OK, the weather has been pants, but I managed to squeeze in a couple of solo sector reccies this week, as my course continues at it’s leisurely pace – leisurely when compared to my first flying course 26 years ago which involved doing 30 hours in 20 days!, which were immense fun.
I’m really becoming rather fond of this little Eurostar. So much so that I’ve started referring to her as my “mistress” or “girlfriend”, always finding the joke far funnier than anyone I tell it to, who usually just look at me bemused as I hold up my iPhone picture to them. For example, I walked into one of my favourite local shops last night..
“Evening Mark”
“Good evening!”
(as I place my chosen goods/wine upon the counter)…”Nice day?”
“I’ve spent the day with my mistress”
Pause, waiting for quizzical look of slight horror.
Bingo. Now hold up iPhone to reveal Eurostar.
“Oh.”
Tumbleweed.
“£16.84. Sixteen for cash.”
——-
So, for anyone that is interested here are my attempts to make a picture of a Czech minx purring gently in a the middle of a foreign field look even more interesting…(you can click to enlarge but I warn you they do turn on their side
Danger! Evektor Eurostar
Logbook Eurostar - I know, it does look photoshopped
Fantastic video I found here of a guy called Clark Cogan performing a vertical take off in his gyrocopter using hydrogen peroxide rockets at the tips of the rotor blades.
I was surprised to see find that this was not a new idea and was famously tested on the Fairey Rotodyne (a 50-passenger carrying gyro) in 1957. This was a gyro that could cruise at 200mph! I mean, don’t you wish the sky was full of creatures like this:
I just love films like this. The optimism, confidence and brilliance of the engineering was astounding. Not to mention the voice-over. Class.
Hmm. Maybe the idea’s not dead after all…
(although I do suspect this may be computer animated
I stumbled on this Alaskan Bush Flying STOL (short take-off and landing) competition video whilst thinking about how short landing techniques would improve my ability to survive a forced landing after engine failure. The modified biplane Super Cub is particularly cool…
Last week my instructor turned to me, after 40 minutes of practised forced landings after take-off in a 15 knot half-crosswind, and said “You’re ready to go solo”. Because of the weather, I expected him to add “..but we’ll wait until next time when the conditions are more favourable”.
But he didn’t. He got out. And I flew my first solo circuit in the Eurostar.
A view from the Eurostar cockpit
It wasn’t a moment of fanfare. There were no dancing girls or trumpets. Not because it wasn’t a great moment. It was. Just that it had been 26 years since my first ever solo, so I had been here before emotionally.
I experienced a strange sense of being out of my body and looking down on my life like a movie. As my instructor was giving me my brief, I had a wry smile on my face that he probably interpreted as arrogance, as was transported back to that field in 1985 at RAF Newton in Nottinghamshire.
My instructor then, on the week long Glider Proficiency course with the Air Training Corps, was Flight Leiutenant Babbage. I’m not saying he was fat, but I believe the envelope of our Venture glider (a plucky VW Beetle-engined self-propelled sail plane) was pushed to it’s limits every time he hauled his 50-something voluntary aircrew bulk into it. I remembered how he heaved himself out of the cockpit to take a piss by the wing whilst telling me I may experience some slightly different handling characteristics. I was more interested in how he managed to get his nadger out of his flying suit with such dexterity whilst also remembering the salient points of a brief to a 16-year old who was about to risk life and limb by convincing a large pile of red and white balsa wood powered by a Hitler-inspired engine (did Babbage not see the irony, I wondered?) to depart from it’s Earthly footings then turn Hitler off and glide back down to Earth in a co-oridnated manner at 9.30am on an English Thursday.
I remember the sheer excitement of that moment. It’s an experience nobody ever forgets, and rightly so.
My first solo was made doubly exciting by the fact that the Venture, without the weight of my Master, could now actually FLY. What had previously handled like a barge on a canal and took hundreds of feet to take off now felt more like a sports car. It was off the ground in seconds!
The climb rate was astonishing without Babbage, who was by now no doubt shaking the remaining dribbles of urine from his not-seen-since-1972 nadger.
I remember saying stuff out loud like “whoooo-ah”, “woo-hoo”, “jesus”, “mummy”, but not neccessarily in that order.
I had had something like 3 hours total flying training at that point, and here I was in command of my own ship for the first time.
Extraordinary.
There were three other moments I remember about going solo then that were the same as last week. A very brief frozen moment in time when you are looking at yourself flying from the outside of the aircraft thinking how cool you are. Then a moment of total terror as you realise there’s nobody there to help you if the engine stops followed by a realisation that you’ve got to land the bloody thing and the instructor is watching you from the ground with his fingers crossed.
Hold off, hold off. Don’t you dare fucking balloon. Touchdown. Brilliant.
I don’t remember of we used radio back in ’85, but last week my instructor came through and said “Well done. that’s a 9 out of 10″ to which I replied “I think you’ll find it was a 10 out of 10″ and then a hastily added “That was a joke, I didn’t really..”
It’s very hard to pull off humour on the radio. As I’m sure Terry Wogan would testify.
So, large gratitude is given to all those instructors over the years that have seen fit to send me solo, recommend me for training, passed me on a test or just been such bloody brilliant pilots and men that I want to name check them on my blog: Flt Lt Babbage, Harris (sorry I can’t remember your first name, but I’ll never forget what you said to me after I got lost and delayed 7 Heathrow-bound passenger jets after blagging my way out with a fake practise-PAN), David Hoy, Flt Lt. Paul Barber (I miss you, Sir), Flt Lt Hewitt (ex Red Arrows), Dave Greenwood (I was so sorry to hear they’d taken your medical off you), and John Bradbury.
Thank you one and all.
Here is a picture of me next to another great Slingsby, the T67 Firefly, at Denham in 1986.
A young Mark Attwood and a Firefly
This was the one and only time my Dad saw me fly solo before he died, which was actually the best solo of my life.
Well, I am certainly looking forward to this Wonderland Film on BBC on Monday 23rd January. It’s a film following the microlight “Round Britain Rally” featuring the author of “Propellerhead”, Antony Woodward.
I couldn’t get a clip to share here, but here’s an image from the BBC site:
Magnificent Men
Antony was also a guest of Libby Purves on Radio 4′s Midweek. Here’s the link to Listen Again on iPlayer (don’t know how long this will be live for, so apologies in advance if it’s been taken down by the time you read this).
Finally, I couldn’t end this blog post without showing those of you a clip from the fabulous film that inspired the title of this documentary film, and inspired me as a child: “Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines” – a simply wonderful film that starred the incomparable Terry Thomas and Eric Sykes (the theme to which I used to drum to on parade with the Air Cadets in the 1980s through the streets of Northamptonshire
Finally (again) I really couldn’t end this without sharing that fantastic theme song:
Well, I did yesterday when I went up for my first ever flight in a gyrocopter. The M24 Orion Gyroplane, to be precise.
From the moment of waking up and making the 80-odd mile journey from Manchester to Rufforth aerodrome near York, I was buzzing. Singing to the radio top volume type of buzzing. Not pleasant for any passengers, but fortunately for the non-existent aforementioned, I was alone.
The sky was gloriously blue as I turned into the road leading up to the airfield, despite receiving an SMS from Gyrocopter Experience proprietor, Phil Harwood, warning of mist in the morning. Clearly the mist had all burnt off for what can only be described as perfect flying conditions in North Yorkshire (six words I never thought I’d say in the same sentence).
Getting an SMS from Phil was exciting in itself, as it was his amazing Top Gear-style video (made by a guy called Steve Nesbit) that had got my juices flowing about flying one of these extraordinary machines a couple of weeks previously. See this blog post to get the background to the story.
I caught my first glimpse of a gyro in the air as I was making my way past the potholes in the road (why do all airfields have potholed roads?). It was Phil, as his partner Kati pointed out before she gave me a fantastic tour of their gyro museum and hanger (including her very own Calidus in British Racing Green). As soon as I walked through the door of their place, I knew I was in safe hands and good company.
Gryocopter Experience in York - A Warm Welcome
Gentlemens Personal Rotary Flying Apparatus
The museum itself was also a showroom. It was very interesting to see some single seat “gentleman’s personal rotary flying apparatus” sat next to the latest models of super-sleek, mini-airwolves in mood lighting. A bit like looking at some tractors next to a Ferrari.
Airwolf - the M24 Orion Gyrocopter in the showroom at the Gyrocopter Experience in York
One of the “tractors” was a single seat red kit-gyro that Phil had learned to fly in. Single seat? That’s what I said. He was taught with someone else on the end of a radio. He said “It was just after I’d managed to take this thing off when I realised that perhaps he should have talked me through how to land the bloody thing before I actually got airbourne”
In person, Phil was/is even more as infectiously enthusiastic about gyros as he is on video. The story of how he came to set up the Gyrocopter Experience is fascinating and inspiring. If you ever have the privilege of flying with Phil, you should ask him about it.
“Let’s have some fun!” Phil said for the second time, leading me toward the M24 Orion sat patiently on the apron. The first time, I had to pause him for a last minute pee in the clubhouse portacabin. Nerves? Adrenalin? Tea? Check. Check. Check.
Ready for action!
Here he is explaining the detailed technical terms for entering the aircraft:
The next hour was simply breath-taking. Points of interest were:
TAKE OFF – it was all about building up the rotor rpm, not airspeed. The change of emphasis was interesting, which also meant that initially getting airbourne required some low level S&L during “transition” to get enough lift to move upwards. Consequently, I was taken aback by the distance required to get airbourne proper. I’m definitely going to have to get a bigger field
NO STALL – although I’ve done a few hours in choppers, it still felt very strange to hold off and watch the airspeed go rapidly backwards, past 40knots, past 20 knots and right down to zero knots, and still be happily flying. There was a buffet, but not one that made you fall out of the sky.
PFLs – when the engine gets switched off, you really do not have to worry about anything. The normal pressure is simply not there. Just pick a spot and wait patiently to get down to it.
LOW FLYING – never have I had to move out of the way of people walking their dogs whilst being in control of an aircraft before. Nor have I ever been able to wave back at them either! Phil have me descend to XXXft (I’m keeping it classified, just in case) and follow the curves of a very nice river at 70 knots. This was amazing, but nowhere near as good as the return leg (which Phil did) when we were at eye-level with the ducks for most of the way.
Just bloody brilliant flying.
LANDING – Far steeper angle of attack that I expected, but actually a simpler machine to land than either fixed wing or chopper. Just delighful, and an incredibly short stopping distance. I asked Phil to demonstrate a circuit with go-around. He duly obliged…
Back on the ground, Phil and Kati took me through the workings of the gyro simulator Phil has built for the Flying Show at the NEC. Turns out he’s not only one of only 11 (yes, Eleven) Gyro Instructors in the UK (servicing only 300 gyro pilots), he’s also the Chairman of the British Rotorcraft Association and a genius programmer that has not only created a fully functional computer simulator for gyrocopters (the first) but also has created a very nifty iPhone app that anyone who runs a flying school should be interested in.
Top Gear, top bloke. Thank you for a day I’ll never forget.
Tiny. Delta wing. Wide cockpit. Loads of luggage space. 50hp engine. 220kph! Cheap as chips to run.
Brilliant design usually means a brilliant person somewhere, so after a bit of digging I found this description of Vehees Engineering on their website:
“Verhees Engineering is an engineering agency with remarkable specialisations such as aerodynamics. The agency was founded in 1990 by Bart Verhees (’63). As a mechanical engineer he had acquired rich and wide experience at many companies. Besides craftsmanship and reliability, creativity and pragmatism are also the main characteristics of Verhees Engineering. These are characteristics that have evolved over the years by developing and building many structures.
Verhees Engineering is used to working with limited budgets (and in homebuild aviation the budgets are always limited), but a technically responsible solution has to be found for every problem, that must also have the approval of the authorities.”
There’s a great description of this aircraft by commercial pilot Peter Kuypers here.
Great to see this lovely video which does plenty to extol the virtues of the P&M Aviation QuikR 912S – especially as this Rochdale-based company is doing well in the US, where they like to call these aircraft “Trikes” instead of “Flexwings”. They also like to call “Trousers” “Pants”, but I digress. They did vote in George W Bush, and thought Barrack Obama was really going to change things for the better, need I say more?
I’ve only got a few hours on this type of aircraft, despite taking my first flight in one in 1990, mainly because they scare the bejesus out of me, but I fully intend to get over this and do a conversion course once I’ve completed my PPL(M) on the Eurostar.
I love the look of Mathis airport in this video, and think this shows microlight pleasure flying at its very best.
