Clear of Cloud

More Medical Woes

My quest to get a Class 1 medical is struggling.  I have some more testing to do but at the moment the chances of passing the JAR Class 1 is very slim.  I went to a specialist today to see what my options were.  To be honest I don't have a lot of options. 

The next question is do I commit the time and money to getting an FAA CPL/Multi/IR?  There are N-reg aircraft operating here but is there enough to justify my commitment to it?  Alternatively do I put  my efforts into getting a JAA instructor's rating? That too is a big expense and a lot of effort and I'll be restricted to instructing on a voluntary basis.

Lot's of thinking to be done.  Any opinions?

Grounded.

Since late last week - around the time of the flight test actually - I've been having sinus problems.  Last weekend was one long energy slump and the last couple of days haven't be great either.  I dragged myself to the doctor yesterday to see what was wrong.  It turns out there's a bad dose of sinusitis doing the rounds and I have it.  The doc, who incidentally is also my Aviation Medical Examiner (AME) prescribed me a ten day course of anti-biotics, a nasal spray and told me to ground myself for the week.

I could do without this.  I really wanted to have the flight retest done by the end of next week.  Before we know it the evenings will be closing in and the weather deteriorating - if that's possible looking back at the summer we had.

Waiting for the Ducks

I'm waiting for the ducks to line up.  Right now, I've got weather, an approving instructor and flight currency.  What I need is our other aeroplane.  The aeroplane has been down for it's C of A for a couple of weeks at this stage -it's quite frustrating.  All I can do is just keep myself current and review the use of navaids.  It would be quite silly to wait for this long for a navaid equipped aeroplane and to get lost on my cross country flight.

Other than that my mind has returned to aircraft ownership.  Oh the decisions !

Better Days

Sometimes I think I was born into the wrong era of flight.  Increased red-tape, increased costs, increased environmental concerns - that's a post in itself- decreased freedoms.  It might have been more fun as a flyer in the inter-war or post war years when flying was still new and fresh.  That said, today there are more ways to sate my need for aviation - swathes of magazines, simulators and, my personal favourite, the net and especially YouTube  ... (oh and 160knots.com).

On the days that I'm stuck in a sky-less office, YouTube is my 3 minutes of escapism.  My favourites tend to be cockpit videos of light aircraft across far away scenery - but there is a local video that I'm fond of.  It's a summer's evening in Kilrush, with a little Tecnam Sierra taking off.  It's attraction is partly the Tecnam, my current choice for my own plane, and partly dreams of summer evenings.  It stirs memories of balmy, grassy evenings with a lone airplane and a restful sky.It reminds me too,that those long evenings will come around only too quickly  if I don't get my licence!.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NDvSQK96Jk

Still Grounded

Weather and work has me still "socked in".  I'm getting a bit irritated with all this now.  I've got a medical coming up this year and I was warned at my last one that he didn't want to see me darken the door with and SPL again.  It's not looking good Doc.

I think it might be time to dig out One-Six-Right again. Siiiigh

Magazine Pilot

Weather and shortage of time has me locked in a bit of a hiatus again.  I'm back to being a web pilot, be that a printing web or a WW web.  Since my trip to the PFA rally earlier this year I've been kicking around the idea of plane ownership more and more.  One of the suggestions that's come my way is that I pass on the idea of building a plane and just purchase someone else's project.

Scouring the ads in the magazines and the web has yielded a couple of likely candidates there are still a lot of questions not yet resolved in my mind.  Apart from the personal prefernce questions there is one big gap in available information: total cost of ownership.

C'mon owners, 'fess up, what does it cost to run a kit/experimental aeroplane.