calling myself an aerobatic pilot. Without experiencing or really understanding aerobatics I had defined myself as “not that sort of person”. I’m not a thrill seeker or adrenaline junkie and somewhere along the way I picked up on the commonly held belief that you had to be one or other to want to try aerobatics. Pilots I respected discouraged me -”stay away from that lark” they’d caution. I take my private flying seriously and I didn’t want to be identified as having some sort of hooligan streak. At the same time I somehow felt that I would be incomplete as a pilot if I didn’t at least know the rudiments of “how” to use the 3 dimensions available to pilots - to have at least a... Read more →

Surprised By Success

Motivated or just a sucker for punishment; I’m back from flying the Extra 200 in Cambridge again and yet another attempt to learn aerobatics - to learn to really fly an aeroplane. To date all of my efforts have been hampered by my pityful physiology - I just seem to get too ill, too soon to make progress. Last year I spent a week with the Extra and while I did learn to do a respectable roll, that was all I managed to do in three hours of flying. This year I set my expectations lower. When I had emailed the Aero Club to say I was coming back to them my instructor suggested that since I struggled with nausea, perhaps we should focus less on the aerobatics and try mixing things up a little by spending some time learning to land the Extra. It was a very diplomatic and... Read more →

Death By Drone?

Last weekend I brought my wife and Junior Co-Pilot to our first family airshow in Westport Co. Mayo. It was the first time Westport hosted an airshow and it was well run; plenty of parking; lots of food and craft; a great display line and a nice line-up of aircraft. For a small airshow there was a good mix of high performance aerobatics; classic wingwalkers; a SAR helicopter demo and some vintage aircraft. There were also drones. You do not see drones flying free at airshows.. There were two drones whizzing up and down the display line at low level despite an airspace restriction being in place for the airshow. The restriction prohibited any flying, including drones, within the area without expressed permission of the authorities. The thing is, these two little battery buzzing marvels tearing up the display had permission. The drone display was actually the first act of... Read more →