2013 Summary

A summary of my flying during 2013:

• 23:20 flying hours (all P1), all bar 2 trips flown in the Arrow
• 23 flights
• Not a single ‘local’ flight!
• 8 new airfields visited.

My 2013 goals were (summarised):

• Make at least one trip to the Continent
• Visit at least one destination on my Northern Chart (Sherburn or Blackpool?)
• Re-visit Caernarfon / Anglesey, this time with the family and hopefully for an extended stay
• Continue to take part in more ‘sociable’ flying like Club fly-outs or visits to fly-ins
• Make more use of the IMC rating
• Get some experience of spinning at least, with perhaps some aeros as well
• Attempt to fly more often wherever possible
• Get Luned to do some landing practice, and also a flight or two in the Arrow

Yet again I’ve completed a flying year without a visit to the Continent. However, I did get to use my Northern Chart, and finally paid a visit to Caernarfon with the family. I made very little use of the IMC rating, apart from a practice flight to Cranfield in the Arrow (that was supposed to have included an approach, but required switching from a Warrior to the Arrow at the last minute).

Also my flying hours are significantly down from the previous year yet again. Being forced to replace my car in the middle of the year certainly didn’t help, but my lack of flying has been more down to having the spare time and appropriate weather than anything else. Hopefully I can try to fly more regularly next year.

One particularly enjoyable aspect of my flying this year was the two longer shared flights with David. We squeezed in quite a lot of flying experience into those two flights, not least a number of new airfields for us both. I also made a couple of longer trips through the rest of the year, including the visits to Caernarfon, Retford Gamston and Sherburn in Elmet.

Recently, Kemble have announced their intention to install lighting on one of the runways, which may make night flying a realistic prospect there. This means the addition of a Night Qualification is now a more attractive prospect, something I might try to achieve next year.

Goals for next year (sadly, very similar to this year’s goals!)

• Make at least one trip to the Continent
• Visit Caernarfon or another airfield for an extended stay
• Continue to take part in more ‘sociable’ flying like Club fly-outs or visits to fly-ins
• Make more use of the IMC rating to retain currency, both by carrying out flights that involve some portion in actual IMC, and carrying both practice and real approaches into airfields that provide instrument approaches (including renewal of the IMC rating)
• Get some experience of spinning at least, with perhaps some aeros as well
• Attempt to fly more often wherever possible
• Get Luned to do some landing practice, and also a flight or two in the Arrow
• Consider the addition of a Night Qualification to my license.