Blois - France The Trip Begins!

http://www.ulmblois.com/frame-idx-uk.html

Lawn Cut
Fish Water Changed
Pillows Packed
Aircraft Prep ed
Plans Made - Made Again
GAR Forms Filed
Buy Camera
Say chero to Charlotte
Ring the kids...


Its time to fly to France!

As always I feel a pang of doubt about the 65 miles across water 130 if I want to come back! is the risk worth the reward? Do I stay with the aircraft of jump at the last minute in the event of accident.....I a jumper... I hope not to find out if this method works!

DAY TWO - Northampton - Edinburgh

Northampton - Manchester Barton.
2hrs 30 Minutes
Highlights: Jodderal Bank - Manchester Low Level Corridor

Barton - St Michaels
1hr 05 Mintes
Highlights:: Meeting Jim Orange farther of 14 kids 10 boys and 4 Girls.

St Michaels - Kirkbridge
1Hrs 30 Minutes
Highlights: Morcombe Bay / Lake District

Kirkbrige - Edinburgh (Carlobs )
1.20 Minutes
Highlight: Extream Turbulance - Bundting the Aircraft over the 2,500 foot TME..

Fly UK 2009 - Counting Down - Tuesday

Essential maintenance complete, oil changed new plugs, a good look over the trike and detailed look at the wing, check lists printed and laminated. A pile of camping equipment in the car is being slowly loaded into the car.

Completing my ICE documents tonight, I have to prepare for the worst and plan for the best. How do you plan to say good by to the kids? Like I might not see them again? or like I will see them next week? The truth is its no more dangerous to fly around the UK in a microlight than it is to travel to London in the car. So why to I feel differently about saying "see you later" on Friday night than I do when I rush off to work in the morning? What is it about flying that brings you to terms with your own mortality, when compared to taking the car to Tesco's (Whoops....Waitrose ;-)

"I began to feel like I lived on a higher plane thant the sketics of the ground; one that was richer because of its very assocation with the element of danger they dreaded, becuase it was freer of the earth to which they were bound.

In flying, I tasted the wine of the gods of whch they cound known nothing.

Who valued life more highly, the aviators who spent it on the art they loved, or these misers who doled it out like pennies through their ant like days?

I decided that if if I could fly for ten years before I was killed in crash, it would be a worthwhile trade for an ordinary life." - CSA

Fear Of Flying or Fear of Falling?

Since my first flight to Canada in 1978, I have been a little bit afraid of flying. Over the next 15 years I flew more and more as my job as the "Export Manager" for a Southampton based Engineering company meant spending months away from home flying from country to country. I recall on one tour completing 18 flights across India, Asia and Australia. I became more nervous each flight until I recall having to be off my "Gin and Tonic face" to get onto the Jumbo returning from Melbourne. Illogical fear, but then what part does logic play in fear?

I knew I had to do something about it and so to my first flight in a microlight in Somerset 3 years later at the tender age of 29, being scared stiff was part of the plan! I recall looking up at the wing and the wires and thinking it wont hold! What makes those bumps! Do we have to fly the whole hour?

Its odd if I was so frightened why did I book in and have lessons? What is it about fear that make us want more? That is a question I cant answer just now, but gaining my license at a time when fast was 50-mph and most machines went 45 mph. A 45 minute cross country was a huge distance I was still a little nervy... and so I flew until I had 75 hours or so on my log when a flight on the 09.08.1995 went so wrong I stopped flying the minute the wheels touched the ground. My next flight was logged on 17.02.2001 - "P-U-T"

Now when I recall those feeling as I write it makes me think about my fellow flyers now who are so very nervous every time they fly, the ones who don't like the bumps or who are unsure of there flying. The guys who fly the latest hardware but fret about 15-mph winds. Has my attitude to them become a little hard nose? Should I still worry too?

No I don't worry now, and no I don't need too. I have developed a mechanism though flying on Fly UK when hugh distance and fatigue plays a part, that enables me to relax more and more as it become bumpy or hectic, and the worse it gets the less I hold the bar and worry, I relax more!

I think this comes from a solid understanding of the subject, a very though ground inspection and good planning. Add to this a whole bunch of experience over and the knowledge that if I die flying, I will die doing the one thing on this earth that I love more than I love myself. I am not sure I could live without flying now,life would simply be an existence if I didn't have to face my fears, wouldn't it?

;-0