5,5 Hours.. 12 landings

Dave with Pietermaritburg Air Traffic Controller Kim, and Light Flight Instructor Noel

First photo in the air over Camperdown

This is my first photo in the air flying the Light Flight School Foxbat 22 with Instructor Noel.

We had a hectic morning flying lesson inbeautiful weather conditions, visiting the neighbouring airstrips on farms in the area, as well as landing for brunch at Pietermaritburg Airport. I had my first tour of an airport Control Tower as well.

Then it was off to work for the rest of the day at my law office.

3,6 hours and climbing

So my 3rd lesson down and 3,6 hours flown .. and counting.. Did my first emergency landing without power today.. quite scary and thankfully my instructor Noel was totally in control.. wondering how I will be able to handle that when I am a little more experienced. It was hard enough to get the Foxbat steady and level on my flyovers over the runway.

First Lesson today

Brad (right) from Light Flight School took me on my first formal lesson today in the School's Foxbat.

The lesson was great and felt quite different with more resonsibility than when I went on my demo flight two years ago. We covered lessons/exercises 1-8 and at the end I was given the PPL Pilots' Manual which I spent the rest of the day wading through to bring me up to speed with the exercises we covered in the lesson.

I have chosen to do my National Pilots Licence (NPL) instead of PPL as Light Flight School seems the most cost-efficient and fun way to get my licence and the Sling Aircraft we have bought needs only an NPL Licence. So I'll be taking to the skies on a regular basis now to see if I can get my licence in the next few months.

The Sling it is!

Today we bought an aeroplane... and the Sling it is. It will be a partnership venture with Llewellyn sharing ownership with me and we finalised the order from The Airplane Factory in South Africa today.

The Sling is a locally made plane with an imported Rotax 912uls engine with a cruising speed of 110 knots (200 kmh). The specs are impressive and the plane has proved itself on an around the world and a trans-Africa trip.

Exciting times ahead.!!! Thanks to Neville, Marc, Michel and Mike for the guidance and input in reaching this decision. Thanks also to the offers and flights from the other contenders... all are great planes and the choice was difficult.

Battlefields Fly-in Sat 15 May

 So this was my first "fly-in" even though we packed kids in the car and drove up at 4.30am from Durban to Dundee... got to see the RV6, 7, 9, and 12s.. for those passionate about flying and got to fly Alan's RV12 and have some fun watching the landings and take-offs... especially when the wind picked up and the micro-lights were bouncing.

We also got to take a drive to the site of the Battle of Blood River and Isandlwana.. famous for the Anglo-Boer and Anglo-Zulu wars the area is known for...1838 and 1870-something. Awesome stuff.

The Yak make some popular aerobatic turns

Doing some research

I passed my Aviation medical today which means that I am fit to fly. I have spent the last week on intensive research to find a suitable new or second hand aeroplane to buy.

There are plenty of magazines and websites out there and a whole community of friendly guys willing to give you their time and experience in negotiating the minefield of choices. Most are migrating to a "glass cockpit" and moving away from the analogue dials that made up the cockpit of old.

Here is a pic of what I would see as an optimal glass cockpit allowing the plane to be flown by either the pilot or passenger with equal instrumentation before him.

Have you checked out my new Flying blog - Do Eagles Dare?

Doing some research

One of the planes we looked at

Llewellyn's kids Calvin and Caitlin

Spending a long weekend in Johannesburg was a great opportunity to buy as many flying magazines as possible and visit Rand Airport where I spent some time doing some research before making a decision to go-ahead... types of aircraft, price-range, lessons etc.. wow, an incredible amount to take in.