Monday, September 29, 2008
Ballyscartin
On the way home from waterford last week, myself and Pete flew over gorey and out towards the house in Ballyscartin. We got a few good pictures. If you click on them they open in a bigger window!
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Trip To Waterford, home via Tuskar Rock, Gorey and up the coast!
Me And Pete in Waterford 18/19/2008
Leaving Waterford
Tuskar Rock
Ballyscartin with Tara hill in the background
Dublin Port
The New Lansdowne Road
Croke Park
Liberty Hall
The Custom House
The Four Courts! (my second home this year!)
Short Finals runway 25 in weston!Thursday, September 25, 2008
The Aran Islands, 22/09/08
The Video at the top of the page is the Cliffs of Moher, Co Clare filmed by Pete as we flew passed. Amazing stuff!
Not many people can say they've flown along them!
Me & Pete (taken by Stephen from Inishmore airport)
The Burren Enroute
Coasting out over the cliffs and visitor centre
The cliffs from over the Atlantic
Our Shadow on departure from Inishmaan
Overhead Inishmore
Inishmore towards the most westerly point. nothing else but the Atlantic out there!
Dun Aengus on Inishmore
Lighthouse on the most westerly tip of Inishmore
A view of connemara looking out the back of the plane passed the tail.
Looking west from Lough Corrib! Some pretty amazing scenery!
Not many people can say they've flown along them!
Me & Pete (taken by Stephen from Inishmore airport)
The Burren Enroute
Coasting out over the cliffs and visitor centre
The cliffs from over the Atlantic
Our Shadow on departure from Inishmaan
Overhead Inishmore
Inishmore towards the most westerly point. nothing else but the Atlantic out there!
Dun Aengus on Inishmore
Lighthouse on the most westerly tip of Inishmore
A view of connemara looking out the back of the plane passed the tail.
Looking west from Lough Corrib! Some pretty amazing scenery!Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Me, Eoin & David take a trip to Abbeyshrule!
Again, I'll stick the pics up but I'm a bit too busy to write the story!
Not much to tell! The pics will have to suffice for a while!
The Boys with EI-BUA
Not much to tell! The pics will have to suffice for a while!
The Boys with EI-BUA
Davids view for Take Off
The 3 of us
David
Davids finger! Only he knows why!!!!!!Sunday, September 7, 2008
Davids Maiden Flight!
After much talk and discussion a coin toss decided that David was to be first of the two boys to brave it up into the skies with me!
The day was a lovely calm and sunny Sunday and myself and David headed off to Weston at about 4:45. We had a plane for an hour or so and had decided to head up to have a look at Newgrange!
In Ireland when you make a plan for a flight like this, the weather is usually the thing the screws with your plans! Not today though as it was lovely and calm! So we got out to the airport and ominously the plane was there waiting for us! I'm flying there a year and a half and not even on the day of my flight test was the plane there waiting for me! Anyway out we went, took the photo below, got David all settled into his seat and I pre-flighted the plane. All was well and there was even enough fuel aboard for our trip.
David with G-BTIK just before Take off
So the time came for me to call the tower and tell him of my intentions! This is where it all started to come slightly unstuck! When the controller called me back from the tower I could barely make him out over the radio! So after a bit of fiddling around with the radios and talking to an instructor that had just parked beside me we got it all up an running!
Run up checks completed and off we went! Took off slightly later than planned so we were never going to make it to Newgrange and back at this stage, but we still had a decent hour or so for David to get a good feel for what its like to be flying a small plane! Enroute out I again called Weston Tower to tell him that we were at the zone boundary and that we were changing over to Dublin airport tower to head north as we planned....... No response! Tried again.....nothing! All we were getting back over the radio was a random word every 4-5 minutes! I had gathered from one of the random words that Weston could hear me and I just couldn't hear them! At least that made life a little easier! So change of plans altogether, we had to cut it short and head back! I called the tower back and told him I was having a lot of trouble in hearing him and that we were going to head back in a few minutes.
We headed out towards Trim for me to get up to the required altitude for our return trip into Weston and to see if we could get the radios working. It at least gave David a small trip to at least see if he liked it! We headed over towards two hot air balloons for David to take a few pictures while I had a good look around to see if there was any other traffic returning to Weston. After about 5 minutes i decided that there wasn't any other inbound traffic to effect us and we made the turn around to head back in.
We knew what runway was active so I called the tower just to the north of Kilcock as normal and told him I was on my way back. I'd hoped that he would give me the clearance I was expecting and would be able to pick it out of the few words I could hear. This time, once I'd finished my call I throttled the engine back to idle to reduce the engine noise and low and behold we got a few clear words "1 thou...... 500........ left...... 25"! The few words we heard gave me the exact clearance I had hoped for and I called it back out to him "continue inbound, fly overhead 1500 feet, expect left base to runway 25"! Again a stroke of luck, I heard the tower confirm my call. With all problems over in we went! We still had no radio to speak of, but we were cleared all the way in to the airfield!
After an uneventful landing we made or way back in to the school and reported the issue! All in all I think David enjoyed his short but eventful first trip with me and hopefully he'll like it as much as I though he would!
The two of us just after parking in Weston
Hot Air Balloons off in the distance
The day was a lovely calm and sunny Sunday and myself and David headed off to Weston at about 4:45. We had a plane for an hour or so and had decided to head up to have a look at Newgrange!
In Ireland when you make a plan for a flight like this, the weather is usually the thing the screws with your plans! Not today though as it was lovely and calm! So we got out to the airport and ominously the plane was there waiting for us! I'm flying there a year and a half and not even on the day of my flight test was the plane there waiting for me! Anyway out we went, took the photo below, got David all settled into his seat and I pre-flighted the plane. All was well and there was even enough fuel aboard for our trip.
David with G-BTIK just before Take offSo the time came for me to call the tower and tell him of my intentions! This is where it all started to come slightly unstuck! When the controller called me back from the tower I could barely make him out over the radio! So after a bit of fiddling around with the radios and talking to an instructor that had just parked beside me we got it all up an running!
Run up checks completed and off we went! Took off slightly later than planned so we were never going to make it to Newgrange and back at this stage, but we still had a decent hour or so for David to get a good feel for what its like to be flying a small plane! Enroute out I again called Weston Tower to tell him that we were at the zone boundary and that we were changing over to Dublin airport tower to head north as we planned....... No response! Tried again.....nothing! All we were getting back over the radio was a random word every 4-5 minutes! I had gathered from one of the random words that Weston could hear me and I just couldn't hear them! At least that made life a little easier! So change of plans altogether, we had to cut it short and head back! I called the tower back and told him I was having a lot of trouble in hearing him and that we were going to head back in a few minutes.
We headed out towards Trim for me to get up to the required altitude for our return trip into Weston and to see if we could get the radios working. It at least gave David a small trip to at least see if he liked it! We headed over towards two hot air balloons for David to take a few pictures while I had a good look around to see if there was any other traffic returning to Weston. After about 5 minutes i decided that there wasn't any other inbound traffic to effect us and we made the turn around to head back in.
We knew what runway was active so I called the tower just to the north of Kilcock as normal and told him I was on my way back. I'd hoped that he would give me the clearance I was expecting and would be able to pick it out of the few words I could hear. This time, once I'd finished my call I throttled the engine back to idle to reduce the engine noise and low and behold we got a few clear words "1 thou...... 500........ left...... 25"! The few words we heard gave me the exact clearance I had hoped for and I called it back out to him "continue inbound, fly overhead 1500 feet, expect left base to runway 25"! Again a stroke of luck, I heard the tower confirm my call. With all problems over in we went! We still had no radio to speak of, but we were cleared all the way in to the airfield!
After an uneventful landing we made or way back in to the school and reported the issue! All in all I think David enjoyed his short but eventful first trip with me and hopefully he'll like it as much as I though he would!
The two of us just after parking in Weston
Hot Air Balloons off in the distanceTrip To Blackpool!
First trip over the water to England. Lots of pics to come and I'll write the story at some stage soon.
The way over
Maria and Andrew Flying over!
Ship in the Liverpool oil fields
Oil rig on the Liverpool oil field
Cloudy day in Blackpool - you can just make out the tower though!
The beach in Blackpool - With the famous rollercoasters on the left
Short finals runway 10 in Blackpool InternationalThe Return Leg
Back of my head!! All instrument flying! No outside references whatsoever.
Cloudy day over the Irish Sea. En Route To Weston from Blackpool.
After an hour of pure solid cloud we broke out to a beautiful day in Dublin
After an hour of pure solid cloud we broke out to a beautiful day in Dublin
Howth from dublin bay @ 1500 ft
Dun Laoghaire on our way back in towards the pigeon house
Bull Island (Dollymount) in the distance
The Docks & Poolbeg yacht club
The RDS & Donnybrook
Looking from the Southside to the Northside towards the Custom House, the IFSC & Liberty Hall
Looking from Crumlin towards the Dublin Mountains!
The Grand Canal, the Naas road and the long mile road!
Overhead Liffey Valley Shopping Centre with Weston off in the distance
Boo!
Castleknock village & college with Farmleigh house on the Right
Home Sweet home. Me flying EI-GSE on finals to runway 25 in weston
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