The new CP44 website is finally up and running for the most part, but bear with any dead ends or errors as the rest of the site goes live. The website is courtesy of Lee who has done a great job on it so click on over and have a snoop around... and bookmark it naturally!
http://www.spacecowboys.co.uk
In other news, I finally recieved the last of my initial round of exams back and I'm happy to say I passed them all with a 91.2% average, and indeed the entirity of CP44 managed to pass all exams first time - best try and keep that up for the future! The last of CP44 long course went solo recently too, so we're all through that first "critical point" at last. I myself had the last of my circuit lessons today which was a 1.3 hour solo circuit consolidation. It's the first lesson in which I have just walked out to the plane and then buggered off on my own straight away, all the others have been dual to solo (first half taught, then instructor pops out and you fly second half on your own), which was actually quite a strange feeling! Now it's just a steep turns lesson and a PFL (practised forced landing) lesson left then I'm on to my out-of-circuit solo check at which point, if i pass it, I can finally go pootle out on my own into the surrounding country side for some general aviation! Good times!
What are you doing still reading this? I told you to check out that website!
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
The Beach Party
Clearways (well, comet block at least) was transformed on saturday into a beach paradise for the much vaunted cadet beach party. Kudos for the organisation of the event goes mainly to Dave Bell and Danny Minns, and what a job they did! We had a swimming pool, a punch fountain, slippery pole boxing, a full size real sand beach volley ball court (36 odd tonnes of sand!) and even a bouncy castle.... I was going to get a shot of it all from the air as I had a lesson earlier in the day but the turbulence on the final approach meant flying the plane was tricky enough without trying to take a picture!
As you can see it was a pretty impressive arrangement... we also had some instructors turn up and my instructor (Jason) even gave Jez a kicking on the slippery pole boxing - in fact here's a vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Znb0jnUAG0
Later we got a bit of an instructor Vs Cadet volley ball game going and we sent them packing comfortably... doing our bit for English sporting prowess! Anyway that's it for now, so adieu!
As you can see it was a pretty impressive arrangement... we also had some instructors turn up and my instructor (Jason) even gave Jez a kicking on the slippery pole boxing - in fact here's a vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Znb0jnUAG0
Later we got a bit of an instructor Vs Cadet volley ball game going and we sent them packing comfortably... doing our bit for English sporting prowess! Anyway that's it for now, so adieu!
Friday, February 16, 2007
Solo Pics
Pics of that first solo as promised, just to prove I am actually doing something out here.... Incidently I had another lesson today which was engine failure in the downwind (and subsequently doing a glide approach to the runway) followed by a few solo consolidation circucits of the same sort of stuff, so have already done yet more solo-age. That also makes approximately 6 flights this week including the two solo's seperately... it took all of January to get the first 6 flights in!
Anyway, here are those pics - if you click on them theymight possibly blow up to a slightly higher res!
Sequence of shots on short final approach to touch down:
Leaving the Runway:
Shutting down:
Anyway, here are those pics - if you click on them theymight possibly blow up to a slightly higher res!
Sequence of shots on short final approach to touch down:
Leaving the Runway:
Shutting down:
First Solo!
Well, the flight on thursday got canned due to excessive crosswinds but today I flew my solo check and consequently got the go ahead to do my first ever solo!
Everything went beautifully and I flew possibly the best I have ever flown, all finished off with a landing that would have made Douglas Bader proud! After a quick congratulation from the Control Tower I taxied off to CTC and that was the end of my first experience of flying on my own!
My instructor was kind enough to think of taking photo's (lots of them infact) and although no one turned up to video it I'll try and get some video of my next solo which should be soon. When I get those photo's off of Jason I'll put a few up here so watch this space if you want pictoral evidence!
In other news, both Lee and Jez went solo today so 4 of us have managed to hit that check point now. All three of the other guys have gone solo before (during previous flying back home) but it's still something of a rite of passage and cause for celebration! Also, we are having a rather large and impressive Beach themed party tomorrow at Clearways for which a tremendous amount of effort has been expended - We have everything from little palm trees through to a punch fountain and a sand volleyball court! I got a good view of the volleyball court taking shape from the air today and will try to snap a picture next time i'm up solo.
So anyway, that's my news for now - check back soon for those solo photo's.
Everything went beautifully and I flew possibly the best I have ever flown, all finished off with a landing that would have made Douglas Bader proud! After a quick congratulation from the Control Tower I taxied off to CTC and that was the end of my first experience of flying on my own!
My instructor was kind enough to think of taking photo's (lots of them infact) and although no one turned up to video it I'll try and get some video of my next solo which should be soon. When I get those photo's off of Jason I'll put a few up here so watch this space if you want pictoral evidence!
In other news, both Lee and Jez went solo today so 4 of us have managed to hit that check point now. All three of the other guys have gone solo before (during previous flying back home) but it's still something of a rite of passage and cause for celebration! Also, we are having a rather large and impressive Beach themed party tomorrow at Clearways for which a tremendous amount of effort has been expended - We have everything from little palm trees through to a punch fountain and a sand volleyball court! I got a good view of the volleyball court taking shape from the air today and will try to snap a picture next time i'm up solo.
So anyway, that's my news for now - check back soon for those solo photo's.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
New car, and the first CP44 solo...
Not my solo unfortunately, but menno had his solo check today and got a green light for his solo circuit... so off he went! I regret to inform you that he made it all the way round without crashing, much to my disappointment -here's a picture of the happy dutchman having finished the solo:
All being well (both weather-wise and aircraft teching-wise) I should have my solo check tomorrow, and if I manage to pull some decent flying out of somewhere my solo circuit should follow.... fingers crossed! A few of the other guys on my course also have their solo checks booked for tomorrow so there's going to be a lot of praying going on.
In other news, myself and Mr Mahoney are now the proud owners of a 1992 Mitsubishi Galant pictured below - we decided that one minibus and one car between the 12 of us on the course wasn't really cutting the mustard, and at NZ$1300 (~£500) who could say no!?
So that about wraps things up for now - hopefully I'll be able to post about having gone solo very soon! The aim is to get everyone's 1st solo on video so hopefully I'll be able to put that up too when the time comes (assuming the landing isn't appallingly embarrassing).
All being well (both weather-wise and aircraft teching-wise) I should have my solo check tomorrow, and if I manage to pull some decent flying out of somewhere my solo circuit should follow.... fingers crossed! A few of the other guys on my course also have their solo checks booked for tomorrow so there's going to be a lot of praying going on.
In other news, myself and Mr Mahoney are now the proud owners of a 1992 Mitsubishi Galant pictured below - we decided that one minibus and one car between the 12 of us on the course wasn't really cutting the mustard, and at NZ$1300 (~£500) who could say no!?
So that about wraps things up for now - hopefully I'll be able to post about having gone solo very soon! The aim is to get everyone's 1st solo on video so hopefully I'll be able to put that up too when the time comes (assuming the landing isn't appallingly embarrassing).
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Silly o'clock
Had an early start today, beginning with smacking the alarm clock across the room at 0500 and trundling up to the airport for preflighting and met checks by 0600. By 0700 it was all ready to go and I had time to sneak in this nice little pic with the sunrise... as you can tell it was rather wet overnight!
Today's flight was with a different instructor which I wasn't too happy about - some non-sensical changes to the instructor allocation had ended up with me being booted off my normal instructor, but this is (hopefully) in the process of being changed back - I much prefer my original instructor!
I have finally got onto circuits, which means that there are now only 2 flights left (assuming all goes well) until my first Solo flight - frighteningly soon! The good part about circuits is that they can go ahead in fairly rubbish weather, so we'll hopefully get them out the way fairly quickly.
Last week saw us taking our Navigation exam, which we are still waiting on the results from, and we are due to take both Air Law and Human Factors exams this friday. The good news being that after this friday all the PPL exams will be done with (assuming a pass of course!), the bad news being that Air law is having to be studied in a very short amount of time (2 groundschool days!). At some point inbetween my last post and this post, we also all took the Katana type rating exam (knowledge of particular aircraft limitations, speeds, statistics etc) which went fine...
So enough drivel, that's where I am at the moment so hopefully next time i'll be posting that I've gone solo!
I have finally got onto circuits, which means that there are now only 2 flights left (assuming all goes well) until my first Solo flight - frighteningly soon! The good part about circuits is that they can go ahead in fairly rubbish weather, so we'll hopefully get them out the way fairly quickly.
Last week saw us taking our Navigation exam, which we are still waiting on the results from, and we are due to take both Air Law and Human Factors exams this friday. The good news being that after this friday all the PPL exams will be done with (assuming a pass of course!), the bad news being that Air law is having to be studied in a very short amount of time (2 groundschool days!). At some point inbetween my last post and this post, we also all took the Katana type rating exam (knowledge of particular aircraft limitations, speeds, statistics etc) which went fine...
So enough drivel, that's where I am at the moment so hopefully next time i'll be posting that I've gone solo!
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