I spent 8 months battling work and family commitments, weather and flying school scheduling disasters and, frankly, my own basic incompetence, to gain, from what I can deduce, one of the first PPLs of 2007.
Like many others, I wrote an informal blog of how I did it, mainly to remind myself of what it was like, and how crap I was, but also to try and help other potential PPL applicants over some of the pitfalls.
So what shall I do now? My licence application is in the post to the CAA and some time this century it will return, apparently in a "pooh brown" envelope, with some kind of certificate saying I am now licenced to fly anywhere in Europe, with passengers, in a single-engined "non-complex" (no retractable undercarriage, no variable-pitch prop) aircraft.
It's early February: the weather clears and the wind drops. It's time to have some fun....

Testing the toys
Today I am not going to learn anything formally or be tested; I am flying, for the first time, purely for fun, so it's time to get the assembled toys out: I have a nice camera and a Garmin moving-map GPS unit so I'm going to take them out for an outing to the coast for the morning.

I don't need an Instructor, so I go to my own timetable, no rushing, plan the route properly, pre-flight my aircraft and go ("have the aircraft back by 2pm please"). Fuel up, ask for a circuit and a touch 'n go from the tower, do a nice gentle circuit, a "low 'n slow" landing (see, I can do nice landings!), take off again and head out East for some fun. Fail to raise Benson approach (it is a Saturday, after all) so inform Brize of my intentions and swoop down on my unsuspecting village out of a cold blue sky.

Do a couple of low, tight circuits over my house but no one even notices (we do get beaten up regularly by some fully aerobatic fixed-wing lunatic and Benson's helicopters, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised) and I head off for Oxford and a more sensible height.
Abingdon is Active and I don't want bits of motor-glider embedded in my wings so I won't buzz my Mother's house today. Instead I turn South and start my plog over Abingdon Bridge.

By half way to Newbury I can see the sea in the distance; it's amazing the distance one can see even at 3,000ft. I can see other aircraft, a hot air balloon way below me and the airliners above. I change Frequencies to Farnborough Radar who are, as advertised, very helpful, and trundle South with the GPS on the dashboard confirming my track and my transponder ensuring I am identifiable to Farnborough.
Within 20 minutes I'm over the South Downs and Farnborough Radar is trying to hand me off to Shoreham as I'm dropping off their radar. I opt to stay on frequency as I'm just looping round and coming back, release their squawk and 5 minutes later I'm over the Channel beyond Havant.

The visibility is fantastic: I can see for 100 miles in each direction. As I turn West and descend I can see motor-gliders and boats far below. It's worth all the last 6 month's hassle to be here, now, doing this.
Turn North over Portsmouth at 1,000ft, take some pictures (I am going to have to work out a better way, as taking them through dirty perspex is hopeless) and gently climb over the hills back to my original track. Sign in with Farnborough, squawk and head North once more.
Watch a 727 with the fastest-talking American pilot I've ever heard take off from Farnborough (oo er, he's coming this way.....), cross over a very congested Kingsclere mast (warnings from Farnborough, and I can see at least 8 planes) and back over Newbury.

Thank Farnborough and change frequency to Brize Radar over Newbury racecourse, head North avoiding the turbulence over Didcot power station, then change to Oxford Approach and begin to descend for an overhead join.
A non-radio microlite is heading East over Oxford and we eyeball each other, both wary of the differing speeds. A wonderful old obviously ex-RAF ("over...") buffer flying an Enstrom 480 is trying to land at Oxford without having obtained permission first, and silent mirth is obvious from everybody else on the frequency as he negotiates with the tower (eventually they do let him land).

A neat overhead join and slightly rushed descent to circuit height, call downwind, do the checks, turn Base leg and then Final, call Final (when I can eventually get a word in edgeways) and low 'n slow into the flare, plop it neatly on to the centreline and clean up, clear the Active and taxy in. Very low-stress.
Dump the GPS tracks and pictures on to the home computer, crack a beer and celebrate my first Day Out.

Where next?

Dump the landing blues
The cloudbase is too low at 1300ft for my planned Westbound solo foray so instead we'll see if we can do a little Post-Graduate landing study, and get these squared away once and for all before I start taking on passengers.
We reckon the cloudbase is just high enough for some circuits if we brush the underside of the clouds. Interestingly, we are almost the only aircraft flying this morning: does no one fly in February?
It's quite hazy by the time we get to 1300ft so I elect not to go the whole 1500ft official circuit height; whizz round the circuit, do a couple of OK-ish landings, and we start to analyse why both myself and my Skills test examiner are concerned.
I can fly approaches all day and every day: in gusts, downdraughts, crosswinds, rain and haze, and always arrive at double-decker bus height over the numbers ready to chop the power; it's then the trouble begins.
First we work out that I'm not finishing my round out above the runway but actually on the runway, hence the inconsistency (it's hard to judge the exact end of the round out with any precision). So I change my round out to end 3 feet above the runway instead.
What nobody has told me all this time (or I haven't managed to understand) is that at the end of the round out you are not aiming for a nose-high attitude as I thought but an attempt to fly level along the runway at 3 feet; as the speed decays (because the power is off) the aircraft will float downwards; gentle back pressure on the stick will arrest that and the main wheels will arrive on the runway very gently indeed.
It's as close to the fabled Eureka landing moment as I've come, and we perform some beautifully smooth and consistent landings.
We also work out that once you've sorted that out you can pull your approach aiming point back from the numbers towards the start of the runway to reduce your landing run (as far back as the threshold if necessary), because the earliest you can ever touch the runway becomes on the numbers.
Realistically, if you aim for level flight 3 feet or so above the numbers you'll always float onwards a bit so there is no danger of you ever landing short.
After an hour of this with varying degrees of flap I'm a lot more consistent and my Instructor reckons I just now need 1,000 landings to really get good. Phew!

Two Niner (or how to really scare your Mother...)
Time to take Mother out today, but despite the sun it's really windy: if we use the main runway it's beyond the crosswind limit of the PA-28. However, as the traffic is light (see, no one flies in the Winter!) and the wind is directly across the runway we get to use the other runway: 29.
I've been itching to use this for ages but they don't use it very often because it's only 760m long, they can't get jets down on it, and they don't let Students on it!
Louise thinks it's too gusty to fly so has cancelled everyone. Tumbleweed is blowing through the office.....
I bully her in to allowing me to take her up for a check circuit because althought the wind is gusty it's blowing straight down the runway.
Take off is "interesting": it does it's best to turn us over at 100ft but then it smooths out and we do a neat circuit around the airfield, minding Blenheim Palace, before turning on to Final over the A34. The runway looks short from here, but I bimble down the approach, weather the gusts, mind the downdraught over the wood half a mile before the threshold, plonk it neatly onto the numbers and brake hard, using about half the available runway. Request to backtrack 29 and we go back in. She is surprised a) that I landed it at all, b) that I got anywhere near the numbers and c) that I'm still keen to take my 75 year old Mother out.
Actually Mother is pretty keen as well (apparently it looked OK from the ground), so reluctantly Louise admits that it is my Licence, I pop Mother in to the right-hand seat, strap her in and off we go. I warn her it's going to be rough taking off, which it is for a bit, then it gets better and I can show her Oxford from the air which, in the afternoon sunshine, looks fantastic.
Being a weekday, Abingdon is inactive, so we pootle over at 1,000ft AGL and I show her the family home from a new angle: always wanted to do that!
Back over Abingdon, then up to Harwell and back over Didcot and Oxford before requesting a straight in Join for 29, turning Final over the A34. Half way down a PA-31 nips in on Right Base ("Oy, Bugger off!"); a quick calculation: he's not going to clear in time, so it's "Golf Golf Juliet, going round" at 500ft, round the windy circuit and back on to Final. Plenty of power over the wood, then chop it over the airfield boundary. Can I repeat my short field trick? Yup, mains on the numbers, pull up even shorter and backtrack. All very painless, and Mother has the biggest smile on her face. Asked afterwards how bumpy she thought it was, she reckoned about the same as a commercial airliner, so I must have done something right. Oh, and she'd like to come again, please.....

Passenger
The wettest winter I can remember is finally turning in to Spring and we're all off to Duxford for a day out. I'm flying as passenger/extra pair of eyes in the Cherokee Six; it's a good chance to hone my aerial photography skills and mentally fly the journey without the pressure of having to actually be responsible.......
It's very windy and a touch hazy, and of the 6 aircraft who leave (2 hours late, I've never seen such shambolic flight planning in my life...) one immediately returns to base after a circuit claiming that the viz isn't good enough, and the Cessna (piloted by two IMC students who should have know better) gets lost half way there and has to ask Luton Radar for a position fix.
Our pilot cruises straight there without a hitch, which is comforting, and the wind is straight down the huge runway. We have lunch and go around the museum. Museums are always sad places, you can't help thinking that we were once a greater nation than we are now. The other concern is the increasing complexity of military aircraft: how are Duxford going to keep a Tornado flying in 50 years?

After a windy afternoon in the sun we whizz back in 20 minutes or so and our super-laconic/super-efficient pilot then proceeds to perform the most extraordinary approach that I am convinced busts the Brize Zone. We drift half way to Charlbury before he notices and Final is conducted at 60° to the Centreline. I would have gone around; we're not back on line until nearly at the flare. But it's easy to back-seat fly, we land OK.

At Last!
The fabled pooh brown cheap plastic folder has appeared from the CAA: I am now officially licensed to fly anywhere in Europe with nothing more than a check ride and, one presumes, in America, with little more. One of the PPL students just a couple of months ahead of me has already exercised that freedom to fly from Spain to Ibiza in a rented Cessna, and indeed has bought his own aeroplane, with retractable undercarriage and variable-pitch propellor. How do I keep up?
I remember, before I earned my driving license, the constant hassle of travelling by train or, more commonly in my case, by bus: the uncertainty and endless time-wasting of standing at the bus stop (am I at the right stop, are they running today, will it be full, will I have the right money?), being the slowest thing on the road, the frankly peculiar fellow travellers and the uncertainty of your arrival time, plus getting people to pick you up from the bus stop. All these things led me inexorably to buying my own car; even taking in to account its myriad expenses and frustrations it is worth its weight in gold: if I need to go somewhere I can simply Go. The question is: will the uncertainties of finding an aeroplane available to rent when the weather finally relents sufficiently to allow some flying force me in to buying my own aircraft in the same way?
And the Cost.
It has to be said that despite achieving my PPL in almost exactly 60 hours, which is a great deal less than many, it has not been the cheapest experience. Even my long-suffering wife has questioned the wisdom of “flushing money down the loo”. Not that I see it that way, of course. GA is expensive in the UK, and has always been a political whipping boy due to political under-representation. We pay more for our petrol than cars do and more than anywhere else in the world; the CAA makes us follow  everybody else’s rules and adds more of their own at random, leading to ludicrous over–regulation; and it’s hard to justify in terms of CO2 generated. But its fun per hour quotient is enormously high.
The private aircraft struggles to be a viable alternative to the car or the commercial airline: too weather and infrastructure-dependant. The weather I reckon we can do something about by getting instrument and night ratings, and actually airports are surprisingly commonplace. A perusal of Pooleys Guide, which covers every single airfield in the UK plus a couple of common foreign ones shows that I can land at about 85% of them; some are just too short being primarily for microlites or gliders, and some, like Heathrow, are unavailable for little aeroplanes. However, for getting to France I reckon a light aeroplane is a good deal: you can leave in the morning, have lunch anywhere within a large percentage of France, Germany or the low countries and be home for supper relatively easily, which you certainly cannot do any other way.
So would I recommend Kidlington as a place to learn to fly? I’ve little to compare it with, but it has been a frustrating experience. There has been little ownership of my training programme; it’s all been a bit haphazard. I could definitely have achieved my license faster and done a lot more flying had they been prepared to let me fly more times per day. A single Instructor for longer periods would have been better: they are more geared up for occasional students than students trying to do it all in one chunk, and they expect you to be able and willing to bend your life around their schedules. Having said that, the haphazardness has made me a little-more self-reliant; I have certainly not been spoon-fed. Many things I have had to find out for myself; many procedures I have had to invent for myself. The lack of GPS training in the PPL syllabus is ridiculous, but the huge radio overhead of Kidlington and the proximity of the Brize Control Zone have undoubtedly made me a more confident radio operator and I’m not scared of asking ATC for things: they can only say no!
I haven’t been able to see further than this moment so I can’t really say what I will do now. I yearn to be good enough to go and fly a Fouga Magister jet trainer out of Le Touquet, which I’ll bet is a hell of a lot of fun; I’d like to do some aerobatics and maybe get a Rating, and I’d like to do some touring, which is hard to do with a family. If the kids go to boarding school that would make it more feasible. Ideally I’d like my wife to get the bug then we can go off together and split the flying, but that may be asking too much. So for now I’ll take my family and friends out and see where things go.

The moment we've all been waiting for
The weather is windy and there's a chance of rain, everyones' nerves are a-flutter: today's the day Daddy takes the family flying......
I've decided to take them all up individually, to resolve those tricky "who gets to sit in the front" issues.
First of all I'll take up my wife, who is scared of heights. I've promised not to bank the aircraft too much and to keep it smooth. I sit her in the passenger seat, explain what we are planning and off we go. We head out over Charlbury and request a Zone Transit from Brize Norton for some photographic work over Bibury: we're not planning to take pictures over Bibury but my Mother-in-law lives just outside the Brize Zone: if we infringe without permission we're in trouble, so it's better to get permission to go in to the Zone, then fly out again to our destination, then if we do re-enter the Zone whilst circling the village it doesn't matter.
Apart from misjudging the initial bearing from Charlbury and ending up a bit too far North (easily rectified with the GPS: lazy man's navigation there....); and flying through some rain, the plan works perfectly, and we make some low passes over my Mother-in-law's house with photos to match. We climb back out and get the return bearing to Oxford right. The views are spectacular: the sun is out and we can see huge distances. Thank Brize for their help, back in to the circuit for an Overhead Join, a bit of balloon on the landing cured with a burst of power and a nice gentle eventual descent on to the tarmac. The crosswind has calmed down a bit and we taxy back, my nerves subsiding. I've carried a passenger. And she enjoyed it!
Swap over to youngest daughter in the passenger seat (with cushion) and take-off again. Opt to fly to the Beckley mast and over to our house. Benson is asleep so we return to Oxford Approach for a Flight Information Service. We make several passes over the village and she is suitably impressed, so we return to Oxford and show her what her school looks like from the air before heading back to Kidlington.
As I'm not a student any more I'm allowed to do Downwind joins, Crosswind joins, Straight-in Joins, right base joins, so I exercise my right and request a Downwind join (so much easier), line up and perform one of the neatest crosswind landings I've ever done. Taxy back and she's very happy.
Swap over to eldest daughter and repeat the exercise, only now it's getting late and the sun's going down. Coming back to Kidlington we watch a beautiful orange sunset in a virtually cloudless sky before a Downwind join and drama-free landing. She's happy and we're back 5 minutes before the Control Tower goes home and 20 minutes before daylight officially expires.
Neat.

Flying the Cessna pt.1
The problems with flying the PA-28s is that a) they are "Student" aircraft and so are very hard to book out for more than 90 minutes at a time and b) they just can't carry 2 adults and 2 children with any more than 2 gallons of fuel on board: by the time you've taxied to the end of the runway you've run out of fuel.....
However, Kidlington have a Cessna 172, a Slingsby Firefly, a Cherokee Six, a Cirrus SR-20 and a Socata TB10 which are much less used and the C172 has a bigger engine and thus should take the whole family at once, so I think it's time to get used to flying them.
The 172 has the reputation of being the most ubiquitous GA single; it was manufactured in America and France continuously from 1955 to 1985 and this is a 2001 souped-up model. It's reputed to be easy to land. I need a Check flight, so have a new checklist, a huge cockpit layout poster and a "Flying the Cessna 172" book.
"A" check the aircraft (glad I read the book, there's a few things different here), get in (ooh, 2 doors, luxury!), "Clear Prop", twist the key.
Clunk.
Twist the key again.
Clunk.
Oops. I haven't even flown it yet, and I've broken it.
Actually, the starter is malfunctioning. My Instructor takes a large hammer from behind the seat and proceeds to pound the starter housing. After a couple of goes the engine bursts in to life. Phew.....
This is a more powerful beastie and even with a couple of porkers like us aboard it takes off like an express lift. We're at circuit height before we know it so we head off in to the wild blue yonder for stalls and steep turns. Remembering (as this is a high-wing aircraft) to lift the wing I'm about to turn into a bit just in case aircraft lurk there, we stall, steep turn and PFL our way around the North Oxfordshire countryside. He's happy I know what I'm doing, so we Join Overhead back at Oxford and try some circuits.
Landing speed is 65Kt as opposed to the PA-28's 75Kt but unless you want to hold up everyone else in the circuit you fly the Base leg at 75Kt with one stage of flap then turn Final, hit the 2nd stage and slow to 65Kt.
I'm told it floats down the runway but actually once the power is chopped and provided you haven't overcooked the approach, by the time you've finished the flare you're going to be doing about 55Kt and it drops smoothly and progressively on to the tarmac.
I do a couple of less than perfect ones and a good one, and my Instructor reckons I need an hour doing circuits in it and I'll be good to go.
Cool.

Kemble
Easter Saturday, and the forecast is excellent so I'm taking the girls to Kemble for a bacon butty.
I'm up at 6.45am too excited to sleep, doing the plog for a 9am start and we're ready to check out the the aircraft at 8.40am. Unfortunately the weather has other ideas; the mist refuses to lift. At 10am we decide to give it a go, and if it's really bad we'll abandon, fly round the circuit and land.
It is pretty hazy but I can just about get the surface to remain in sight if I stay below 2,000ft, and I know it'll get better, so we get Flight Information Service and head South for Abingdon. The airfield at Abingdon is Active so we skirt the field, turn, start the plog and head West in to the haze.
Apart from a panic when I just cannot get Brize to talk to me (it turns out they've got radio issues), the plog turns out OK: after the 14 minute run we are exactly where we should be. As Brize are u/s and Fairford are only Active when NOTAM'd (and I did check, they're not) we could just blast through but to be on the safe side I blind call Brize and tell them I'm going over the top of the MATZ, and climb to 3,0001ft.
Change frequencies and see if we can get Kemble to hear us. Yup, absolutely fine; they're expecting us and we're on time, and Kemble looms out of the haze a couple of minutes later.
Overhead Join for 08, no other traffic in the circuit, bimble down to the simply massive runway, and of course it's on an up-slope so I misjudge the flare, over-rotate and get a chirp from the stall warner but we're only a foot above the runway so a firm landing but no bounce, then we're looking for the next exit which is about 4 miles away....
Neat Taxy instructions: "follow Taxiway Golf and park outside the restaurant". Now you don't get to hear that very often. And we're only the second to arrive so there's loads of space and the restuarant is open, friendly, and 20 paces away. How cool to arrive by plane?

After a bacon sandwich and a relief stop (huh? Outside the gents there's a painting of the aircraft I've just landed!) we saddle up once more and I realise I've committed the Cardinal sin of leaving the key not only in, but switched to both magnetos. If anyone had swung the prop it could have started. Eeek! That's yet again something I'll never in a million years do again.
Unnerved by that, I crank up the radio and ask for taxy. My brain says that this is not Oxford, there is no ATIS, all I have to say is the QNH. Over an open mike my mouth tells the tower that the request is "with Information......" and then stalls. What actually comes out is "Information...........aarrrgghhhh.....and QNH 1016". I can imagine the looks in the (busy) Tower. Yes, I'm from Oxford, OK?
Finally we get clearance to taxy and promptly end up at the taxiway equivalent of Spaghetti junction. The map says one thing, the boards another and the Hold point I am told to use appears to be inside a hangar?
Eventually (after more red-faced banter with the Tower) I am cleared out on to the runway ("get rid of this idiot before he hits someone!") and head for the hills. Left turn outbound to avoid the villages and head North.

The weather is better now, less mist, so I let Lucy fly for a while and we bimble North then East. I'm not going to bother with the defective Brize so we go non-radio for a bit, scare the girls with some steep turns North of Witney then settle down with a nice, comfortable Oxford Overhead Join for 01 and the smoothest landing ever; didn't even feel the wheels touch. Playing with the Cessna is helping my PA-28 landings!

Flying the Cessna pt.2: Some days you're just crap...
I need to get a sign-off to fly the C172 so need to learn how to land it reliably. The main runway is beng dug up so today I also learn how to use a grass runway.
Take-off (very rough) and bimble around the circuit, then it all goes pear-shaped: the Base Leg is shorter than normal as it's a different runway, so I'm in the wrong place and the damned aircraft won't descend at all unless you chop the power right back to Idle as you turn Base; so I come in wide and high, and am fighting the speed and the rudder all the way down. Bloody awful landing; go around and have another go.
The first few landings are dreadful; then slowly it gets better. The Cessna is very sensitive in pitch and the visual cues on the approach are very different to the PA-28, plus the grass runway is confusing me. It's very rough on touchdown and the take-offs feel awful. And I've got the seat too low.
Just when things are beginning to slot in to place and I'm managing not to bounce it every time my Instructor calls the end of the lesson ("1 hour? Already? Bloody hell, he's right too but it feels like about 10 minutes!") and we trundle in. We both agree more work is needed so I book another lesson for next weekend.

The Cessna isn't booked out for another hour and a half so Wayne and I decide to go off for a little shared bimble together as it's such a beautiful day. Between us and the aircraft we have 3 working GPS units plus 2 PPLs, both with maps: we are not going to get lost!
We agree he'll fly for a bit then I'll fly for a bit; depart East, buzz my house and head off towards Booker, where the airspace is very busy. We turn for home and retrace our path roughly; following a neat Left Base Join he shows me how the landing should be done which, to be fair, wasn't hugely different to my better efforts.
It's always worth flying with more experienced PPLs; there's always something you can learn. However I go home feeling dreadful: I just can't seem to get the hang of landings......

Flying the Cessna pt.3 Persistence pays
If there is one piece of advice I'd give to anyone learning to fly, it's "Be Persistent, Don't Give Up". Some days your flying is crap; that's Life.
So we have another go at circuits. Today it's hazy and we can't manage official circuit height without disappearing entirely, but as we're the only aircraft flying nobody will know..............
Immediately, it feels better. I'm more used to the grass runway, I'm happier about the more positive control movements and power adjustments required on the approach, I've thought through the flare and the flap positions, I'm happier about the bumpier landings and even manage to consistently land on the mains.
Because the wing is high-lift it floats after the flare, allowing a very gentle hold off and potentially (once I can really get the hang of it) very smooth landings.
After a relaxed hour we amble in: he's happy, so I'm free to go out with just one check circuit. Booked a trip immediately.
Persistence Pays.

Head in the clouds
Today the hazy sunshine we've had for weeks has finally been replaced by clouds and the visibility has improved. It's time to take daughter #2 for a proper flying lesson, and I need my monthly PA-28 fix.
Despite having been told that the aircraft are virtually fully-booked all day, we turn up at the airfield and, once again, no one is flying. These are training aircraft and the weather is not good enough for training. But it's good enough for anyone with a PPL......
The cloudbase is said to be 1,800ft and forecast to improve so we decide to go. The main runway is still being rebuilt so we can use either 29 (tarmac but short) or 03 (grass and with a displaced threshold caused by a big ditch making it short). Let's fly off 29 and land on 03, for fun.

Book out, check the aircraft, start up, take off (scary: I'd forgotten how slowly PA-28s accelerate!), get a Flight Information Service and climb to 2,300ft at which point it gets hazy and I run out of licence i.e. sight of the ground. So we'll cruise at 2,000ft.
We head East and once clear of Oxford daughter #2 flies us all over South Bucks. The horizon is limited but she's got the hang of using the artificial one. We do straight and level and gentle turns: she's pretty good, for 11 !
She takes us back towards Oxford and we request a downwind join for 03. As this will be the first time I have landed a PA-28 on grass I'm a bit nervous but if it all goes pear-shaped we can always go around and divert to 29.
I join, call Downwind, do my checks, bimble round to the Base leg, pull the flaps and get trimmed, turn Final, call Final, bimble down the approach, miss the ditch and plop the mains on one third down the shortened runway, hold the nose off and gently apply the brakes. Just like landing the Cessna. Flying different aircraft does improve your landings.

Free at Last! Free at Last!
Weeks of appalling May wind and rain cause several cancelled flights, but finally relent and we have a Perfect Flying Day. Far too good to waste, so I manage to blag the Cessna 172 at very short notice for a whole morning.
I can't sleep beyond 6am (too excited) so before the airfield opens I'm plogged, weathered, NOTAM'd (the low-level wind forecast is CALM to 5,000ft; I've never seen that before!), ATIS'd, PPR'd for Shobdon and ready to fly.
I need to satisfy the school that I can land the Cessna one more time without putting it through the hedge (you'd be fussy about this sort of thing if you were renting someone £105,000-worth of aircraft), so I pop Wayne inthe right seat, we get some fuel and bounce off the grass for a circuit. Nice approach (he reckons it's a bit low, but I'm not convinced), flare and hold off, hold off..... bump and trundle, flaps away, boot it, right rudder, at 500ft request a left turn outbound and we're off to Shobdon.

I'm reading Nigel Everett's Beyond the PPL in which he recommends "mutual flying" i.e. flying with other PPLs, and he's right: it's great fun flying with someone else, especially Wayne who's a bundle of fun and (hugely more important) not that much better a pilot than me. We agree I'll fly outbound and do the landing and take off at Shobdon; he'll fly us back and land at Oxford.

We follow my plog (with GPS, NDB, a VOR and two sets of PPL eyes as backup), change to a Brize Radar FIS and soon realise we're 10° off track, so correct by (10*1.5)=15° which brings us neatly back on track by the halfway mark. Dead reckoning does work and is always worth practising for the day the GPS dies and the navaids don't work.

Within 35 uneventful minutes we are on Shobdon Radio, 5 miles out ready for an overhead join and 5 minutes beyond that a half-decent landing, backtrack and short taxy gets us shut down, booked in and in the café where the prettiest girl I have seen in a very long time serves us bacon sandwiches and coffee.
Back out to the plane, negotiate a taxy up the grass as a Police helicopter is refuelling on the taxiway, then we're off back up the runway we landed on as as they've switched circuit direction while we've been stuffing our faces.
Transfer control to Wayne in the right seat and settle back to navigate, be an extra pair of eyes and ears and take some pictures.

The clouds are thickening so we decide to go upstairs: I've not done this before (like 1,001 other fun things I have ahead of me now I'm a PPL....) and we are treated at 5,500ft to fluffy white clouds below us and the odd fun bit at our height. It does seem weird flying through what, to all intents and purposes, seems like solid ground. Useful IMC practise and great fun.

Half way back we change to Brize and listen to some unfortunate who has indavertently busted the Brize Zone. Oops.....
Sooner than we would have wished we need to descend for Oxford and once below the clouds two pairs of PPL eyes plus the GPS cross-check and ensure we really are where we think we are. Left Base join for the grass runway and Wayne flies a steeper approach angle than I would, but his landing is certainly no smoother than mine! Ten minutes late but a great flight, and very low stress. I like Mutual flying.

And so, for the first time, I am Free to rent a PA-28 or aCessna 172 to go where I want, when I want. It's taken damn near a year but I'm there.
Free At Last.

The Big Sky
Weather has cancelled the last 2 weekends flying: a flying club flyout to Le Touquet cancelled by serious rain, and a very carefully weight-and-balance-planned family trip to the Crab and Lobster in Bembridge on the Isle of Wight blown out by haze (although we very nearly went).
And today doesn’t look like it’s going to be any better…… Showers, gusty wind and loads of cloud appear the moment I set off for the airfield. Bang head on windscreen in time to “must…..get….I…M…C…rating….”
A clubhouse full of glum looking prospective pilots watch as showers scud across the field. The ATIS delivers hail and thunderstorm warnings. All the aircraft are on the ground (except a Hurricane doing low passes: lurve that Merlin noise...), never a good sign. As I watch, it gets worse: typical.
But after a couple of hours and some coffee, the worst blows through and it gets good enough for some cloud-bashing, if not any serious cross-country stuff. My first solo in the Cessna.
Actually, it'shugely satisfying that no one bats an eyelid when I do finally decide to go: sign the tech log, fax a booking form to the tower (Purpose of flight: “Fun”) and stride out to the aircraft.
We’re still on the grass runway (although promised a shiny new runway next weekend) so lumpy-bumpy take-off (although I’m getting used to it now), the 172 rockets away with just 1 PoB, get a Flight Information Service from Kidlington and I’m free to bash the clouds. Despite what many Americans think, fun flying is not entirely banished in the UK!
Ever since I was little I’ve always been fascinated by clouds: my favourite Kate Bush track is the 12” Meteorological remix of Big Sky. So I’ve always dreamed of being able to climb up and around and down the clouds, go through those little holes between them, go under them and get wet, go through bits of them (rough and disorientating, but I have my Artificial Horizon and 4,500ft of height to play with), go fast, go slow, explore the clouds, and learn more about really flying. Not the “do it by numbers” stuff you need to navigate and land, but the control forces as you pull the aircraft round for the next cloud hole, the sounds the engine and airframe make as you dive and climb at different speeds, the difference in feel between coordinated and uncoordinated turns, how it feels as you trade speed for height and vice-versa. I barely look at the speeds and heights, concentrating on feel and sound. This Is Flying.
So, to break the mood (because these happy moments are exactly when this can happen), I close the throttle.
PFL time. Land it from here.
Nose forward, trim for 75 Knots (four hard jerks backwards on the trim wheel), orient yourself in relation to wind and turn downwind. Search for the solution:
Carburettor heat: NOT FITTED (it's a fuel-injected engine)
Fuel is: ON
Fuel gauges read: LOADS
Mags are: BOTH
Fuel pressure is: GOOD
Try the fuel pump anyway: NOPE
So Practice Mayday and look for a field. Oops, entirely forgot to Squawk 7700.
Good field over there. Nope, far too far away? Remember, this is the super-slippery Cessna, not the aerodynamics-of-a-brick-hanging-off-a-Lycoming PA-28. Round in a spiral, hugely overshoot said field and my second choice (could have flapped it in to the second field, though), but now a field on the south slope of Brill hill appears.
Furrows in the right direction? Check
Power lines? None. Check
Uphill? Check (actually, it's very uphill; with flap I reckon our ground roll would be short)
Long enough? Check
Stare it in the eye as the altimeter unwinds. 1/3 of the way along the field is right there, I could get it in from here, so as we pass 300ft I smoothly bring in the power and we climb out avoiding a couple of houses.
Mental note: must try more of these.

Back up in to the clouds for more play, and far too soon I need to be heading home, so back round Oxford and ask to join Downwind for 21. Smoothly back in to the circuit at the right height; now let’s see if we can land it OK.
A bit lower than normal as we roll out on Final, but it’s OK: this is an Instructor-free zone. Drop the last section of flaps, up the power to compensate, nail the speed on 65 Knots and aim at the threshold. Bit of a bounce on landing: a quick burst of power to stabilise then let it down gently; no drama, plenty of runway here. Brakes, amazingly short ground roll, ask for and get a Backtrack, and we’re shutting down.
The rest of the day dissolves in to hail and thunderstorms until the occluded front finally pushes through at 5.30pm: I had the Best of the day.

Grown-up cross-country
My Mother-in-Law and her husband have a long-standing request to go flying: today 3 weeks of non-stop unflyable rain and wind relents and the mythical Perfect Flying Saturday for once coincides with me having booked the Cessna for the whole day. We're going out.......
Map on the table, folded out to "all of Southern England". "We can go anywhere..." (a very bold claim, as it turns out).
Simon asks for a photo session over their house near Bibury, the Severn bridges, Exmoor, then across the Bristol Channel to the Gower Peninsula, over the Brecon Beacons, back up the Bristol Channel and home.
Gulp.
That's 240 Nautical miles plus orbits; say 260 miles. I wouldn't dream of doing it in a PA-28 at 90Kt but in the Cessna at 120Kt, it's feasible, just way more than I've ever done before.
But I am a grown-up pilot now and should be able to do this sort of stuff.
So, OK.
Draw on the map, fill the plog, plot the route in the GPS for backup, check radio frequencies and alternates. Check out the aircraft (all looks OK, full tanks), NOTAMs OK, W&B OK, load the passengers, safety briefing and start up. We get to use the big new taxiways and the big new runway today. Big crosswind too: 15Kt; on the aircraft limit. Might use 29 on return if it fails to improve.

Take-off is uneventful except that with 3 up it doesn't quite leap in to the air as I am used to. Then overhead Blenheim I notice one of the Dzus fasteners holding the engine cowling down working loose. If it comes out at 110Kt it could shatter the windscreen, plus the air will then get under the cowling and we could lose the whole cowling. Throttle back, tell the passengers calmly that we're going to turn back, land, shut down and find a screwdriver. Tell Tower, who ask if we need to declare an Emergency; no, just a crosswind join please, and the wind. 270, 13 Kt, OK, should be fine. Tower overreacts and by the time we call Final there are 2 Fire Engines on the taxiway that chase us down the runway. What?
Shut down, Wayne arrives with crosshead screwdriver and fixes it in 30 seconds. Drama over.
Start up, get Tower to change our booking out time, take off and this time I am determined to roll out of Charlbury on the correct heading as I keep getting this wrong.
But what's this? I can't get the radio to tune in to Brize Radar - the frequency simply isn't available. Come on, I know this radio works properly. Whassup?
It takes 5 minutes of prodding before I realise I have to pull the tuning knob to get the intermediate frequencies. Never had to do that before. Weird.

Find their house and do some orbits for pictures, very carefully remaining outside the Brize zone, then head West. As we cross the ridge before the River Severn the sky fills with gliders: some are at our height and quite close. Keep a good look out and then we're over the river and the visibility is just amazing. The clouds clear and the Severn Bridges shine in the sun. We orbit over them for photos and to sort out the radio.
Bristol, Bristol Filton and Cardiff all lay claim to the airspace South of here and I need to ensure that I am talking to the right one and doing what they ask before we proceed. It takes several orbits before we get all the "paperwork" done, then we proceed South "not above 2,000ft", so I fly at 1,950ft and accurately for once.
We pass Bristol, Avonmouth and Clevedon before we are released from all the controlled airspace. The clouds clear and we can see Exmoor, which looks rugged and uninhabited, especially the steep wooded cliffs leading down to the sea. And as we are over the sea it is beautifully smooth, like we're not moving at all.

We follow the coast South then West to Ilfracombe then climb to 6,000ft and head out North over the Bristol Channel towards the Gower Peninsula that we can see in the distance. I'm nervous about flying over water so fly as high as possible to be able to glide to land in the event of an engine failure. I also experiment with leaning the engine and discover the sweet spot where the engine runs best and the fuel flow is minimised. The clouds disappear and it's like being in an airliner.

Before long we are descending over the Gower Pensinula. Swansea refuse to help us radio-wise as they are too busy, so it's back to Cardiff who are hugely helpful, even at this range, and we head for the Brecon Beacons where the clouds come down and the ground comes up. Suddenly we're skimming the undersides of the clouds at 3800ft, the ground is only 2000ft below, and it's rough. It's amazing how different the weather is here to over the Bristol Channel.
Eventually we break through to the lower ground near the Severn Bridges and head North, change back to Brize Radar and turn East for home with the wind behind us. Within 20 minutes we can see Didcot power station and the chimney near the airfield. Change back to Oxford, do a crosswind join and get blown outwards towards Danger Area 129: parachutists over Weston-on-the-Green. Need to be careful there.

Now what's the wind? 240 at 13 Kt; OK that's close to but inside the crosswind limit for runway 19. We'll give 19 a go and if it goes wrong we'll go around and ask for runway 29. Neat but very crabbed approach, tidy flare, gentle touch, bit of a squeal because I've not quite kicked off the crab, then having got straight the wind gets under the upwind wing and we swerve across the runway until I get the wheel back over into wind to kill the lift. Ugh.
Taxy home, shut down and go in. I'm shattered, drenched with sweat and immensely proud. My passengers have thoroughly enjoyed the flight and are amazed at how professional I was (if only they knew........).

So I've now flown the equivalent of Oxford to Edinburgh non-stop without doing anything really stupid. A good bit of envelope-stretching; I feel a lot more confident about longer trips now.

Last flight of the day
Whilst the summer is here and the weather is not too bad it's worth doing as much flying as you can afford, both in terms of time and money: so Foxtrot Oscar is booked for Saturday afternoon.
The wind is gusting 22Kts from 240°. This is 50° off runway 19 (50° is more than 45° so we use it all as a crosswind component), so outside my personal minima:
- Minimum slant viz 5Km
- Maximum crosswind component 20Kts for take-off
- Maximum crosswind component 15Kts for landing
(always worth reviewing in the light of one's experience).
But by 3pm it's forecast to calm down by 4pm (and it always dies down after 3pm anyway as the thermals lessen), so it's a "Go".
Sam, an 8-hour PPL student, is looking forlorn in the corner so ask him if he wants a ride to the IoW and he agrees: we plog, NOTAM, book out and go. Bit gusty on the take-off but nothing we weren't expecting, head South and Sam flies (very neatly for an 8-hour student, but he has done some gliding) while I do Nav and radio, and take some pictures.

Over Portsmouth we start to descend to 2,000ft for Cowes, look at the watch and conclude that we need to turn around to get home by closing time (and we're short of fuel). I fly us back North via a practise VOR capture, we're back in the circuit by 5.45pm and then the fun begins.
The low fuel light has been on since Didcot, plus Pete's been out in his Mooney and is cleared for a right base approach in to 19. By the time we are turning left base he still hasn't appeared, so we pull in some throttle and go round, by which point I'm keen to do a tight circuit in case of having to do a glide approach if we run out of fuel.....

The tower clears us to land and gives us winds of 240° at 15Kts, right on my limits, so this time I opt for 2 stages of flap rather than 3 (it's a long runway), and nail it at 75Kts to give us a bit of leeway. More speed means the crosswind component is less of an issue, according to Ron Fowler in Making perfect landings (my current bedside reading). Keen to impress Sam I get the approach right, flare still in the crab, kick off just about all the crab, pop the wheel hard over before the mains touch, and we're gently down. Having watched a pilot bounce a 172 three times earlier in the afternoon I'm keen not to bounce it.
At which point I make the cardinal error of centering the wheel. A gust attacks us and we swerve about the runway. And it was all going so well......
Recover (it's a wide runway) and keep the wheel over to prevent repetitions, roll out and taxy in. The Tower signs off for the evening and we shut down at 5.59pm. Definitely the last flight of the day!
Pete apologies for the go around but really I should have orbited until I had identified him. Oh well, another couple of lessons learned.
It's interesting being on the "more experienced" side of mutual flying.

It's a sunny evening
The August weather has at last become consistently sunny and afternoon meetings have finished early. How about an evening flying? Ring the airfield - yes, there's a spare Cessna. Ring Ness - she's free too, so we meet at the airfield where I've checked out the plane and we just need some fuel.
So load up and taxi over to the fuel, fill up and check the filler caps and levels, then start up and......
Can't get the Tower to respond.
Try again. Nope.
Test Radio. Nope.
Taxi back to the apron, carefully avoiding all aircraft, shut down, run in, ask whether the Tower has gone home. No, but they are using the Approach frequency for all operations. Back to the aircraft, start up, change to Approach, call the Tower. This time they answer, I apologise for the unauthorised taxi and ask for clearance again. They admit that they are as confused by the change as we are......
A local trip, this, for sightseeing: down on the Tech log under "Purpose of flight" as "Fun"”. Nessa's first real flight.
We take off Northbound, and with only 2½ passengers the Cessna leaps in to the air like some smooth celestial hand has taken hold and said "Today You Fly" in some booming Old Testament-type voice.

Danger Area 129 is Active and a damned great C-130 is dropping parachutists just to the North so we'll stay well South of the Danger Area. That C-130 looks very large and is heading in our direction! A swift exit South, I think......
As the Tower is doing combined Tower-type things and Approach-type things we stay on the same frequency, request a Flight Information Service and head South. At 3,500 ft the whole of Oxford gleams in the sunshine and looking East the Chilterns seem toylike. Way in the distance, white buildings announce the location of London.
Up here the air is smooth and we are soon over Abingdon where we drop to 1,000ft and do some orbits around Mum's house, then climbing we proceed to Longworth for more sightseeing orbits. There is not a cloud in the sky, although being evening it is a little hazy, so the Landing Light goes ON.

Climb out Eastbound and skirt the South-East corner of Oxford. As it's during the week, we try to contact Benson Radar without any success, so it's back to Oxford Approach / Tower / Ground / Maintenance / News / Sport / Traffic, who sound bored.
We orbit all the local reference points, then head South East for Watlington. A few low-level thermals near the Chilterns are noticeable but otherwise all is smooth and the views are amazing. It occurred to me: am I flying with co-ordinated rudder? I feel I am but today we'll concentrate on checking. I find that if you don t use any rudder you feel like you're fighting the aircraft, but with a bit of rudder it feels so much less dramatic (and the aircraft wants to do what you tell it to). Ho hum, perhaps I'm just being picky.

We fly some orbits over a friend’s house then climb out back towards Oxford. It’s amazing how quickly you can cover ground at 120Kts direct; within 5 minutes we are manoeuvring for a downwind join for 01.
Mind the Danger Area (another C-130 dropping yet more parachutists), throttle back to 90Kts, Downwind checks, then follow a PA-28 round the circuit, dropping the flaps at the top of the white arc, drop to 75Kt and get a Land After, fly a slightly bumpy approach then flare over the numbers and.... misjudge the flare, get a little bounce, a bit of power to stabilise, re-flare, feel for the tarmac..... and we're down.
Roll out, flaps up, taxi in, shut down.

What a lovely evening. More of these, please?