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Flying in England for a US PPL



 
 
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  #11  
Old May 26th 04, 01:22 AM
Carl Orton
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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




  #12  
Old May 26th 04, 03:56 AM
Brian Burger
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On Tue, 25 May 2004, David Megginson wrote:

Brian Burger wrote:

You need to read back landing clearances with holdshort instructions in
Canada; I ordinarily do, but a few months ago I just replied with my
callsign and Tower replied, "I need to hear your readback for the
tapes...".


Right -- that was the one I forgot.

Has any else noticed that LAHSO seems to be less common recently, in both
Canada and the U.S.?


LASHO here - CYYJ, Victoria BC Canada - has always been fairly common, and
doesn't seem to be getting less so. We've got three runways, all
intersecting, so LASHO is a huge efficiency gain.

According to one of our local Nav Canada Tower guys, CYYJ has the 4th or
5th most complex ground layout of all Canadian airports...

There's a rough diagram here, if anyone's interested:
http://www.flyvfc.com/about-vfc/airport.htm
I'm not sure where/if there's an official airport diagram on the web.
Transport Canada has been much slower than the FAA in making
publications/data available over the web...

Brian.
  #13  
Old May 26th 04, 08:19 AM
Dylan Smith
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In article rs.com, David
Megginson wrote:
Also, the readback of altimeter settings - I'd say this is pretty much
mandatory in the US as well especially when flying IFR.


Not VFR, though -- I don't think that you have to read back much except
hold-short instructions (while taxiing) in Canada or the U.S.


Hrm. It's probably good practise to do so all the same :-)

--
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"
  #14  
Old May 26th 04, 08:28 AM
Dylan Smith
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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"
  #15  
Old May 26th 04, 11:42 AM
Cub Driver
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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
  #16  
Old May 26th 04, 12:44 PM
David Megginson
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Brian Burger wrote:

According to one of our local Nav Canada Tower guys, CYYJ has the 4th or
5th most complex ground layout of all Canadian airports...


From what you posted, the taxiways layout is simple enough (try taxiing
around CYUL or KPHL), but I can see how the runway layout would make traffic
management a pain, since they all intersect right in the middle. D'oh!

There's a rough diagram here, if anyone's interested:
http://www.flyvfc.com/about-vfc/airport.htm
I'm not sure where/if there's an official airport diagram on the web.
Transport Canada has been much slower than the FAA in making
publications/data available over the web...


The DAFIF has some terminal procedures online for CYYJ, but they haven't
gotten around to the airport diagram yet:

https://164.214.2.62/products/digita...RIA_INTL__CYYJ


All the best,


David
  #17  
Old May 26th 04, 12:51 PM
David Megginson
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Dylan Smith wrote:

Not VFR, though -- I don't think that you have to read back much except
hold-short instructions (while taxiing) in Canada or the U.S.


[and land-and-hold-short instructions, as someone else mentioned]

VFR readbacks (especially the long, meandering kind) tie up the frequency
pretty severely at a busy airport when tower has more important things to
worry about, like giving a landing clearance to a 737 on short final. I do
make a habit of acknowledging my initial altitude restriction when I get my
takeoff clearance (i.e. "one thousand six hundred, bravo juliet oscar") just
to make sure there's no confusion, but otherwise, I try to leave the
frequency clear for the IFR traffic.

Sometimes, I accidentally get stuck in IFR mindset when VFR and start
reading back altitudes and headings, but I usually catch myself quickly.


All the best,


David
  #18  
Old May 26th 04, 11:11 PM
David CL Francis
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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
  #19  
Old May 27th 04, 08:09 AM
Dylan Smith
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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"
  #20  
Old May 27th 04, 08:13 AM
Dylan Smith
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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"
 




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