Weston Airport

If it could be considered a fault, the Rallye was too easy to fly, trimmed out correctly, you could close the throttle, wait for the slats to deploy, and then put the flaps down, and it would usually waffle it's way all the way down on to the ground without stalling, a nice safety feature in some respects, but it made for pilots that didn't really get to understand the handling the aircraft, and we had a lot of problems at a club in the UK when they changed from Rallyes on to a different airframe (Grumman AA5A Cheetah) that was a lot less forgiving, and the result was a lot of badly bent nose gear as a result of an over firm nose first arrival. And yes, the standards were not great, but who was watching, or knew different at that time.

Stovepipe wrote: »

yes, you could get away with a lot in a Rallye and even the transition to a Cessna 150, as I did, made you unlearn some Rallye habits. I flew the 172 after the 150 and even that made you pay attention and I even have a few hours in a Grumman in the logbook and it was quite different to the 172......some of the custom and practise in Weston was Stone Age,even by mid-80s standards. I had my eyes opened when I flew in the US and the UK, especially when it came to intructorial behaviour. still, I did enjoy my time in Weston and met some great people there.

The States could be equally challenging, I went over to California to do an American CPL/IR and multi, to untie my American licence from the UK PPL, and the first session on the twin was "interesting", I'd sent them a note of my times, and someone had clearly not looked at it too closely, as I went over with close on 200 Hrs ME time, on mainly PA39, a hot ship, and a number of hours on Seneca and Aztec, both of which were much more sedate.

First flight with my new instructor, in a Seneca, and I took off and climbed out in the manner I was (well) used to, and we then went on into the circuit, and it became clear that the instructor was not happy and was twitching like mad. At the end of the session, it transpired that his total twin time was less than 20 hours, and not much of that was solo, so he was massively intimidated by the way I was handling the Seneca, which was second nature to me, but way outside his comfort zone, and it became clear that the pairing wasn't going to work.

A long chat with the CFI ensued, and fair play to him, I spent the rest of the time there with a different instructor, who was also flying professionally for them on charter work, and we clicked very quickly, he recognised that I was also well comfortable with the twin, so there was no issues after the first lesson together.

Loved flying in the States, we did some very long trips, Texas to California and back in a 182, nearly a week, California to Colorado and back in the Seneca, 4 days, Orlando to Key west in a Seneca, the sorts of trips that are almost impossible in Europe. Longest in Europe would have been Dublin Brussels on several occasions, the night flights were the most fun, as ATC was a lot quieter back then during the late evening, so the routings were much more helpful, and night flying in good weather is great fun, the views are amazing.

Got to Frozen ATPL, but never got to use it with an aviation employer as such, Gulf war 1 killed things at just the wrong time for me, but it all came in very useful over the years, I got to do some amazing things in the simulation arena, and without the licences, and the relevant knowledge, they'd never have happened. Never knew from those early days in the Rallye where it would lead, definitely an interesting journey. Made some very good friends in Irish Aviation over the years, in both airlines and General aviation, so no regrets.