Trikepilot Social

Thanks to MachNoneFlying!

The Electric Trike developed by Manfred Ruhmer is flying. More info at www.icaro2000.com

The latest developments in accumulator technology make it possible to fly for up to one hour, using just the power of the electric motor.

The principal advantage of the electric motor is its very low noise output, about 49 decibels. From a distance of 100/200 metres or more, the motor is virtually inaudible. This makes it possible to fly over residential areas, or over locations where noise restrictions would normally make powered flight impossible.

Running costs are very low, less than 1 euro of electric current for an hour’s flight. Maintenance costs are likewise minimal.
This is a style of flying that could accurately be described as “plug and play”!

No more problems with greasy hands, starting problems and so forth, typical of internal combustion engines.

The electric motor virtually eliminates all vibration when used with a correctly balanced propeller. This, together with the low noise, ensures maximum pilot comfort during flight.

High-tech accumulators can be recharged rapidly, in times comparable to or less than flight time, using the correct form of charger.

However, petrol engines do offer some advantages.
Of these, undoubtedly the most important is the increased flight time, and as a result an increased range.

Icaro 2000 can supply the single-seater Light Trike in a version with a 4-stroke Bailey engine, which, in comparison to conventional 2-stroke engines, has lower noise levels and a more pleasant sound. In addition, the 4-stroke engine has lower fuel consumption, and the advantages of an independent lubrication system. – Thanks to MachNoneFlying.com reporter Dan.

The pilot’s new best friend is not some new iteration of a Garmin GPS with moving map, or a satellite XM real-time weather storm scope, an automatic flight log, super chart, EZ flight planning tool, pocket checklist, or in-flight entertainment system. It’s actually all of them and more wrapped into one convenient and seemingly ubiquitous device… the iPhone. The joke that there is an app for that is turning more and more into a reality. As sport pilots, our need for need for innovative, compact, and cost effective flight data solutions is perhaps more critical than that of the general aviation pilot.

As an avid iPhone user with hundreds of apps and an addicted sport pilot, I have weeded through the wheat and chaff of flight related apps and have come up with the following must-have list of apps for your iPhone flying pleasure. I use each one of these apps to make my flight experience safer and more enjoyable. While there is no one, fully integrated app that does it all, some do try. I have found these do it all apps either come up short or have too many options and variables to make them easy to use. There are several expensive applications, and some with ongoing subscription costs that I avoid as overkill and unnecessarily costly. As sport pilots I do not need IFR or TAC charts, or time on duty calculations, or the ability to route a flight from New York to California. For other pilots, and for professionals these all are important considerations, but not for me and my trike. I prefer to make my own “suite” of applications from the best individual apps available. The following is a list of my favorites, all of which appear on one screen of my iPhone.

1.    Charts by Foreflight ($9.99 ) – Charts is an elegant solution to carrying all the sectional charts in your pocket. Combined with simple flight planning and en route flight following it is a great way to plan your next flight. This is a program that I routinely use. Charts is by far the simplest and best solution I have found for charting on the iPhone. Its charts are seamlessly connected, it follows all the standard pinch and zoom functionality that you already know how to do. After setting it up with your plane’s specifics of fuel burn and air speed simple flight planning is a breeze. It will even tell you estimated time en route, heading and fuel used. Plugging in a route is a piece of cake, just type your starting airport and your destination and it will plot a purple line on the sectional. Tell the app to find your location and it will put a blue pin head where you are, and then as you progress in your flight it will update your location in real time and show your position in relation to the plotted course. It could not be easier. I have on more than one occasion used the iPhone to get me to my destination in place of my built in Enigma Stratomaster. Charts easily outperforms and is easier to use than its closest competitor, SkyCharts. SkyCharts while purporting to do the same thing as Charts with a few extra bells and whistles is not intuitive to use, and suffers from some significant interface problems that are a deal breaker for me. I still can’t find where to enter my plane’s performance data for instance. Nor how to access a purported capability to automatically email my location while en route. (I did finally find this, it is under the application preferences under system preferences. So it is there, just hard to find.) The one big advantage over Charts is the ability to cache map data so as to not have to rely on the existence of an active data connection. In more remote locations Charts would not be able to update the information and would effectively be unusable. In response to this limitation, the maker of Charts offers an integrated solution called Foreflight Mobile V3. This app does have the ability to cache charts as well as a slew of other helpful components, great radar, airport information, satellite imagery, flight plan submission, a real Swiss army knife of an app. The downside is an $80 a year subscription fee. More bang than I need for my buck as a sport pilot.

2.    MotionX GPS ($2.99) – One cool app. I love this app. Great for recording your entire flight and then displaying it on a map. Finally you can get to see just how perfect your pattern really is. Great for trips or just flying out in the sticks. It easily interfaces with Twitter and Facebook to post your flights. You can email the flight tracks as well. Perhaps the coolest feature is the ability to open the track data in Google Earth and replay the entire flight with Google’s excellent satellite data. I use this app on nearly every flight. It gives me total distance, max and average speed and total flight time. It is also a convenient way to mark particular interesting spots for future return flights. For instance, about 30 minutes from my home airport I discovered a ranch with zebras, rhinos, gazelles and giraffes. I simply hit mark and now I can fly directly there when taking up friends for a flight to Africa! It has a good interface and an easy learning curve. While it does not have support for sectional charts it does have the ability to cache other type of maps for offline use.

3.    touchPlan (free) – A recent addition to my electronic flight bag (EFB) Redundant in some ways with Charts for flight planning, and deficient in some ways, for example it does not have fuel calculations, nor sectional overlay. But it does have one very nice feature, it integrates your flight plan with real-time winds aloft data to calculate estimated time en route and ground speed giving you the ability to easily see the best altitude to fly and a more realistic time en route and ETA.

4.    LogTen Basic (free) – Keeping track of all those flights can be a hassle. There has got to be a better way than that black, paper, logbook. I have searched for the perfect sport pilot electronic logbook and it does not exist. The closest I have found is LogTen Basic. Most applications in this genre are geared for either the GA pilot or the professional airline pilot. All I want is a simple way to log my flights, enter start and stop times and add everything up, all with as little keyboard inputs as possible. The newest version now will time the flight for you. Still, you do need to press start and stop, darn thing won’t automatically connect to my hobbs. LogTen Basic is not without its problems. First, while it allows you to create a list of the planes that you commonly fly, it does not provided anyway that I can see of deleting one of those planes once entered. Additionally, it too suffers from data overkill for the normal sport pilot with unnecessary data fields. It would be nice to be able to remove these fields. Lastly, there is no way to get the data out of the program and onto paper for archival purposes. In order to get that functionality you have to upgrade to the paid version for $19.99.

5.    Aeroweather (free) – Whether to fly is the common sport pilot question. Aeroweather is a great little app that helps answer that question by giving you the conditions at your favorite airports such as wind speed, direction, pressure, temperature, cloud cover, ceiling, and VFR/IFR conditions. It is fast, clear and a great way to get situational awareness regarding the weather conditions at multiple airports of your choosing. All you have to do is enter the airport identifier and then it will report all the pertinent data for each airport on one easy to read page. There are a multitude of flight weather apps out there. Some are much more robust than Aeroweather, but this app proves the point that sometimes less is more. For more traditional weather data I use the following product from Garmin.

6.    MyCast Onelook ($.99) – Again there are a lot of flight related weather apps out there. Including subscription versions. One of my favorite weather apps that includes a nice moving radar, present conditions and forecasts is MyCast Onelook. While not flight specific it gives me the info I need in a clear and concise manner, and the price does not break the bank. In one place I can see temperature trends as well as predicted wind speed and direction over multiple days. Fabulous for seeing if the weekend will be a flight delight or a no-fly zone. The flight specific version called Pilot MyCast is a very nice and full-featured program with all kinds of pilot-centric features such as DUATS flight plans, winds aloft, TFRs and more. The downside is the $9.99 cost AND the $9.99 per month subscription fee. For the type of flying I do the extra features are not worth the expense and the much cheaper OneLook seems to do just as good a job for my basic needs. If you routinely do lots of cross countries or fly every day, than Pilot MyCast might be your ticket.

7.    Checklist Lite – I am still working to like this program. I think it has more to do with my reluctance to fully embrace checklists than with the program. The fact of the matter is though that checklists make you a better pilot, and a safer pilot. I just have to get over my own self and just do it. This app allows you to set up a super easy to use checklist system with a query and response format that is easy and simple to use. There should be no excuse any more. The darn checklist is right there in your pocket. Its easy to use, and when your done you can treat yourself to a your favorite song from itunes.

8.    Winds Aloft (free) – Technically not an app but a great web site that will tell you the winds aloft for your particular area for various altitudes. It’s a great cross-check for the touchPlan app. First go to usairnet.com. Then navigate to the city closest to you and will you get a great graphical picture of the winds aloft for your area. I make a bookmark and save it as an icon to my home screen for quick access.

9.    iWeathr (free) – Again not an app, but a radar/weather web app Nothing fancy here just a great weather radar, simple uncluttered, fast loading and full screen.

10.         ASOS/AWOS (free) – Another web page that works great on the iphone. Faa.gov/air_traffic/weather/asos/ will bring up a map of the United States. Click on your state and get a list of all the ASOS stations with links, and best of all, phone numbers. Click on the phone number for the location you want automated weather information for and the iPhone will dial it for you. Can’t be easier than that. Again save it as an icon to your home screen and you are on click away from the ASOS data of your choice.

So there you have it, ten programs for your iPhone to make your sport flying more enjoyable and safer. None will set you back more than a couple of Starbucks. Add them all together and you have a pretty complete EFB ready at your fingertips just a pocket away. I hope your flying will be more enjoyable with your new tools. Should you have an app I left out or one that performs better please let me know and share.

Well I just got done flying the Revo. One word review...wow!

Full review: First this trike flies like no other. It is not an evolution in trike and wing design but a REVOLUTION. Every other trike, including my own very capable DeltaJet 912/ProfiTL, has now been relegated to also-ran status. When searching for a trike to purchase there are many choices, but all represent a relative static progression in design and innovation. Small details have set one trike apart from another, until now.

The world of trikes has forever been split in two. There is the Revo, and then there is everything else. Why such strong praise, simply, design, execution and delivery.  From the front seat of the Revo the pilot is presented with a host of refinements and advancements not found on any other trike. Entry into the trike is effortless. The seats are purpose designed, not some compromise or adaption. Your feet rest on real pedals, not some bent steal rod. The front wheel has shock absorbing compression struts. Everything is CNC milled and fitted. The Revo speaks aircraft, not some conglomeration of bits from the parts bin. Three throttles, foot, panel and cruise give you options for power control. Simple things, like the choke and mag switches are right where you expect them to be. Even the rear steering system is beautiful. (It also makes the plane easy to maneuver in and about the hanger.) Everything is a joy on the Revo. No compromises.

Then you blast down the runway, 100 Rotax horses pushing against your back… seconds later you leap into the air and begin a mad race into the sky. The only problem is that at an easy 1500 feet a minute climb you will have to wait awhile for your friends to get to altitude with you. Regardless of how good it looks on the ground or how nice the parts fit together, it is those parts that must work in harmony to produce and deliver an extraordinary result. The Revo does not disappoint. Even though the body of the Revo is spectacular it would be nothing unless it was married to a superb wing. The Reflex 11, a tiny wing by traditional standards, makes the Revo come alive and makes your dreams of effortless flight a reality. It is light to the touch, responsive but predictable. One finger control, quick roll but precise in its entry and exit from turns.  Pitch stability and solid handling combine to make this wing do whatever you want it to in a point and shoot dream. The only surprise is how easy it is to get into a flight configuration you should not be in. This plane with the Reflex 11 wing will fly beyond its and your limits if you ask it. So just don’t ask it. Couple the wing with Evolution’s new in-flight electric trim and it is hands-off trim at any speed from 60 mph to 100 mph gives you the ability to cruise with your friend’s slower trikes without constant bar input. Landing is a breeze, easy approach with a landing that sticks as the big mains touch down and the suspension soaks up any impact in case of a less than perfect landing on the pilot’s part. The Revo is confident and sure-footed on the ground as it is in the air.

Quite simply, there is nothing not to like with the new Revo. As dramatic as the shift from biplane to mono or fabric covered to metal, the Revo is aptly named, it truly is a revolution in light-sport weight shift controlled flight.

The new Revo presents only one problem for me: What to do with my existing DeltaJet 912.

My friend Allistair Wilson, flying an Astra around the "Flying Freedom" stomping grounds of the White River near Bloomfield, Indiana.

24th June Carlisle to Ince Blundell

It was Tuesday morning;  we all had a headache, and aircraft were buzzing around on the apron. My back was aching as I am not accustom to inflatable beds, in fact camping was starting to piss me off, and flying from point to point without seeing any of the local area was not the way I had envisaged the tour.

So it was back to reality, I stumbled out of the tent and found a alcove by one of the old hangars and left my watery mark arrrrrrrh that’s better, then someone said that near the control/offices there was a wash room (oh shit), so I crabbed my towel and wash bag and started to wonder off to the bogs, “oi… you, get a fucking HiViz vest on!!!” sorry mate, I dived into my tent and got correctly suited and booted.

After making myself look ravishing, and whilst walking back to Gunny, I saw that folks were starting to line up for fuel, so I my return I awoke Alex and both him and I started to pack up the plane. However, once Alex, John and I had finished packing,  there must have been four other aircraft in the queue. No worries I thought, it will only take a little while and we will be done too, which we were. However, during our refuelling the Army Air Corps arrived, in a Brace of Puma’s, and all movements came to a standstill.

Me being me, gets on the blower (Radio), and contacts ground. “Ground G-CFGT, Radio Check and departure information, G-CFGT”,…. “G-GT, Ground readability 5, unfortunately there will be no movements whilst the Army are on the apron, hold position, …. “Ground, G-GT why!”……” Ground, G-GT Carlisle –SOP (Standard Operational Procedures)”, …. “Ground, G-GT, Roger”…

So for forty minutes, all six aircraft baked in the sun, whilst the poxy Army got refuelled, if they had been the RAF, I am sure this would had not been the score…. Once they were refuelled, I contacted ground again, and they gave us permission to taxi for departure, both John and I in our respective aircraft taxied off to Delta 1, to hold, no sooner, had we held at Delta we were given permission to line for an immediate takeoff, I lead the way, taxied onto the runway, and found that john had an problem with his radio again, and had to return to the apron. I by this time was doing 160 knots down rwy 07, (well, you know what I mean). John then made a transmission to me stating that he would see us at INCE BLUNDELL, I confirmed this and took a heading and followed the M6 to Liverpool.

We sort of tracked off to the right of the M6, over flying loads of hills and flew down valleys etc. However, the wind was a little too strong to fly too low so both Alex and I opted for a height of 2500ft which seemed to be the best for smoothest air.

As we got nearer to Liverpool, we banked right and headed for the coast, and out of the blue appeared INCE BUNDELL, the ground radio said that the rwy 11 was in use, and the wind is gusting 10 to 18 knots, so I expected a bumpy approach. We turned onto final and I requested Alex take hold of the training bars, and assist when I requested, the wind was sort of blowing from the west, and it felt more like 20 gusting 40 lol.

Anyhow, we landed and headed off the grassed apron where we were met by the local club, who offered us a Joe and biscuits, (lovely). Alex had arranged for his Dad, Sister and her Husband to meet us at the airfield, which they did, we had a photo shoot, and then Alex went and spent some time with his folks, whilst I used the clubs PC, to take a look at the Met. During this period I met two blokes Paul  and Neil who flew a skyranger, I had seen them on the trip, but had not spoken to them, however, being that they were now cornered, I made a heading for them, and sat down and started to enquire what they thought of the run to Swansea, as I did not think it was feasible due to the front moving from the west. To my amazement, they agreed, and told me that the best thing to do would be to head for SHOBDON, which is located near Leominster. I said that sounded great, they also said that the café there did  a cracking breakfast too, well sounds like a plan to me then.

On Alex’s return, I told him of the plan, he agreed too, and Introduced he to the lads. By this time john had landed and was clambering out of the Quantum looking somewhat fucked off to say the least.

“What’s up mate, I enquired”, ….. Well you know I had the radio problem back at CARLISLE, “Yep”… well we fixed it, well I didn’t he said, the chap from the microlight school did, but ATC would not let me change channel, they wanted me to keep contact with them, and if that was not enough, the passed me on to London whilst in-flight. They thought I could squawk, when I told them I couldn’t I had to keep calling up all the way here, man it was stressful GT, stressful.

By this time someone had handed John a Joe and he started to look better, so I told him that we would be heading towards SHOBDON, john enquired, are we going through the Manchester VFR Route, Yes mate.. I said,  you will have to lead with GPS and keep us in the middle of it boss, …. No trouble GT john said, you follow me through it.

24th June Ince Blundell to Carlisle

A little after 1800hrs we took off for SHOBDON, flew through the VFR Route, at around 1000ft, and tracked to our next destination. As we arrived at SHOBDON it was just starting to get dark, and the sun was setting, ATC was closed so we all landed, pitched camp and made our way to the local pub, were Bill (an ex RMP) and his Mrs made us a load of sandwiches and said the bar will stay open as long as you want to drink…. So the next day, yes reader, we awoke with another sore head…. Oooooh shit, where’s that resolve!!!!

Next instalment, in a few days, just needs to find my flight diary for the last few days.

GT

In June 2009, I set off on the biggest flying adventure I had yet to experience, that would test this rookies both ability to fly and his commonsense i.e. Airmanship. My co-pilot/cameraman would  be Alex Craven who also passed his GST in December 2008, however, he has not done too much flying since then, as he now lives in Turkey. Nevertheless, I will have him up therem, where eagles dare, soon enough, and have him feeling right at home once again.

The Trip was in aid of a charity that supported Children with Leukaemia, Tom Dawson, a Shadow pilot from Plaistow's had put the FLY UK 09 together, and in fact, had completed this tour many times before, so I envisaged we would be in good hands.

Flying with us, in his Quantum, was John Waite. John is both a Fixed and Flexwing Pilot and has slightly more experience than Alex and I, and therefore it was great to be his wingman for the trip.

18^th June 09 Plaistow to Sywell

The day finally came and we all set about packing our planes. We all had far too much stuff, not enough room and basically did not know what to leave behind. My eldest son Chris (22) said, all you need dad, is a toothbrush and a credit card, just go, .. he may well be right I thought.

The actual start line was at Sywell, onthe 19th June. Sywell is a small airfield near Northampton, however if I were to do this again, I think I would have just flown from Plaistow’s on the Saturday Morning instead of flying up to Sywell on the Friday.

However, after losing 3 tonne of gear, we finally taxied off and took off to Sywell. Within 5 mins John in the Quantum had a problem with his SatNav, so he called me up and said, “GT, I am returning to Plaistow’s, as I have a problem with the SatNav, I will see you at Sywell”, with that he landed and we tracked off to Sywell.

We were fighting against a 25mph head wind and even though we climbed to 3000ft we were still being battered by the weather.  90 mins later we called up for joining instructions for Sywell, “Sywell Information, G-CFCT, Inbound request joining instructions” G-CFGT, Sywell Information, Wind 12knots,1015mb, right-hand circuit, runway 23, I read the message back “1015mb, Right-hand, runway 23, G-CFGT ”. we joined over head, and carried out our circuit, it was a very bumpy and turbulent affair, calling downwind and final, we made our approach, and with a few bumps we landed at Sywell, I contacted Tower, and requested directions to where we could park, “G-GT, just taxi off to the southwest corner, you should see a few others” thank you, I replied, and off we went.

Soon the tents were up, and Alex had been a star by furnishing me with a beer, oooh just what the doctor ordered.  a little while later i remarked "Where the fuck is john" to Alex………. With that my mobile rang and it was Rob Grimwood from Plaistow’s, saying that the SatNav problem had been sorted out and he was on his way, you should be there in, around an hour, with that me and Alex returned to the bar and swilled another two beers down our throats awaiting for the arrival of JW.

What only seemed like 2 beers, (which was in fact 4) and with the sun setting, from the south, a gaggle of flexies had appeared and one of them was john. Soon after landing and erecting his tent, it was off down to the local pub for some grub, more beers and retell the events of the day, with loads of extras, that made the journey more interesting (lol) to boot.

Once we had filled our rather large bellies, we all wobbled back to the tents, were all of a sudden it was morning and my head hurt…. Oooooh

19^th June 2009 Sywell to Netherthorpe

After a resolve, and a Joe (Coffee), I started to feel a lot better, and set about getting the weather report and sorting out the flight plan with John & Alex. Due to the pretty crap weather the day before, the weather had to some degree, calmed down somewhat, and we were able to keep to the original flight plan and head off to NETHERTHORPE, which is located near Doncaster, 2.5 WNW of Worksop. However, due to buggering around on the ground in the morning, we did not takeoff until 1030hrs, and therefore, had a bit of catch up to do, if we were to make our final destination of the day at STRATHAVEN near Glasgow. So off we flew, no sooner had we gone 50 odd miles the wind had got up again and the damb weather was against us with more horribly strong winds, my friggin arms were aching like fuck, johns in Quantum were falling off he said lol.

We landed at NETHERTHORPE around 12ish and refuelled the planes and off we went to find something to eat (another mistake), it took 90 mins for our grub to appear, putting us back again, (not going too good at the moment reader, is it).

19^th June 2009 Netherthorpe to Fishburn

By the time we had scoffed our grub down our necks, it was back in the air and back with the crappy weather. it had now started to rain, and the wind was getting rough. I was thinking to myself what the fuck am I doin…. Then all of a sudden the SatNav went blank  "Shit" (back to the map) and so did the on board bullet cameras, a fuse I thought, I will sort this out at FISHBURN. It was another two hours flight time, with a head wind and to be frank my arms were killing me now, John in the Quantum was also suffering, and trying to read a half mil map was proving to be difficult. At around 15 miles out John contacted  FISHBURN and ascertained the conditions there, the reply was “there is a bloody big storm coming from the south” I know I said, we are right in the middle of it!!!

Within 20 mins we could see FISHBURN, and we made our approach and landing as quickly as we could, just to get back on the ground. Once landed, we taxied off to the grassed apron, parked up and climbed out of our airborne Paddling pool, shit I was wet. We then made a run to the Club house where Beryl (the owner) made us a hot mug of joe, and invited us to take our gear off and warm up. Whilst sat there we spoke to a few of the other FLYUK'ers who said that they were going to make a run for STRATHAVEN, “ but the weather is pants I said”, no its fine above the clouds, not on your Nelly, I ant going out in that… shortly after that about 11 pilots dashed for their flying machines and flew off through the storm… what possess people I thought. Beryl invited the reaming 8 aircrew to use the club house if we wished to stay the night, which we accepted. 

20^th June 2009 Fishburn to East Fortune

In the morning after a cuppa, I found the old SatNav had burnt out, so no help from that gadget on this trip, I shall just have to rely on my new map reading skills…. Soon we were tracking off to the east. Our course would be taking us up the east coast passed Newcastle, Alnwick, Berwick, and stopping off at EAST FORTUNE, to refuel both our bellies and planes. The trip to our next refuelling stop was fantastic; I even flew over my mother-in-laws house in Alnwick, and around the castle, marvellous. We then tracked back up to the east coast and flew out to the Farne Islands. The sea is so blue here, and the Viz was excellent, after that we descended to about 250ft and flew for about 10 miles along a deserted beach, it was breath taking.. reader.

Soon we were back up at 2000ft flying above Berwick-upon-Tweed and over their old battlements, these walls are massive, and must have been a bloody nightmare raid.

The winds were in our favour, and soon we were overhead EAST FORTUNE and heading for runway 29. After landing Gordon and Jill (Owners) made us welcome and even allowed us to use their own car to do the fuel run, a lovely couple. Once refuelled, we set our next destination to INSCH, this strip is west of Aberdeen.

20^th June 2009 East Fortune to Insch

The trip to INSCH was another turbulent flight, and at one time if I had not been strapped into my seat, I think both Alex and I would have been thrown clear out of the plane, boy was it bumpy, and I must admit, I was happy to land at INSCH even though time was getting on and we needed to get to CULBOKIE. We paid our dues at the control room, grabbed a Joe and refuelled the planes, and was ready to go, we taxied off carried out our preflight checks and hit the metal, just as we lifted off there was a muffled bang, and over the intercom, Alex informed me that his glove had gone through the prop, ho fuck!, lets return and take a look at the plane I said before we go any further.

As we turned onto finals, I think the whole club was out to see us land, JW had taxied off back to the apron and had shut down also expecting the worse.

After landing and parked up the CFI came out and checked the prop with me and both agreed that there was no damage, then gave Alex a bollocking for hanging out of the pod taking pictures, and then told me off to for letting him to so …. Phew, lets get the fuck out of here before, he grounds us I said, with that, we were mac 2.2 down the runway and vertica, we rolled over at 35,000ft, looked down and headed towards CULBOKIE.

20^th June 2009 Insch to Culbukie

The old weather was starting to calm down a little, it was around 16:30hrs and my tummy was rumbling, I was also a little pissed at Alex, but shit happens! Our journey was a smooth old flight, as we passed above wind farms and scooted around RAF KINLOSS and RAF LOSSIEMOUTH on our way to the Black Isle. We crossed the stretch of water called the MORAY FIRTH between INVERNESS and CULBOKIE, and just as we got over land I saw the Quantum dive towards the ground, "SHIT" and then climb again, "OOOW"  “What’s up John, I enquired”, oh, my SatNav fell out of its bracket, and so I leant forward, and pulled the bar back at the same time and woooooow, wont do that again in a hurry he said”.

I called up CULBOKIE, and was told to carry out a overhead join at 2000ft and run a right hand circuit, and was to land on runway 21, and we should watch out for Paramotors,…. As we joined over head, looking for the Paramotors, Alex Screamed in my ear, GTTTTTT, PARAMOTOR 12 OCLOCK!, FUCK, FUCK, I brought the bar back into my chest, simultaneously throwing it to the right, we dropped out of the sky like a stone,… the radio crackled, oh would all microlight change to a left hand circuit the Paramotors have no radios, and they seem to be now landing on runway 27, my god I thought, were the fuck would I have put another passenger, I ant got the room lol.

After landing, the Paramotor Pilot, came over to me and apologised for  the near miss, I said it was OK but you need to be more vigilant in the air mate, yea, sorry jimmy said the jock!!! Mmmm.

We made camp, and wondered over to the Bar-B-Q, had a few burgers, a few beers and then booked into the B&B, for some dinner later that evening. It was during dinner that we had heard that one of the pilots had crashed on a beach on the most north westerly coast of Scotland; this was due to an engine failure so he told us... ooooh shit!!!!!

Standby for another instalment

GT