The toy box

Here at Attitude they have some of the best maintained aircraft I have ever seen, and also some of the most powerful ones all in the same hanger.


When Matt and I learned to fly in San Diego at Anglo American Aviation, we were flying in very beat up, worn out and knackered flying beer cans. They were forever going tech and needing to be coaxed back into the air by the mechanics. I got used to it and eventually would always choose the more reliable out of the three Cessna 172's to do my training in.

But then I came home to Holland and found Polder. Their fleet was well maintained, clean, reliable and safe. But it was the simple mish mash of Cessna's and Pipers.

Enter Attitude Aviation, toy box supremo's. They have a number of Citabria's (aerobatic tail draggers on which I'm training) and Cessna 152 Aerobat, a Super Decathlon (another tail-dragger aerobatic) and Grob 115 (tricycle aerobatic which Matt's flying) a PITTS Special (which is going to burn a hole in Matt's wallet) and BEAUTIFUL Waco open cockpit bi-plane and the piece de la resistence.......an L-39 Albatross Jet Trainer called the Firecat.

So many toys in the toy-box not enough money to try them all out :-(

Here are some pics for you to enjoy.

This is the Citabria I'm flying and chucking about the sky upside down.

This is the Waco open cockpit bi-plane

And this is the Pitts Special which is beckoning Matt to go fly. He wants to take it up with one of the competitive aerobatics pilots instructing here and go nuts. I fear I will be left pick up the pieces tomorrow when he lands and his stomach is still somewhere over the skies of Livermore.

Licence to thrill....

Well the FAA in the U.S. have found it in their wisdom to validate my European licence. It was a fairly painless exercise, just a form to fill and show him our licences and we were then issued a "Temporary Airman's Certificate". The actual licnece will be sent to us in the post in a few days.


That now means I can beat up the sky flying upside down with my hair on fire :-) Only problem now is that the weather is pretty crap here. I left Amsterdam where there wasn't a single cloud in the sky and it was about 22-25 degrees. Here in Livermore it's overcast, raining and only about 14 degrees. It's supposed to improve by tomorrow though.

So we have a pretty busy couple of days ahead of ourselves. Am supposed to get two hours flying today (don't see that happening) then 3 tomorrow, 3 the day after that and 3 the day after that. It's almost like the bad old days in Anglo American when I was getting my licence.

To tell you the truth, I'm not that worried about the aerobatics course, I'm more frightened on the flight review with the instructors. I haven't done a lot of slow flight or emergency practices and so I know I'm going to cock them all up and I'm worried they won't sign me off. I'm going to go and brush up on my techniques again and read up on the manoeuvres.

Yesterday was spent showing Matt around San Francisco. We tried to take a trip to Alcatraz, but it seems we missed the last boat over there. We'll try later on when we get back from our trip I think. But we then went up to Lombard ("the crookedest street in the world") and took some pics, then he had fun driving down it. We also went to look at the sealions at Fisherman's Wharf and then the obligatory drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. We stopped to take some photo's and then drove back into town and had dinner at Izzy's and met up with my friend Bud for some beers and catch up on his news.


We got back pretty late, my eyes were tired and I fell asleep a few times in the car. Thankfully Matt was driving home.

So today will be a waiting game. See what the weather brings and keep my fingers crossed that it clears during the day.

The start of something great

Well, when I heard at the check-in desk that the flight was delayed by an hour, I thought to myself "Oh, here we go". But it seems that this was not the start to something horrible, because once we boarded the plane everything has gone from good to great to fantastic.

To start with, Matt and I were living life large in Business Class. We had two of the best seats in the house on the top deck of our 747 flying Big Blue (KLM) across the Atlantic to San Francisco. Matt had also bought a book on aerobatics and was reading it on the plane and leaving it placed strategically on his lap or chair (secretly hoping one of the pilots would see it). Turns out that on the plane, sitting in the row opposite to us was none other than Sir John Hall, owner of Newcastle United football club. He spotted the book and started asking us about our flying and of course telling us all about his Learjet he used to fly etc. He asked Matt what team he supported and Matt replied "I guess you support Newcastle?", to which Sir John replied "I OWN the Newcastle football club!". Hahahaha. The conversation quickly turned to Newcastle's performance in the league and the price of players today etc. Was quick nice hob-nobbling with the likes of Sir John, even though he did take a privilege is taking the piss out of the only Paddy in biz class....i.e. me!!

Matt and I enjoyed the excellent wine (they had a lovely South African red) and the port etc and tried to get some sleep on the plane. But it didn't really work.


We arrived in San Francisco an hour late but in line with the late departure and we headed off to passport control. Amazingly, that also went without a hitch and we were at the baggage carousel really quickly. Then the bags came out in the first batch. That has to be some kind of record....fastest transit through U.S. immigration. Funnily enough, they didn't have the mini interrogation in Amsterdam the way they used to have.

Matt and I went to pick up the car and had fun with the lady who kept trying to sell us an upgrade and then after we refused that she tried selling us every insurance under the sun. If only she knew what we were embarking she would have realised that we'd never get car insurance if we're willing to risk all to learn how to fly upside-down ;-) But full marks to her for her perseverance.

On the way to the airport we stopped of at Attitude Aviation to find out if we should drop by the next day. We were treated to a wonderful tour of the hanger and their operations. Some of the toys they have in the hanger are GORGEOUS....an L39 Jet (Soviet Fighter Jet Trainer) some old WWII war birds, a couple of Pitt Special aerobatic planes and the nicest Cessna's I've seen in a long time. And they're SO professional....a far cry from those clowns in Anglo in San Diego. The receptionist/office mgr, Natasha was sop friendly, not like Jessica in Anglo, who basically saw everything as a pain in her ass to do.

The night ended with some free food and beer at the hotel we're staying at. So all in all it's been a VERY good start. We'll see if Uncle Sam screws that up for us tomorrow when we go to get our U.S. licence. Keep your fingers and toes crossed.

The holiday begins....

Well the holiday has begun and Matt and I kicked it off in style. When I picked Matt up at the airport in the evening we rushed back to drop off his bags and ran back out the door to go to Lelystad for a quick bimble around Amsterdam.

It's Matt's first time flying in Holland and since the weather was truly gorgeous, literraly not a single cloud in the sky, I thought it would be nice to show him Amsterdam from the air. I had run Wouter in Polder Aviation earlier that afternoon and booked a C150. Our steed for this mission was PH-GRA. Apparantly the guys were going home early that evening, so Wouter said he'd fuel up the plane and leave the keys in the cockpit for me. Pretty sweet.

So we arrived in Lelystad, pre-flighted GRA and fired her up. I have to admit, it was a tight squeeze in there and we both said we were glad we're doing the long haul journey in the U.S. in a C172.


Lelystad was pretty quiet that evening, and shortly after taking off I called up Amsterdam Info, gave them our position and let them know we were on route to the Amsterdam Sector. They passed along our info to Schiphol and then passed us to Schiphol Tower. I simply LOVE calling those guys up because I chatting away amongst the KLM and BA pilots and I feel like a REAL pilot then :-)

Anyway, Schiphol gave us a squawk code and told us not above 1000 feet....SWEET. We descended to around 800ft and came in above Centraal Station and did some orbits of the city. Matt was a real shutterbug, snapping away with the camera. Then we finished up and left the sector letting Schiphol konw when we were clear. I gave Matt the controls for the flight back and he brought us home to Lelystad. I then asked Lelystad Radio for a straight in, to which we were told "Keep a sharp lookout". We then set her up for the landing and I told the controls back. Few notches of flap and a gentle descent and shortly followed by one of the best landings I have EVER had. I joked and told Matt not to expect them all to be like that when we're in the U.S.

We secured GRA, completed the paperwork and then headed off for a nice beer in the Martinair restaurant.

What a nice way to start to our holiday.

Appointment with the FAA made

Rang the FAA's FSDO office in Oakland to make an appointment in order for them to issue my FAA PPL licence when I get to the U.S.

It seems a pretty straightforward, albeit lenghty, affair. We (Matt and I) had to send off a letter (and pay a fee for the privilege) to the CAA to allow them release our details to the FAA. Then we had to send a form to the FAA asking them to verify our licences so that when we get to the U.S. we go to the FSDO office, show them our logbooks, passports and licences and get issued a American FAA licence.

I was a little worried because when I rang them up last week they hadn't received my application details from their head office in Kansas, but everything seems to be sorted now and the appointment is made for the 3rd at 13:00 PST. That's one step closer to our big adventure.

Only 27 more days until Matt and I are on the "Big Blue Bird" with KLM quaffing "Bolly" and chatting up the hostesses about how we're also pilots. Hahaha. I cannot wait.

Making trails in the sky

I was working from home today and I noticed this plane flying towards me and then turn suddenly onto a new heading. Then the phone rang and when I looked back out the window, I had noticed that the plane was doing a 180 and clearly returning from wherever it had come from. I've never seen that happen before, so I snapped a pic on the camera and thought I'd share it with you all.

Something is clearly wrong that has necessitated them having to turn right around, I only hope it wasn't too serious and that they've all landed safely.

Another day in the saddle

Well, today brought with it another day of sunshine and another day of flying. I took Jana and her boyfriend, Barry, up for a spin around Amsterdam.


I was flying Jessie again today and after a ham and cheese toastie and a cup of coffee at the cafe in Lelystad, we went and checked out Jessie.

With everyone strapped in, safety check done, I started her up and taxied out to RWY 23. The wind was coming from the side a little, so on rotation the plane weathercocked into the wind a little, but nothing a spot of rudder couldn't fix.


We climbed out and departed to the South West aiming directly for the city. I called up Schiphol tower, who seemed to be very quiet today, and passed along my details. I squawked and kept the plane at around 1500ft on the way in. As we got closer to the city I descended a little so that guys could get some good photo's. These ones are from my camera (thanks Barry!!) and I think Barry did a great job getting some lovely shots of the city. Jana didn't like the trip so much. It was a little bumpy every now and then as the sun was heating the ground causing rising thermals.


After some circuits is various directions, we then headed back the way we came and headed home. Jana had calmed down a little as the thermals had reduced over the Flevo polder. We joined the circuit and I had to extend downwind a wee bit because the circuit was busy when I arrived. Coming in a little high and descending slowly gave me enough spacing from the folks in front of me, and a gentle landing brought us back home safely. Another good day and some more great photo's. Enjoy.

Lunch with a friend

Talking to Matt this week meant that we were both pre-occupied with the weather and what it was doing for the weekend. matt was interested because he was fling home with Ryanair to Blighty and he was hoping to get a lift to the airport from Stavanger in a C172 rather than having to drive there. Me? I was interested because I wanted to go to Texel for lunch with friends :-)

Towards the end of the week, we noticed that the weathermen were predicting that the high pressure sitting over France would push North and help deflect the low pressure coming in from the Atlantic North towards Scandinavia. Bad news for Matt, GREAT news for me. But having seen how bad the wethermen got it last week, I wasn't so sure. That is until last night. I checked the weather and yes, sure enough it was going to be a nice day. Even the red sky at night (a shepherds delight, as the old saying goes) was proving them right this weekend.

All I needed now was a plane with friends willing to come for a jolly.

There's something I've noticed about non-flying friends. Firstly, they simply DO NOT GET IT. They have no idea how much fun going somewhere in a plane for a spot of lunch can be, and they also don't enjoy the enthusiasm for flying the way Matt, Mark of Jimbo do. Secondly, when they hear you're a pilot, they say "Oh, I'd love to do that....the next time your going can you invite me?" Which I do gladly. For those of you in the Netherlands reading this, you'll understand the diary syndrome, for those outside the Netherlands, let me explain briefly. Here in Holland, to get ANYTHING done with friends, you have to get in their diary. And ususally that means planning weeks ahead in advance. Not an easy thing to do when you're flying VFR in Holland, but what I've tended to do is block book a weekend, send out an open invite and people respond. BUT!!!! What seems to have happened of late is that people cancel last minute, suddenly changing their minds. Or they've been out on the piss the night before and are enjoying the comfort of their duvet and loved one beside them and don't fancy getting up to be at the airport for midday. Anyway, I digress. So last night I got a "Nah, we're too busy" from two friends and a reconfirmation from another friend that he was keen to come along. So it was just going to be the two of us. Fair enough.

Paul picked me up at the WTC and we drove out to Lelystad together. We arrived with LOADS of time to spare and I checked the weather. The winds had changed a little so I went and adjusted my PLOG. The lovely Vivienne was working today, and she had her hair done. I swear, Dutch women are funny. I complimented her on the new colour (it does look very nice, even a little sexy) and she gave me one of those looks. You know, the one that says "Are you taking the piss??". So I joked with her saying "That's the last bloody time I pay you a compliment". I think she thought I was upset because she got very apologetic, but I was only kidding......about being offended, not about the hair.....it was genuinely a lovely hair-do :-)

Anyway, I brought Paul out to the plane and strapped him in (with a little difficulty....he's a big boy) and gave him the safety briefing. I did the pre-flight, got in myself and started her up. My plane today was a new one for me, PH-GYS....I'm gonna call her Jessie. I taxied out, did the power-up checks and waited my turn to line up on the runway. With it being such good weather, every man and his dog was out flying today. This meant it was a while on the ground (like being in Schiphol) before we got a break in the traffic to take-off, and it meant that I'd have to keep an extra special eye out for pleasure flights going to and fro from Texel. I already heard Ruben (one of the pilots in Polder) was already over there himself. Well, line her up and off we go.

When I took off, I climbed out and exited West. When I turned, I could see off the starboard someone else below and slightly behind me but turning with me none-the-less. I was worried if he could see me or not, but thankfully he passed below me and I continued along to Lelystad city, my first waypoint. We were a little slower (about 30 seconds) overhead Lelystad, which meant the wind was stronger, and I was also having to crab at a totally DIFFERENT angle, which meant the winds aloft were not doing what they were reported to be. I compensated and updated the PLOG and then switched to Amsterdam Information. All quiet there and we headed over towards Enkhuizen on the other side of the Ijsselmeer.


I switched then to De Kooy approach (again these guys are so nice and so helpful) and they gave me a SQUAWK 4363 and gave me RAS until I got towards Texel. We had two traffic warnings, the first I didn't see, but he passed above us 1nm to our starboard, and the second I saw coming straight for us before De Kooy gave us the alert. I had already turned to avoid when he gave us the call and I replied "Roger, traffic in sight". Paul was enjoying himself, happily snapping away on the camera and enjoying the view. He would ask me some questions now and then, but he was happy kicking back and enjoying the flight.

On the way in to Texel, De Kooy told me that there was traffic to the South East but not on my route to Texel and cleared me to contact Texel Radio. Now, for those of you who may have read my last blog about visiting Texel, you may have remembered me complaining how hard it is to find a green field in amongst hundred of OTHER green fields. AND on top of that, I had memorised the routing for RWY 04, the one I landed on on my first visit. But this time, the runway in use was RWY 22. Bugger!!! Now I have to find the airport from the other side. I was joking about this with Paul, and he helped keep a look out for the airport. I passed the VRP, realised that what I thought was the airfield was indeed the airfield and gave them the call that I was long finals. I could also see someone ahead turning short finals and that reconfirmed my suspicions. I set up Jessie for the approach, dropped the flaps and power, pulled out the carb heat and did my "Before Landing" checks. The sun was kind of in my eyes, but I was wearing my sunglasses and the visor was down, so it wasn't a big problem. And before I knew it I did a GREASER on the grass runway....gently kissing the wheels down with barely a touch......I was CHUFFED, and Paul turned and said "Wow, that was so smoothe Clay". I was delighted :-)

We taxied to the apron, shut down and secured Jessie and went to the tower to pay the lanbing fees. Again, I joked with the guys in the tower that it's so hard to find a field in a field and how I was psyched for 04 and not 22. They laughed and said that now I was prepared for ANY runway in future :-)

Paul and I made our way to the cafe and had some food, Paul enjoying a beer (the lucky bastard) and we enjoyed the view out the window. Eating our uitsmijter's and coffee we noticed that the parachuting club was in full swing and some family members were outside looking up at some family members being hurled out for a tandem jump. It was fun seeing the guys landing right in front of you, and reminded me of my sky-diving days. but I'm not sure I like how close they are to the apron. Afterall, if you get it completely wrong, you could find yourself minus some limbs with props everywhere. Bill paid, we went back out to Jessie. I helped paul strap in, did a quick pre-flight again and started her up. A quick radio check and taxy to the active where I did the power-up checks and then set jessie up for a "Soft Field Take-off". I LOVE doing these and have loved doing them since Kevin (my instructor) taught me how to do them. Although, when I was learning, I must admit that I DID scrape the tail on one occaision. Anyway, flaps set, control column right back, lined up and power in. Keeping the nose centred with the rudders the nose then lifted up, with the fuselage eventually getting airborne. I then kept Jessie in groud effect and then pulled her right back roaring into the sky. I looked over to Paul and he had a grin ear to ear, as did I. We then climbed and made our way out to the coast and called the guys in De Kooy again. A different controller this time, we were told to Squawk VFR (7000) and made out way to Enkhuizen again. Eventually we called Amsterdam Information, and Paul was so quiet, engrossed with listening to the chatter on the radios. I was telling him how one of the things I love about flying is chatting to ATC, and he said it was fun just to realise that we were interacting with them like this. We arrived overhead Lelystad, did a quick orbit to photograph a ship Paul missed on the initial pass and then headed towards Lelystad airport. I asked if I could head for Sierra via an overhead and was told it was OK. There were two aircraft ahead of me and I had to extend downwind a bit to give adequate spacing.

Eventually on final, I was all set up for the landing. But just as I was flaring, the wind caught me and I began to sink a little. I wasn't happy, pushed the power and carb heat in and called "GYS, going around". I cleaned her up and got set-up again for the second attempt. This was a much better circuit first of all, and I was set up nicely. When I was in the base leg before turning Final, I thought I could hear a radio station. I asked Paul if I was hearing things, and he said he could hear it too. Having said that, the radios in Lelystad were SHIT. I think someone had a stuck mic or something because there was so much squelch and crap ont he radio. Anyway, I turned final, albeit a little high and I slipped Jessie in, gently settling her on the runway and coming to gentle stop. I called clear of the active and let the guys in Lelystad Radio know about the music. They sounded surprised, saying that I was the first to report it and that others yesterday reported it on another frequency. Most odd. We taxied back to Polder, shut her down and I then completed the paperwork. Another successful and fun day flying, albeit an expensive one. Given the cost per hour, I am seriously thinking about buying something on my own. I am always concious about how far places are and would love to explore more, but it's so expensive here. If only I had some flying buddies who were interested in either sharing the flying costs or co-buying a plane. I'll wait and see.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to go flying again. We'll wait and see what happens and see if anyone sleeps in late, misses the train or just plane cancels on me. The mission tomorrow? I kind of fancy an overflight of Amsterdam. Who knows.

Now THIS is a heavy landing!!!

And I thought some of my landings when training were bad.

Apparently, this a C-23 Sherpa was operating out of a U.S. operated airfield. He flew in during the day and noticed that there was construction equipment on the runway but no NOTAM informaing pilots. He issued a complaint but nothing was updated.

A repair trench was being dug in the runway to fix a large surface crack an it was not NOTAM'd. Work continued through the night and nobody thought of turning off the landing lights to the runway either.

A C-130 arrived that night and lined up to land. The pilots were unaware of the construction work going on and it ended up ploughing into this MASSIVE hole in the ground.

The C-130 was a write-off and there were a few injuries, but thankfully nobody was killed.

Damn those weather men

Quite a frustrating weekend. I booked a C172 for both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Saturday was booked for 16:00 and Sunday was booked for 12:00, on the proviso that if Saturday was a wash-out then we'd go up on Sunday. Who was coming with me? My best friend Sally, her boyfriend Ricky and my friend Jana from work. The plan?? To go for a quick sightseeing flight over Amsterdam.

I checked the weather during the week and again on Friday. According to the TAF's and satellite images, there was a large low about to move in from the West which would clear up and leave a ridge of high pressure (and consequently blue skies) all day Sunday. Which was just as well, because Sally asked if we could go on Sunday instead. "Not a problem", I told her "it's supposed to be pissing down on Saturday".

But how wrong did the forecasters get it. I awoke on Saturday to lovely high Cirrus Stratus and as the morning went on the weather stayed mild, although it did get grey as the day passed. I emailed Polder to confirm the TAF and they said it was supposed to be crappy by the time I was to go up, so they were OK to let me scrap the flight. I rang Matt to talk flying etc and we were joking about how when we do scrub a flight, how we want the weather to prove us right. And sure enough it started to turn bad, but the "cats and dogs" never did appear, just poor visibility.

I went to a friends party and watched my beer intake. I stuck to 4 bottles of beer, made sure Jana knew she was to be at the train station by 10:30 and was home, tucked up in bed by midnight....and who said flying is glamorous :-)

Sunday began with Sally sending me an sms about the weather. She was worried about the fog in Lelystad. Her parents live there and she could see how grey outside it was. I checked the
weather and the forecasters were predicting it to burn off by lunch-time. So off I went.

But it didn't start out all roses. Jana pissed me off by doing a typical "Jana". "Oh my alarm clock didn't go off sweetie....can you tell me what trains I can get sweetie....Oh I'll be an hour late sweetie
". I just KNEW it...I knew she'd miss the train. In the end she ended up not making it....which if I was clever, I could have put money on, AND won. I got to the station, met Sally and her family and we drove to the airport. But there was no sign of the weather changing. We went for a coffee and watched the weather from the cafe. At last......a glimmer of sunshine. But it was already 13:20. I had the plane (PH-PJL...or "Me Julie") until 14:00. But I pre-flighted her, posed for some pics (coming soon) and strapped Sally and Ricky in. Fired up the engine, radio check and pre flight checks etc and we taxied to the run-up area.

Sal was babbling away while I was trying to do the pre-flight checks and eventually we taxied onto the runway. And very soon afterwards we were skybound. Sal let out a "Whoooo" as we rotated and climbed out and then I headed out for the city of Lelystad. But the weather was still iffy up above. Clouds were scattered at around 500ft so I had to be careful to remain clear of clouds. As I continued, the weather was beginning to improve. I dialled in the Lelystad NDB and made a route back towards the airfield. I aimed for VRP Sierra and called overhead, joined downwind and did the pre-landing checks. Again Sal was babbling in my ear and I had to concentrate with a stiff crosswind. I overshot a bit turning final, and had to slip to loose height, but recovered and brought "Me Julie" in for a landing. But sadly I flared a little too high and hit the deck a little hard. But there was no bounce and it was a solid landing. We taxied back, shut down and headed back to the club to do the paperwork. I mentioned to Ruben about the hard landing and he smiled and simply said "You can't get them all the time".

Time logged....30 mins, but I wish it could have been more.

As big as my dining table

Well, the faithful day to our big adventure is getting closer. Matt and I have sent off the paperwork to have our pilot licences validated by the FAA in the U.S. and hopefully all is going well in the land of aviation bureaucracy.

We've also used a new tool, Skyvector (you can access it here) to take a look at the general route and potential pitfalls such as hazards, mountains, military airspace etc. Matt pinged me on Yahoo worried about the Sierra Nevada mountains. But I think it's fine. There is a large corridor available to us from Reno to Vegas, and the route from Vegas to Mojave certainly has mountains, but they're not that high. And once we get to Mojave, the route South to San Diego is familiar to us both as we had our first solo cross countries in that area. It was fun printing off the sections from Skyvector and then sellotaping them back together. The route from Livermore to Grand Canyon alone is as big as my dining table, which is 2 metres long (that's 7 feet in old currency) !! And then of course there's the Southbound leg of the trip to add on to that :-)

I have the 172's in Polder booked for this weekend. Both Saturday and Sunday. I have full planes for both days, I'm just hoping that the weather behaves itself. As you might remember, I have a very green passenger the last time I went up in the grey soupy stuff. I don't mind flying in that on my own, but I won't subject passengers to it. So keeping my fingers and toes crossed.

I was talking to Matt about the Summer of 2008.....early planning :-) I suggested we should get our floatplane endorsements in Canada, then rent a floatplane and go fly around the bush. We could go fishing and camping and live in the great outdoors. He seems as keen as myself to do it so I'm busying myself with organising this one (Matt has basically taken care of everything for this years trip) and trying to find schools where we can train and then rent a floatplane for camping trip. My suspicions are that they'll insist on a "Bush Training" add-on in order to go off on our own, but looking at the prices, it seems pretty reasonable to do both. We'll wait and see.

Enrico's Turkish Delight

I just heard some wonderful news from my friend Enrico. I met Enrico at Anglo American, the flight school I trained at. He was the instructor of my friend Matt. He's one of those people who has a heart of gold, is fantastically funny and has one of the most espressive faces I've ever come across.

Enrico left for Turkey just before Christmas to begin training in the B737. He has his commercial licence, but no type rating. And without a rating, no airline would touch him. However, he heard about a place in Turkey where for €30,000 and change he could get his type rating AND maybe be offered a job at the end of it.

The good news then??? Well, he's can now consider himself a 737 driver and will head off to Germany soon to begin line training with the Turkish sponsoring airline. So he'll soon be flying high above on a daily basis, doing what he does best.....flying. I jokingly told him his English has gotten worse since going to Turkey. I hope it doesn't get even worse when he goes to Germany.

Blue Skies Enrico.....and whenever you've got a spare jumpseat, I'm sure Matt and I will be happy to take it ;-)

Dar she blows.......Can you pass me a sick bag??

Sunday brought with it some dodgy weather and a strong desire for me to get up into the air. I didn't have "getupthereitis" but I was keen to go fly despite the weather. I checked the TAF's and the forecast was that it was due to clear by the afternoon. That's all I needed to hear and I met up with my friend Demy and we drive out to the airport.

This was to be Demy's first flight with me, and the plan was to take the plane over to Amsterdam and let her check out the city from above. However, Demy wasn't feeling too good to begin with. She said she started to feel like a headache was coming on, so we stopped off to get her paracetamol. She was feeling better by the time we got to the airfield and I checked out the plane and strapped her in.

My steed on this journey was to be PH-ALI, a C-150. I gave the safety briefing, started up the engine, called Lelystad Radio and made my way to the run-up area. All the checks complete and a quick taxy to the runway. The wind was blowing quite strong. I was being bounced around quite a bit and this was still on the bloody gorund. I lined her up and took off and immediately was bounced around by the wind. I climbed up to 1500ft on the QNH and called up the folks in Amsterdam Information to get clearance into the Amsterdam CTZ. But I was having a slight off-day on the radio. I had a bit oif a wanker on the other end for starters, and on top of that, the radio wasn't very clear so a few times I was repeating "Say Again, PH-ALI". No need to worry though, we got clearance into the CTZ and the boys in Schiphol were as always very helpful, and very professional. We were cleared into the CTZ and told in no uncertain terms to stay well in the VFR sector. We squawked 0060 and kept our eyes well peeled. I could see why as I got closer to Amsterdam....off to my left RWY 27 was in use for landing traffic as was RWY 01C ahead of me. I kept us at around 800ft-900ft and did some orbits of the city. Even though Demy was enjoying herself, the sudden bursts of turbulence really didn't help her relax. I was enjoying the challenging flying conditions but would have preferred if it was smoother.

After about 20 mins over Amsterdam we headed back towards Lelystad and I gave Demy a go at flying. She did a great job steering but kept pulling or pushing too hard, so I controlled the height with the throttle as she steered. I contacted the wanker in Info, gave him our position and asked for FIS for the trip back. By now though the bumpy weather was taking its toll on Demy. She had gone VERY quiet and had gone a little pale. Then she started complaining of an upset tummy. I made direct for Lelystad and set us up for the circuit. Thankfully it was quiet and we slipped into the circuit behind one other aircraft. and set us up for approach.

The wind was really strong and I was flying diagonally on each leg the whole time. I did the landing checks, and aimed for the threshold. With the wind being as strong as it was I was concious of maybe stalling, so I purposefully carried power and extra speed just in case. But that meant the landing and flare was a little iffy. A gentle bounce (followed by a "ahhh shite" from me) and we were down. I could almost see Demy heave a sigh of relief out of the corner of my eye. On the taxy back to the hanger we joked that she's sticking to fair weather flying....she'll only come up when it's sunny. I had fun though and I prived to myself that I can handle European weather just as well as the blue sunny stuff I got used to in San Diego. But I do love a limp wind sock ;-)

Road trip with a twist!!

This evening, Matt and I used a really cool feature in webpage sharing feature in Yahoo! Messenger from WebEx and an equally cool website http://skyvector.com/ to plan our up-coming trip in May. The website basically has every Sectional Chart for the U.S. (they're the most up to date charts) and also has the weather available as a mouseover for a number of airports. What's more, when you click onto the airport, it will then open up a detailed page showing you information about the airport, runways, airport elevation etc etc etc. I just wish they had something similar to this for European pilots to use. Matt and I both commented that things like this really show how GA friendly the US is. They just love private pilots over there.

Anyway, we spent an hour coming up with a basic plan and working out destinations, things to do at each stopover, how many nights we'll stay and more importantly...WHERE we'll stay. Here's the plan we've come up with so far.

Depart Livermore (East of San Francisco, and where we'll be based when doing our aerobatics course) and fly to Lake Tahoe. We'll spend some time swimming in the lake and enjoying the scenery. Then in the evening, depart....

Lake Tahoe - Reno

At Reno, we'll sample the nightlife and casinos. We'll stay overnight in Reno with a friedn of mine who's relocating there soon.


Reno - Las Vegas

Again, we'll sample the nightlife etc in Las Vegas


Las Vegas - Grand Canyon - Las Vegas

We'll spend the day at the Grand Canyon, and will try to fly in/around the canyon too. We'll then fly back to Vegas and spend a second night there.



Las Vegas - Mojave Desert (Airplane Graveyard)

This is where a lot of old airplanes are parked and scrapped. It's an old airplane graveyard. But it is also home to Burt Rutan's company Scale Composites. This company won the "Ansari X Prize" for being the first private company to successfully launch a manned space vehicle into Low Earth Orbit, and so now the airport has been dubbed the "America's 1st Inland Spaceport". Here we'll spend some time looking at airplanes and being geeky pilots.

Mojave Desert - San Diego

We'll fly into our old school and spend time with our friends John and Janis. Hopefully we can go for a spin in their new Mooney. We'll stay over in San Diego as I'm sure there are a bunch of people who'll want to go for beers with us (I know John and Janis will be keen for sure).

San Diego - Los Angeles (via Santa Catalina Island)

Our plan is to land into LAX (just because we can) and mis it up a little with the 747's and multitude of other planes going in and out of there. Matt's a little apprehensive, so I told him I'd fly us in and he can do the radios, and then he can fly us out. I think he sounded happy with that.

Los Angeles - San Francisco

We'll spend a couple of days in San Francisco. I want to show Matt about because it's one of my favourite places in the U.S. and I'd love to show him around Napa and go wine tasting. We're also keen to get a flight in over the Bay Area, and I want to bring some of my friends up in the air too. And then sadly we'll ahve to give our plane back and head home to Europe.


All in all, if we get our aerobatics out of the way quickly, then we should have no problem squeezing in the flying with room to spare. And if we find we're running short, then we can always skip something along the way. I'm really looking forward to the trip. I'm looking forward to it for a number of reasons....firstly the flying, secondly sharing something so fun with a friend like Matt. He's a friend who's as passionate about flying as I am, and I think we'll have as much fun planning the flights together as we'll have sharing the flying. We'll be sharing the flying and radios and we've promised that whoever does the landing back at Gillespie (our old haunt) then the other will do the take-off but do one circuit for a touch and go before we depart. I'd kinda like to do the departure if I'm honest (heehee). It may even work out to be the case if we're planning on flying into LAX as out next leg. We'll wait and see of course.

One of the other reasons I'm looking forward to the trip is the fact that American girlies totally love when you tell them you're a pilot. I got Matt and I t-shirts for fun with "I'm a pilot" on the back, just to be a total arse. But the funny thing is that American's don't get sarcasm, so they'll think we're being genuine and they won't bat an eyelid...heehee.

There's still a lot more planning to do. For example, we have a lot of paper work to sort out to get our licences validated for the U.S. When we land Stateside, we need to go to the FAA and hand in our licences and get American versions which will allow us to fly there. It seems like it's more of a formality than anything else, so hopefully it'll al go smoothly.

Also, we still have NO idea where we're gonna live when we go to Livermore for the aero's course. I hope we find somewhere soon. AND somewhere that's not mad money. I'm counting the days until May....only 199 days left until we fly KLM's Big Blue Bird to San Francisco. I can't wait

How NOT to do it!!

A Happy New Year to everyone!! I hope everyone is well rested and ready to take on what the New Year has in store for them?

One pilot however seems to have taken on a little too much. I don't remember if I told some of you about the story of a banner tow pilot who ran out of fuel and had to land on the highway running next to our airfield in San Diego. She landed safely that time, and was given the all clear to keep flying (i.e. the FAA didn't take her licence away from her).

Well, it seems that her luck just ran out. My friend John sent me an email and some pics of her banner towing plane which was truly plowed into the ground. Apparantly she went for the banner, climbed, stalled, recovered and stalled AGAIN!. Only this time she wasn't able top recover from the second stall.


It's clear from the photo's that she sadly did not make it, and I believe she died on impact. A very sobering thought to us pilots for the New Year. I only hope that the "stall pixies" will leave Matt and myself alone when we go Stateside for our aerobatics course.....although having said that, the course is indeed designed to make us better, safer pilots.

I myself don't know when I'll next be up in the air. I have a pretty hectic travel schedule ahead of me which includes Moscow, Kiev and Riga, but I hope to get up possibly next week for a quick spin. We'll wait and see what the weather does.

Pendair's first passenger flight

Yesterday morning brought with it grey clouds and that sinking feeling that my planned bimble around Amsterdam and up to Texel was not going to happen today.

Last week I had asked some friends if they wanted to join me in a trip up to Texel for a spot of lunch. Ever since I read stories of the "$100 hamburger" in the flying magazines I religiously bought before I ever GOT my wings, I wanted one of the first things I did after getting my wings to be a bimble somewhere nice for a spot of lunch. So I put the feelers out with some friends who said they'd be willing to risk life an limb for said burger and told them I'd take them somewhere exotic for lunch this Saturday. However Mother Nature, that fickle nemesis of most GA pilots had other ideas. Sometimes I think she does it on purpose.

I plogged (slang Matt and I use for Plotting/Logging) the route on Thursday night and then set about praying to the weather Gods as I had done the week before for my club check-out ride.

I religiously looked the the weather daily, trying to figure out what the clouds and rain were doing. There was a large band of cloud lying right across Europe lying NE/SW and it was slowly moving Eastwards. The forecasters were predicting it to sit right over Holland on Saturday. So I prayed for some wind to push it past us quickly. And it looks like my prayers were answered. At 9am I woke up and headed immediately to the PC and checked the satellite images and forecasts. The speed the rain was moving on the radar looked like we were still on. By the time we would leave it would have passed over us.

So my friend Lucy and I set off for the airport to meet Ian and Sofia there at around 1pm. The rain had stopped and we grabbed a coffee whilst I completed the weight and balance load sheet. As we finished the coffee, peeking off in the distant was some sunshine, teasing us to come folly in the sunshine rays. That was enough for me.....I needed to fly and now was as good a time as any.

I briefed the gang on emergencies, how to open the door and use the belts. The girls decided that they'd swap turns sitting in the co-pilot seat and will the plane fuelled and ready to go we started her up. My steed for today was Polder Aviation's PH-PJL.....I'm gonna call her "Me Julie". A quick chat to the tower in Lelystad, taxy to the active and away we went. The cloud was a wee bit low....scattered at 2000ft and we flew through a tiny rain show on our way South to the medieval city of Naarden. It's an old fortified city with the moats and things clearly visible. Lucy brought her camera and took some great photo's. We circled the city for a while and headed East.

I was hoping to get a sightseeing trip over Amsterdam but with the weather being the way it was I wasn't optimistic. But with my best Top Gun "radio voice" I called the folks in Schiphol tower, passed my details and was asked to standby. So we circled over the Ijsselmeer for a minute or two. Then they came back and said "PH-PJL is cleared to enter the CTR overhead the VFR Sector not above 1000ft on the QNH 1019, be advised VFR traffic in the area". I repeated the clearance and I told the gang that we were going in.

I made my way in via the water and aimed for the Centraal Station. On our way in I saw the other airplane leaving the sector and ATC told me that a police helicopter would be in the area too. I asked the guys to keep an eye out for other aircraft. Since I was not allowed above 1000ft I ended up having to overfly the city at around 800ft-1000ft. It's amazing to see just exactly how close you fly to tall buildings and churches. After a while I heard Ian shouting "I can see my apartment....right down there". I chuckled to myself and asked if they were ready to leave. We had orbited the city for about 15mins and I was keen to continue to Texel. They replied "Yes" and I informed ATC we were exiting to the North. They asked me to report clear and off we went.

The wind on the way up was stronger than forecast so I had to correct for it on the way up. I asked Amsterdam Info if I could switch to Den Helder Approach and I got the latest weather for Texel (beautiful day with sunshine and 10km's visibility) from them. The also told me there was parachuting going on in Texel, so that was another thing to watch out for. Now....this is where it got tricky. This is the first airport I have had to find on my own without ever having visited it before. Yeah, sure, I have been to other airfields solo, but we went there the previous day or two with my instructor Kevin, but this was brand new.....a grass airfield, with parachutists falling from the sky and a minimum approach height of 1500ft. Eventually I saw what looked like the airfield, gave them my position and was told it was a right hand circuit for runway 04. I slowed the plane down, deployed flaps (followed by a "What was that noise" from Ian in the back) and brought us in on final. Lucy was busy snapping away with the camera and I was concentrating like mad. Texel radio told me the grass was wet so not to brake.....wonderful!

The approach went well, but with four people in the back, I wasn't used to how sloppy "Me Julie" was at lower speeds, and the sink rate was a wee bit faster. But there was also a crosswind blowing 90 degrees to my left. I don't know which one was making me cock-up the landing but I flared a little bit too high and porpoised a little bit, but it was a softish landing. The gang thought I did great, but I wasn't happy about it. We taxied back to the control tower and I paid the landing fee. Since we were pushed for time, we would have to skip the $100 hamburger on this trip, because I needed to get the plane back shortly.

A quick co-pilot change, this time with Sofia in the front and everyone ready for the trip home we started "Me Julie" up and took off again. I had to do a soft field take-off because the runway was wet. I LOVE doing these....you lift the nose off during the take-off roll....then keep the plane in ground effect and build up speed....and then you shoot skyward and let the speed bleed off a bit. That started Ian and I off then on a whole Top Gun pa lava....."Jester's dead....yeehaw" or "Your writing cheques your body can't cash" and so on and so on.

We headed across the water back home towards Lelystad. We followed the route along the dijk and headed straight for the city of Lelystad. I'm amazed by the sheer size of the antenna's here....especially being so close to the airfield. But I could see the azure blue from the KLM B-737 static exhibit at the Air Museum at our airfield and called Lelystad Radio. The guys must have been having a bad day because all day long they sounded grumpy....reminds me of one guy in Gillespie, San Diego :-) I joined the circuit, slowed us down and set us up for an absolute greaser of a landing. I was definitely proud of THAT landing. We taxied back, shut her down and exited with Cheshire cat grins on each of our faces.

"Where to next?" I hear you ask....well the folks at Polder told the gang about an airfield in the German islands that is 200m walking distance from the beach. I guess that's Summer sorted out then :-)

Back in the saddle

Wow....what a difference a week makes. Last week it was torrential rain, 45kt gusting wind and visability of only 1km. But today the weather Gods were smiling on me. I had re-booked my check-out flight at Polder Aviation for today and I was worried that the weather would be more of the same. But a check at the weather sites showed that Saturday would be hot and miss and Sunday was sure to be a good one. And Lo and Behold....they were RIGHT!!! :-)

I have been studying the flight manual for the C150 like mad all this week. Revising the emergency drills and memorising the V-speeds. But one of the things that has had me worried all week is my performance during emergency drills like engine failure or the engine out gliding approach. I arrived at the airport with plenty of time before take off and met Rubden, my instructor for the day. This was my first time in the C150, and the plan behind it is that when I want a quick and cheap bimble, then I'll rent the C150, and when I want to take friends for a spin, then I'll take the bigger C172. Since I learned on the C172, they figured if I did well on the C150 then they'd sign me off on both.

Ruben took me out to the my steed for the day...PH-HIL (I've nicknamed her Hilena) and I did the walkround. The C150 is definately more snug than the C172....or as we say in Dutch....it's GEZELLIG. There's not much room from each other and the seats only adjust back and forth. But in I got, settled on my belt and got used to the layout. The panel is pretty much the same, although the engine instruments are way over to the right in front of the P2. And the flaps are annoying. It's a switch that you have to hold until the required flaps arrive where you want them. Not like the 172 which you just select and forget. AND the flap indicator is in the most awkward position.....in the frame near the door on the P1 position, which makes it hard to spot. That said, we started her up (having to prime her a good bit first) and then taxied out.

Lelystad is a new concept to me.....a busy uncontrolled airfield. I've been spoilt with having ATC at the fields I flew in in the States. So it was a bit weird having all this traffic doing what they were doing on their own bat. But I wasn't really daunted. We lined up and took off and departed to the West heading over towards the Ijsselmeer. We then tracked NE along the coast of the Flevo polder (this is all reclaimed land from the sea done in the 1950's) and climbed up to 2000ft into the class D airspace. Ruben then asked if I wanted to do some steep turns to get a feel for the airplane. So I did, starting with one to the right and then one to the left. I noticed that very little power was needed given it's so cold here. In San Diego I needed to belt in the power to maintain height, but because the engine is more efficient in the colder weather it maintains height at almost the same power setting as the cruise. We then headed SE and I did some engine failure practices and a PFL (Practiced Forced Landing) and had to halt the descent at 500ft so as not to break the law. Climbing back up to 1000ft, Ruben then pointed out some useful landmarks to use when transitioning to and from the airpot and also the gliding strip which I need to know about in order to avoid it.

We approached the airfield and descended to 700ft agl (standard circuit in Holland) and went for VRP Sierra which is the approach point for joining the circuit. But some clown in a PA-28 also wanted to aim for Sierra. He drifted about 200 metres off my left wing and I turned tight to join the downwind leg. I kept my speed up as someone was flying quite wide circuits and when I turned left for base leg, there was the idiot in the PA-28 again, off my left wing, also at 700ft and buzzing in front of me. It looked as though he was going to cut me up on the circuit and Ruben was going nuts. But eventually he kept flying past the turn for finals as though he was carrying on to the west. We called "Finals" and I did a flapless landing.

The first landing was quite good (for someone out of the saddle for 2 months) and we powered up and did another circuit. This time it was a full flap landing. Not so good this time and I was getting used to the strong wind in the crosswind leg. The nose attitudein the 150 is different than that of the 172 also. It's more nose up than the flatter approach of the 172. A roughish landing and off again. This time the next one was better and we decided to do a glide approach. But someone was flying wide circuits ahead of us and so we had to improvise a little. The same idiot who was flying wide circuits was also using up the ENTIRE runway when he landed. The runway is 1200m long, and there's no way he needs that much. We did a go around and tried again. This time we had an empty circuit and I executed a fairly good glide approach. Finally we did one more landing, a normal one. Everything was looking OK, but on final, the speed started to drop rapidly. So I had to lower the nose down a lot....but then the ground was coming up fast, so I flared.....a little too early, and I heard the stall warning as the wheels kissed the ground. We called it a day and Ruben said he was happy with my flying.

So that's it.....I'm signed off to use Polder's planes and have now flown in de land of dose crazshy Dutch. Hopefully next weekend will be good weatherwise too so I can finally take my friends up for a spin. Keeping my fingers and toes crossed.

I miss the California sun

This weekend was supposed to be a fun weekend. I had booked a flight with an instructor this weekend to find out more about the local flying area and to get checked out on the C150. It's a smaller plane than the C172 I trained on, and consequently it costs less to rent. The idea behind it was that should I want to go flying on my own, just to keep current, then I could rent the C150 and then when I need the bigger C172 to take friends up, I just rent one of those. Sadly though, Mother Nature took it upon herself to bugger up the weather. Outside it's grey (albeit high cumulus clouds) with intermittent light rain and gusts up to 45kts!!! The rain and clouds are doable.....but the gusts meant that its bumpy and turbulent both int he air and near the surface. So after scheduling for Saturday and then re-scheduling for Sunday, I've had to scrub both flights completely. Hopefully next weekend will be better, but I have a feeling that I'm going to be saying that alot over the coming months.

Roll on Summer sunshine.....

Road trip with a difference

Well after several weeks trying to settle on what we were going to do, where to do it and when, Matt and I have now finalised our next big adventure. We're going to learn how to do aerobatics. Well, actually, I am and Matt i still trying to decide on whether he'll do the aerobatics course or the Unusual Attitudes course. The aeros course is what it says on the box...learning how to do aerobatics like those nutters you see at the air shows. But the Unusual Attitudes course is more of an extra bag of tricks to get yourself out of those hairy situations. Both courses are apparantly similar with a slightly different emphasis on certain things on each course. We'll do the course in a school that was both found individually by Matt and then also came recommended seperately by my friend John in San Diego. It's called Unusual Attitude in Livermore, California.

The course is 8 hours long, and the plan is for us to complete the course in the first week (in the first few days) and then for the 2nd week to rent a plane and go on a road trip, or in our case, an air trip. We've settled on trips around the Bay Area in San Francisco, to Lake Tahoe, the Mojave airport where the aircraft graveyard is, and also a trip to San Diego to visit our old school in Gillespie. We've let John and Janis know about the trip, so we'll try and meet up with them either in San Diego or arrange a "fly-in" somewhere else and have dinner with them. I think a trip to either Reno, Vegas or Oregon to see the volcanoes is also on the cards.

The only thing now we need to sort out is accomodation. We'll probably settle for B&B's....something cheap, cheerful and comfy and vary where we stay when we're doing the air trip, and choose a place for the week we'll be in Livermore. And the best part is that I managed to get Matt and I biz class tickets with KLM there and back. So we'll be flying in comfort and style going there ;-) I cannot wait.

There's a bit of paperwork involved. We need to get our JAA licences endorsed by the US FAA...which means sending a form to the CAA to allow them release our details to the FAA, then sending a form to the FAA asking for a US licence and then dropping into the FAA's FSDO office in Oakland to get our FAA licences. We already have our medicals, so that's not a problem. And we can get the FAA thing when we arrive in San Francisco. I cannot wait. This will certainly get me through the Winter months.

Another development is that I will be shortly moving to Ukraine with Cisco. I'll be the new controller (actually the first controller) for the Ukraine/CIS region. I am trying to find out if my JAA licence is valid in Ukraine, but you can imagine the problems I'm having trying to get them to answer etc. But hopefully it will all work out. And there's a guy in the office who flys a Yak!!! It's aerobatics rated, which means that I can borrow it and chuck it around the sky when the mood takes me :-) Keep your fingers crossed that it all works out.

That's it for now.