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Any pilots here?


RustyCavalier
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PPL(A) with IMC and Night for me and about 1200 hours now. Lucky enough to share a Robin DR500 with a friend, based in Northamptonshire. Full size is even more addictive than models but flying is a lot easier when you are sitting in the aircraft rather than standind on the ground with a tranny in your hand!!

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Another lapsed PPL(A) here. It was dormant for 20-odd years, then I revalidated it a couple of years ago at Shobdon, then quickly realised that cost of flying and pension don't quite match up. Got a part time job with RotorsportUK, working on their Gyroplanes and thought about doing a PPL(G), but you only get 10 hours credit towards it for a PPL(A) (although you get 20 hours for a PPL(H)) and until very recently you couldn't self-fly hire a gyroplane, you had to own or part own one. All too expensive unfortunately, but at least I got a fair few back seat rides....

David

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I held FAA and CAA PPLs in the 80s. Trained on Piper Tomahawks in the States, then used to rent this Warrior out of Leavesden (now the Harry Potter studios)

piper bcir.jpg

It wasn't as pretty back then - had a rather dull white and brown scheme. Had some good flights in it, and also got spectacularly lost on one occasion embarrassed

"Normal" stuff - marriage, house, children - intervened and licence has long since lapsed but tbh it was costing a shedload of money (that I didn't have) to keep current so wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway

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Spent a good few years totally immersed in gliding - even living at the club for a couple of years, enjoying all facets including cross country and instructing until marriage and mortgage got in the way.

I often wonder whether I'd have ever completely stopped if I'd have taken out the life membership on offer at the time I joined - which would have cost less than a year's membership these days. Buying a share in a glider seemed much more important then...

Do I miss it? Most certainly, but I don't know whether I'd properly enjoy it if I went back knowing that I would have to limit my involvement due to my other responsibilities. It was amazing how many divorces occurred a few years after new members appeared!

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The reason I didn't keep it up was the realisation that when working long hours anyway a commitment to keeping in enough hours to consider yourself really safe, which I think is more than the minimum, just wasn't compatible with family life. The vagaries of UK weather meant that you could have a plane booked for several weeks in advance and be snookered by the weather. every time, having spent half the day at the airfield hoping for things to improve. In that sense it's far worse than golf, (in every other sense there's nothing worse than golf)! Gliding has the same kind of problem. In the end I gave up my 1/5 share in an ex RAuxAF Auster AOP6 and called it a day.

My conclusion was that you needed to be:=

A bachelor.

Sufficiently loaded to not need to work full time. (Or at all).

Have a wife with identicsal interests and no young kids at home.

At nearly 67 and now semi-retired I keep wondering about trying again before it's too late, but I still have to sort out priorities between the model planes and motorbikes. I dither too mkuch.

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I have a lapsed JAR SEP - learnt on Cessna 150s and then flew Cherokee160, Auster (tail wheel conversion) and part owned a Robin Dr 315 Petit Prince - about 200 hours or so. Had a night flying qual too - that was brilliant!

This was my pride and joy - well 1/10th of it anyway! Picture was taken for Pilot Magazine for their library.

G-AXDK

Loved it - Can't afford it now but fly RC instead!

Had an 'A' and 'B' gliding licence in the late '60s - ATC of course and was on the staf at 644 Gliding School at Spitalgate.

Did a paragliding course in the Alps when I was 60 a couple of years ago! Did 27 flights but realised it was Pg or RC - RC won for convenience and cost!

Terry

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Same old story, learned to fly at elstree, herts. Went solo doing x country, along came the mortgage and kids. Friend at Elstree went over to the states and got his commercial, then he found love!! We used to go over to Florida and do our flying over there. I used to work for BA, used to do their flight plans so got over there for nothing, jump seat all the way, the arrival route into orlando international was brilliant. Microlight course, gliding course at Dunstable, just dream about it all now!!!

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I've always loved aviation. Went into Air Traffic Control in the Air Force , then flew commercially for years and ended up with FlightSafety working with Beech 350's ( so I could be home more often) A lot of airline flying is not all that stable , --lots of "ups and downs" if you will excuse the pun, but I loved every minute of it. Some folks lucked out and made the high senority and did OK though, but still a lot of away from home. Now I get my fix with R/C and the occasional sailplane! Bob C

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