Flying in England for a US PPL

On Tue, 25 May 2004 17:39:24 -0000, Dylan Smith
wrote:

I can
fly the Grumman at Andreas for 70 quid an hour less than the 172 y

70 quid LESS?

Good grief.

Why would anyone train in the UK when you could winter in Arizona?
That 70 quid would pay your motel and the rental car.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com

In article , Cub Driver wrote:
Why would anyone train in the UK when you could winter in Arizona?
That 70 quid would pay your motel and the rental car.

It's tough to nip over to Arizona after work for a flying lesson. The
11-hour airline flight makes it impractical.

Some people (esp. those with families) can't just go away for flight
training for 4 weeks, so they must do it in their normal free time - an
hour after work, a lunchbreak, a Sunday afternoon.

It also depends where you live - the earlier example showed that London
was almost twice as expensive as where I live (hence the 70 quid cheaper
- about $120 cheaper) comment. Everything is a rip-off in London, flying
included. I have no idea why anyone in their right mind wants to live
there.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

John:

An interesting read.

I, too, flew in the UK last summer (during the record-breaking heat wave).

I flew out of Old Sarum. So much of your description matches so closely my
experiences. Especially the part about the "club" aspect. Old Sarum has a
white picket fenced-off area with tables, etc., set up to allow folks to
just sit and eat, drink, and watch the planes.

I was impressed with the general quality of the fleet. I flew a '67 C-172H
which was in almost immaculate condition.

About millibars: when we got in the plane, the instructor & I were going
down the preflight checklist. Although he mentioned the use of millibars and
QFE/QNH, etc., I commented something about the "oddness" of millibars. To
which he replied quite dryly, "You're in the rest of the world now. Get used
to it!"

Other differences were that when we returned, I looked for the control lock.
The instructor said they didn't use them. I then said, OK; should I just tie
it down? He said, no, there was no need. I asked about wind gusts, and he
said, "This is England!" Must not be much wind....

Only mistake I made was booking the flight for 0800. Here in TX, if you want
cool, smooth flight, it's early in the AM or late in the evening. Forgot all
about the English haze.... Fortunately it burned off quickly, but did not
make for decent photos...

Mostly just wanted an "official" UK entry in my logbook! I'd do it again in
a heartbeat.

Carl

"John Harper" wrote in message
news:1085504166.619124@sj-nntpcache-3...
I've written something about flying in England from the
perspective of a US pilot (albeit a Brit), it's at

www.john-a-harper.com/flying/england.htm

I'd especially be interested in any comments from UK
pilots.

John

In article , Carl Orton wrote:
Other differences were that when we returned, I looked for the control lock.
The instructor said they didn't use them. I then said, OK; should I just tie
it down? He said, no, there was no need. I asked about wind gusts, and he
said, "This is England!" Must not be much wind....

The lack of tiedowns got me too. We tie ours down here (and put control
locks in), but especially in the winter (when we usually get at least
one storm with hurricane force winds) this can be a windy isle...

But in the summer, we never get those huge thunderstorms that are common
in Texas.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

On Tue, 25 May 2004 at 19:22:40 in message
, Carl Orton
wrote:

Other differences were that when we returned, I looked for the control lock.
The instructor said they didn't use them. I then said, OK; should I just tie
it down? He said, no, there was no need. I asked about wind gusts, and he
said, "This is England!" Must not be much wind....

He was kidding you. We _can_ get very strong winds. In 1987 we had a
hurricane which did huge damage. One pilot on approach said his
instruments were showing a wind speed at about 2000 ft of 150 knots. We
do only get very small tornados though. ;-)

The club Piper Warrior my son took me for a ride in around 1989 was
destroyed on the ground in a gale a few years later.
--
David CL Francis

In article , David CL Francis wrote:
He was kidding you. We _can_ get very strong winds. In 1987 we had a
hurricane which did huge damage.

Typically not in the summer though - well, at least here thunderstorms
are rare enough to be a 1 in 3 year event and they aren't very big.
(Still, we tie down the planes!)

The winter though...the 1987 hurricane force gale in the south of
England is almost an annual event here in the winter. The sea is
spectacular, the waves not only crash over the sea wall, but usually
make it over the first row of houses into their back gardens. That's why
I don't have a house on the coast :-)

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

We _can_ get very strong winds.

A couple years ago I went to a wedding on the Isle of Man. On my last
morning, I woke up to find roofing slates in the road.

Now, *that* is what I call a strong wind!


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com

In article , Cub Driver wrote:
A couple years ago I went to a wedding on the Isle of Man. On my last
morning, I woke up to find roofing slates in the road.

Now, *that* is what I call a strong wind!

My roof has these little thingies (called 'tingles' I think) on the
bottom of each slate which hopefully prevents this happening. Especially
since the back of my house faces south west, directly at the venturi
created by Bradda Head and the hill that most of Port St. Mary is on -
right into the prevailing wind. When some winter depressions go by, the
wind in my back yard is strong enough to lean against!

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

Cub Driver wrote:
A couple years ago I went to a wedding on the Isle of Man. On my last
morning, I woke up to find roofing slates in the road.

Now, *that* is what I call a strong wind!

How about a smashed-up rowing boat lying upside down in the middle
of the street, apparently blow up there from the beach like a leaf,
about half of all trees blown over, many of them across streets,
some smashed into cars and houses, a couple of Cessna's at the
flying club (a 172 and a 152) upside down on top of each other,
despite having been tied down. All this, and more, could be seen
in Brighton on the morning of october 16, 1987.

CV

"Carl Orton" wrote in message
...
Other differences were that when we returned, I looked for the control
lock.
The instructor said they didn't use them. I then said, OK; should I just
tie
it down? He said, no, there was no need. I asked about wind gusts, and he
said, "This is England!" Must not be much wind....

Hmmm. There's not much wind _most of the time_ - I remember reporting to ATC
the upturned C152 at the hangar next door as my clubmates and I smugly
untied our aircraft from the large buckets of concrete holding it down ...

D.