America

I'm off to america 2 moro for some ultimate hour building - 4 weeks - East coast to West coast of america and anything else that i can fit in (DisneyLand !!!!)

So for it all theres a new Blog site - www.N117PR.blogspot.com - see ya over there!!

December Flying - Part 2

Part 2 of december all happened after christmas with nice sunny days all over the place and lotsa aircraft for hire out at the NFC. First off with Nicki at home for christmas thought i'd get her up for a while. We ended up heading down to Waterford along with Marc and his girlfriend Meave in a 2nd plane. Myself and Nicki were following Marc and could pretty much see him or at least a small wing shaped dot ahead of us most of the way there. At the zone boundary i was expecting to land on runway 21 and had to rethink quickly as he sent us round to runway 03. But this did allow us a nice tour across the city before starting our final approach. We were kinda pushing things a little with the time we had available before the sun set and we had to be back and on the ground in Weston and this became a slight worry as we left Waterford. We would be taking the most direct route possible home and pushing the engine a little harder then usual to gain a little more speed. As we got closer and closer to dublin, we could see the sugar loaf sticking out like a thumb – given we had pleanty of height I decided to cut inland of it for a different prospective. From there it was in towards the pigeon house chimneys and straight up the liffey to Weston. We landed with about 5 mins to spare before sunset so all was well, tho cutting it a little fine.

Next day I got Tim and Fiona up and we headed over to the shannon at athlone. Viz wasnt particulary nice that day – but mullingar and Athlone were both easy enough to find by following a few roads if worst comes to worst. Unexpectedly met Marc out at the airfield with a friend of his and so he decided that today he'd follow me over that direction. We both took off close enough but by the time we were out of the zone. We'd lost sight of each other. Litle worring but as we both knew where we were headed, we knew where to keep an eye out. Met the shannon at lough Ree – just north of athlone and turned south to fly over it. Did a circle or two around the town as an excuse for a look out before heading back intowards Weston. As I called for zone re-entry, I heard Marc calling for the same thing just after me – suggesting he was rite behind me. Turned out he'd turned north at lough ree before heading back in, when i turned south, making it all nice and safe. Landed very nicely and then got to turn round and which marc come in behind me, before tucking the planes away in the hanger for the night.

Decembers Flying - Part 1

Decembers been a busy month for me with a total of 7hrs 38mins to my name and probs a little more sitting in the other seat, and i'll use that as the excuse for not updating often enough - don't think it'll wash tho

Goodnews is the ATPLS are all done and dusted had the last set the first week of December and passed them all - so 14 outta the way and all with a 90% avg too - (puts smarty pants hat on!!)

On the last days worth of exams weather looked nice and had a cheeky punt at getting a plane to celebrate for the afternoon - Worked out there was a plane sitting there waiting for me and after a quick look around robs decided he was coming too - so frequent flyer rob topped up his points - short hop up to kells and back nothing too exciting but nice to get head outta books - also got a 2 person shot in plane which rob had missed up to this

The following week Marc and I had a few days booked up for some serious hour earning and were hoping to visit many of the airports so far missed. Day 1 weather wasnt great to begin with and all we managed was a short hop up as far as Dundalk and over to some place in Cavan before back to Weston in time to put the planes away

Day 2 and Cork was hoped for but, for one reason and another didnt get going early and ended up with too few hours of daylight to get there and back in time! So instead we decided to head for a sigthseeing trip of Carlow, Kilkenny and the Rock of Cashel. Again Weather not really our friend and had to turn back shortly after Kilkenny due to low temps and rain clouds leading to pilots worst friends ICE

Day 3 and Kerry airport was on the cards with an enroute photo detail over Kilkee. This was a proper icy morning and after a little fun in the carpark involving the handbrake, we were hurtling down a frosty runway, hoping not to have any large need for brakes.... About 15 mins out we met a layer of really low lying cloud which cant have been much higher then 3-400 ft (some mite call it fog) While we were perfectly safe legal and happy to fly above it, it would have made navigating by use of ground features a little tricky - so again we had to turn back and wait for another day.

Trip to Knock

Kieran was over this weekend and i wanted to take him flying again, both myself and Marc managed to book planes for the same 5 hours on friday morning - Got out to the airport bright and early to be met by a properly dodgey days weather. Cloud was lowish - viz wasnt great - would it clear or would it get worse - should we go or not. To add to it a pretty strong wind from the west - but pretty much straight down the runways.

Knock airport is over the far side of the country - above Galway and below Sligo - kinda in the middle of nowhere, but in its favour no big mountains or hills between us and it. So on a low cloud ceiling day a very good choice. After a phonecall to their tower, and checks of as many other weather sites as possible, we made the decision to give it a go - could always turn back if worst came to worst.

Myself  and Kieran were flying in EI-GSE and marc was gonna follow us in EI-BCK. Both aircraft had two radio boxes which meant we could chat along the way - Out of weston and over towards Mullingar again, it wasnt really the nicest days flyign in the world very bumpy, and a lot of work to keep the a/c pointing in the rite direction. As we got about that far the weather was really begining to get to that stage of should we turn back - but in fairness it was still above minimums, we were pretty much on track and to the minute on times, so we were both happy enough to carry on. 

Next fun arrived as we headed towards the one line of hills that was along the way - the chart said they were 800 ft high. 1000 ft clearance meant i had planed to cross them at 1800 - 1900 ft. As we approached the hills they looked a lot higher then they were supposed to be, and i got a shout from marc behind asking if we wanted to go around them - dispite knowing we should have been above them decided to take the safer option and scoot round the south of them - Probs a good choice we got properly battered around by turbulence flying around them, so i dont think i wudnt wanted to try it straight over the top of em !!

From there it was a straight shot to Knock - called at the boundary and was told to report field in sight - proved more difficult then it sounded at the time as we really couldnt see it among the rest of the landscape. All of a sudden there it was - i was cleared to finals - but marc behind was told to hold a couple of miles out and the reason became clear as a ryanair 737 was told to hold at the holding point and wait for me to land in my little cessna. I then had to stop and let him backtrack before i could take his exit onto the apron. I parked up and waited fro marc to make his way in and touch down after the departing 737. 

We took 20 mins or so in Knock - time for a cuppa before we were issued with our private boarding passes and rushed through the security screen and out our own private gate. 

Trip home was jus as much fun - takeoff and told to exit the zone at some unknown town. Spotted it on the chart and had to quickly decide on a plan to get to it. Couple of nice lakes and a main road later we were sorted. From there it was towards Lough Ree a huge lake in the middle of the country forming part of the Shannon. It was about this point we noticed jus how strong the wind was. While pointing pretty much south, we were moving east across the ground. I had this to some extent beforeff, but never jus this strong. We met a proper minging drizzley rain cloud over mullingar again. It was begining to get to that scetchy side again - but we did feel it was above the minimums - the rain wasnt that heavy and we were well above freezing - so on wards and upwards and it wasnt long before we were out the other side of it. 

Final bit of fun when we got back to Weston - because of a Instruments jet flight coming in - we ended up with the 2 of us and another aircraft all doing circles 1000ft above the right hand side of the airfield. Little closer then i think any of us were comfortable with - but we survied to put the plane on the ground.

A Really busy and hard working long flight - largely down to the poor weather and also because of the added job of keeping an eye on the other aircraft - but definatly worth doing and im glad we kept going when it started getting a taste dodgey - gotta fly on the not so nice days as well as the gorgeous ones!!

Ireland from 7000ft

Wednesday this week - myself and Marc took a morning out of studying for ATPL's to go see what its like at 7000ft. Out of Weston and out to Mullingar where the dubin control zone ends. At this point we could climb above 4500ft and past the cloud. Interesting break from it all - and another one ticked off the list

Over Dublin with Robs and Keith

Robs came home the other day saying that he had to do this project for college/uni to plan a bridge to be placed across the liffey. We thought it would be great to be able to get some aerial photographs of the river itself for added brownie points - If only he knew somebody who could arrange that, mu haha.......

So turned out that his busy schedule in uni???? meant that the only day he would be free was the bank holiday, weather looked good so booked a plane, also made sure to book a 172 to take somebody else along too. Being a bank holiday meant Keith wasn't working and so was also free to come take pixtures.

Plan was to take off from Weston, head in across the m50 towards town before hanging a right and head towards Firhouse to take pics of Keiths house's and then over to Dundrum to get a few our my house, Ross's and Granny's and anything else we saw along the way. After that it was out to Kiliney and along the coast to pidgeon house, before heading straight up the river for the main picture taking effort and back to Weston.

Along the way we saw the Marathon, at Walkinstown Roundabout (don't I remember it well), and because we'd already planned it found Mum and Dad hanging round in the Field behind the house to take pictures up back at us. 2 technical hitches along the way:
1 headsets, Keith's earphones weren't working, but his mic was fine, Robs on the other hand had working earphones, but his mic wouldn't say a thing. 2 passengers and cudnt have a proper conversation with either.
2 Cameras, i'd left mine on manual mode and forgot to tell rob, hence the out of focus shots....oops!!, and keith managed to hit a button on his, throwing his light settings off the wall, but we got the important shots, so thats all that matters!!

Robs(now my Frequent Flyer, with 3) was very happy with his picture, and has a line of about 20 pics, along the river which i will have to try piece together into some kind of panoramic. So heres hoping for the extra project credits

Keith, i think enjoyed his flight, dispite feeling a little dodgey as we came back into land, tho that was probably down mostly to the fact we got fairly beaten around by the thermals on finals, suffice to say tho he was very pleased i didn't decide to fit in an extra circuit or 2.

Aran Islands

With the weeks loverly weather, booked an aircraft for monday, and decided that we'd take a trip off to the Aran Islands. I fancied doing some island hopping, and Marc was dead keen to fly along/below the Cliffs of Moher. Left Weston about 3, with Marc flying down past Tullamore, and squeezed between Shannon and Galway's control zones, north of Ennis. Got an amazing view of the burreness, before passing Ennistimon and Lehinch, as we crossed the coast. One side of the country to the other in less then an hour and a half - pretty impressive!!

Flying out across the sea, and round the southern end of the cliffs, we announced on the radio that we were in the area and what our intentions were. We got a reply from the Aer Aran shuttle service from the mainland telling us that he was on his way over to Inishmore, trying to find out who would get to land first. We decided that we didnt mind hanging around the cliffs for a while and so told him we'd wait until he had landed before making our approach. As we passed along the cliffs we both suddenly realised that what we were doing was pretty special, and how amazing it was to see the cliffs from the other side. After a couple of passes and a look at the new visitor centre, we headed over to the islands. The plan was for Marc to do a touch and go on the first island, land on the second where we'd change over. I'd then take off, and touch on the last island before heading home again.

Approaching the first Island we did whats called the father ted approach as you pass the boat wreck thats in the titles of Father Ted. Lined up for the runway, it suddenly looked very short and with a nasty crosswind marc decided that it was a smarter move to forget about the touch and go around for the other island. So over to the biggest island to land at the airport, chat to the locals for a bit and switch over.

The locals reminded us of Dun Aengus, the prehistoric fort on the side of the Island. So after taking off I crossed over the island to the South Coast, and flew west along it to the end of the island, passing both the fort and a light house situatated at the end of the islands. After this it was a climb northwards back to the Galway coast.

Climbed to 3500ft, and again were quite amazed at the views we could see of both the landscape below us and the rugged mountains far off in the distance. As wonderful as it would have been to stay there for a lot longer, time and daylight were against us, and so turned east back towards Weston via Roscommon and Mullingar. Tho we did get an enroute aerobatics display over abbeysharule on the way back....
Its fantastic days like these, with suny weather and the most amazing sights that make all the hard work (especially the days of constant study) all worth while......