Flying Update
It's been nearly five months since I made an entry to this blog.
2013 has been a year of much reduced flying compared to previous years, mainly due to the closure of Aircraft Grouping Ltd. This organisation had provided a glass cockpit Cessna 172, Cirrus SR20s and the Diamond Twinstar. There was also a very nice Turbo Seneca available to fly. From having such a wide variety of aircraft to fly, to having only one, was a difficult transition, one I am still coming to terms with.
Since the last posting, I have flown the Turbo Seneca for the last time, a fact I was unaware of on the day of the trip. This was probably a good thing. The same is true for the Cirrus too. The Cessna has been sold and I am back where I started this journey, with my grouped Piper Arrow.
I have slowly renewed my relationship with G-HALC, taking small steps to re-engage on flights to local aerodromes, including Blackpool and Welshpool. My most recent flight was over to Gamston with a fellow group member, sharing the flying and conversation that comes with joint trips. With no readily available twin to fly, I considered letting my MEP rating lapse. In the end I renewed, giving myself another year to see if anything local becomes available.
Just as my flying future is at a crossroads, so is my working life, with redundancy on the horizon at the end of September. My intention is to continue flying and hopefully find some employment for at least the next few years. I have no real idea of what that employment will be, if any.
The last five or six years of flying have been the best I have enjoyed since I started back in 1982. Wherever the future holds, the one thing I would say to anyone on a similar journey to me, is take time to enjoy what you are doing, stop and smell the roses.
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those ?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
("A Shropshire Lad" 40th poem by A.E. Houseman -1896)
2013 has been a year of much reduced flying compared to previous years, mainly due to the closure of Aircraft Grouping Ltd. This organisation had provided a glass cockpit Cessna 172, Cirrus SR20s and the Diamond Twinstar. There was also a very nice Turbo Seneca available to fly. From having such a wide variety of aircraft to fly, to having only one, was a difficult transition, one I am still coming to terms with.
Since the last posting, I have flown the Turbo Seneca for the last time, a fact I was unaware of on the day of the trip. This was probably a good thing. The same is true for the Cirrus too. The Cessna has been sold and I am back where I started this journey, with my grouped Piper Arrow.
I have slowly renewed my relationship with G-HALC, taking small steps to re-engage on flights to local aerodromes, including Blackpool and Welshpool. My most recent flight was over to Gamston with a fellow group member, sharing the flying and conversation that comes with joint trips. With no readily available twin to fly, I considered letting my MEP rating lapse. In the end I renewed, giving myself another year to see if anything local becomes available.
Just as my flying future is at a crossroads, so is my working life, with redundancy on the horizon at the end of September. My intention is to continue flying and hopefully find some employment for at least the next few years. I have no real idea of what that employment will be, if any.
The last five or six years of flying have been the best I have enjoyed since I started back in 1982. Wherever the future holds, the one thing I would say to anyone on a similar journey to me, is take time to enjoy what you are doing, stop and smell the roses.
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those ?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
("A Shropshire Lad" 40th poem by A.E. Houseman -1896)
posted by David M at 9:27 PM
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