I’m Still Here.

April 2, 2019April 1, 2019 / Fly Like You Mean It / 4 Comments

Whoa! It’s been forever since I last wrote here. I’ve been really busy, both with my flight training and (mainly) otherwise. Be warned – this post isn’t about flying at all. It’s about life, a.k.a. that thing which happens whenever you make any plans.

I wrote my last post here in July, shortly before leaving to spend a week with my family in Slovakia. During that short vacation, we made a somewhat impulsive decision to sell our two-room flat and to buy a house. We didn’t have any idea what we were getting into. Nevertheless, once we returned to Prague, we really committed to that decision and our fate for the next five months (not to mention the rest of our lives) was sealed.

We found our dream house pretty quickly but we had to sell our place first to be able to buy. Finding the right buyer proved a little tricky at first but we were lucky enough to seal the deal in about three months. After all the formalities, we were able to sign the contract for our new house and at the end of the January, we moved in.

I should also mention that in the meantime, I was dumb enough to wreck my car so while all this was happening, I was picking a new one. I ended up with a hybrid Toyota Auris and so far it performs great. And our little boy loves it!

The period of ever-present change in our lives was concluded last week when I unexpectedly received a job offer and decided to take it. For the very first time in my professional life, I am leaving the aerospace industry and becoming a web developer. I have zero experience in the field, except self-teaching myself, on and off, during the last year. Needless to say, it is a huge leap out of my comfort zone but I’m really happy that I found the courage to make that decision – and excited for what lies ahead.

Despite all this, I still managed to proceed with my flight training, although I haven’t flown as much as I’d like. Even so, I have managed to complete my dual cross-country flights and last Saturday, I’ve had my first solo one. I’m past two thirds of my training and really hoping that I can finish it this year.

I’m not sure whether to keep blogging here. So much has changed in the last few months and there simply isn’t enough time to share all what’s happening. I have some ideas but I think I’ll have to give it some time to figure out what I really want to do. I’m thinking of a different way to capture my experience, possibly on a different platform and with more pictures and videos but so far, I just haven’t had the time to really think it through. When the right idea comes up, I’ll make sure to update this blog in case anyone here wants to follow along.

PS: I also cancelled all my social media. For a long time, I was upset about the way the social media shape the society and the world around us because I perceive their influence as almost exclusively negative. And I decided that a few more people who might find this blog thanks to the social sites just aren’t worth being a part of this twisted, ugly virtual world anymore. It’s really just a personal protest, completely pointless in the global point of view, but it felt really good. The sudden change of not being hooked up to Facebook (etc.) all the time is empowering and I warmly recommend this to everyone.

Aviation Museum: Rimini, Italy

July 13, 2018July 13, 2018 / Fly Like You Mean It / 4 Comments

Apart from its exhibits, the museum also offers a nice view of San Marino.

Here’s a thing about my wife and me: wherever we go, whatever we do, we usually end up in an aviation museum. That’s exactly what happened to us during our holidays in early May. On our way to San Marino, we stumbled upon a nice little aviation museum on the outskirts of Rimini, Italy.

Map

When driving on the road no. SS72 from Rimini to San Marino, Parco Tematico – Museo dell’Aviazione is hiding in plain sight – there is a couple of planes positioned in a steep hill. A few hundred meters down the road, there is a sign and two aircraft – former Italian military C-47 and a Fairchild Metro II – in a very deteriorated condition, waiting to be restored.

Fairchild Metro II waiting for its luck to change…

If you choose to turn off the road and park at a small parking lot some 300 meters uphill, you’ll be surprised to discover a quite unusual, unique collection of airplanes that, for the most part, wasn’t visible from the road below.

Many of the displayed aircraft served in the Italian Air Force – obviously some more or less known Italian types, such as the piston trainer Fiat G.46 3A, several examples of Fiat G.91 jet fighter, Piaggio P.148 primary trainer, Piaggio P.166M utility aircraft and a few more. But some other examples may be surprising for somebody who’s not familiar with the Italian Air Force history: North American T-6 Texan, Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star, Republic F-84F Thunderstreak and RF-84 Thunderflash, the legendary F-104S Starfighter and even the carrier-capable Grumman S-2 Tracker.

F-104S ASA-M Starfighter – the last upgrade of the original F-104S to serve in the Italian Air Force

Apart from what seems to be a pretty solid coverage of the Italian Air Force history, the museum also has a very nice collection of Warsaw Pact aircraft – MiGs (15, 17, 19, 21, 23) and Sukhois (7, 17), an Il-28 jet bomber as well as the archaic yet magnificent Antonov An-2, the largest biplane ever built. I was also surprised to see our Czechoslovak Let L-410 Turbolet.

A trace of home far from home – the Czechoslovak-built L-410 Turbolet

And then, there are a few specialties. The icing on the cake. Aircraft that are either of a pretty rare type or special in a particular way. For me, the biggest surprise was to see a Gloster Javelin FAW Mk.9 – a beautiful delta-wing fighter aircraft from the golden era of British aviation. As far as I know, there is no other Javelin in the entire Europe (apart from the UK, of course).

Gloster Javelin FAW Mk.9

Another treat was the LTV A-7E Corsair II, a carrier-based attack aircraft. This particular plane, although clearly not displayed in its original paint scheme (there was a typo in one of the markings), carried out six strikes in the Desert Storm campaign. Again, not really common to see the A-7 outside of the US and a very cool type.

A-7E Corsair II

Also very nice was the Douglas DC-3 which used to belong to Clark Gable, the famous Hollywood actor (and a WWII bomber aircrewman). The list of high-profile people who flew in this particular plane supposedly includes John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and Ronald Reagan, just to name a few.

My lovely family posing in front of Clark Gable’s DC-3

If you are ever in the area, you should seriously check this museum out – don’t worry, I have left out a few surprises which are still pretty neat. Although all of the exhibits (meaning the aircraft, there is also a hall full of uniforms, medals and other memorabilia) are standing outside, slowly losing their struggle with elements, they still mostly are in a pretty good shape.

My little son having an absolute blast in a cut-out cockpit of Antonov An-2

As mentioned before, the setting is very interesting – the museum is set up on a sideslope of a hill and the tour involves quite a workout – you are either going up or down a pretty steep hill the entire time.

All in all, it was a nice surprise and a welcome opportunity to stretch our legs while traveling by. Hope you liked this short review – please let me know in the comments. I am going to try to post articles like this from time to time. I think there might be some aviation history buffs out there who could find this stuff interesting.

New Video – Circuits and First Solo Flights

July 7, 2018 / Fly Like You Mean It / 3 Comments

I wanted to post this video for a long time but didn’t quite know how to put it together. The thing is that circuit flying is a very stereotypical activity and there’s not that much to show.

Over the past months, I did my best to gather footage from different flights, different angles, different meteorological conditions and hopefully it shows what it’s like to tackle the first big hurdle in the life of every pilot – learning to land the damn thing.

Hope you guys will like it.

Stalls

July 6, 2018July 6, 2018 / Fly Like You Mean It / 3 Comments

Last Saturday wasn’t a great day for flying. Overcast, low ceilings, visibility always changing due to showers all around the airfield. And a nasty crosswind. It was my turn to man the airfield “tower” (local traffic frequency) that day so I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to fly but eventually I was – and I managed to discover another weakness of mine.

According to the syllabus, we were supposed to brush up on the fundamentals – turns, steep turns, and stalls. I didn’t expect any unpleasant surprises. After all, all these maneuvers were drilled into me long before even starting my PPL, during my glider pilot training.

So I demonstrated a few steep turns, left and right, without any problem – and we moved to stalls. To my great surprise, my first stall recovery was awful, my second and third as well, and I just couldn’t seem to improve.

What was going on? Well, in a glider, stalls are pretty straightforward. Obviously, there is no propeller, so after pitching up and bleeding off the airspeed, the nose just drops straight down, without any excessive banking to either side. Throughout all this, the stick is in full aft position and after the drop, the pilot just relaxes the back pressure a bit. There is no pushing on the stick because the extremely aerodynamically clean glider recovers almost immediately and any gross stick movements would cause excessive acceleration.

However, in a powered aircraft, the nose drop is accompanied by rapid banking due to the spinning of the prop. Furthermore, to recover the aircraft from the stall, the controls need to be pushed forward pretty distinctively, otherwise the wing will remain stalled.

This is exactly what kept happening to me. The force of habit is strong and so without realizing it, I was not pushing the yoke forward, I just relaxed my back pressure a little. Even worse, as I was feeling extremely uncomfortable in the nose straight down, high bank attitude, I couldn’t help myself trying to immediately counter the high bank angle.

Turns out – and I should’ve known this – that when ailerons are applied while the wing is still stalled, they worsen the situation even further. That was the most shocking thing for me – why is the airplane still banking to the right when I apply full left aileron?!

We finished our exercise, flew back to the field where I redeemed myself a little by performing a pretty good crosswind landing on the grassy RWY 24R. But I had to think about the experience for the rest of the day. It wasn’t immediately clear to me what was I doing wrong – the above explanation took some time to pop up in my head.

We obviously practiced the stalls before, at the very beginning of my training, and I didn’t notice any problem. I’m not sure why it only revealed itself now but I’m sure glad it did! The biggest question that I kept asking myself was – if my instructor wasn’t there, would I be able to recover from the stall without his help? Because upon discovering that my bank correction was not working, I was pretty shocked. Not exactly frozen, but I wouldn’t say my thinking was the quickest, either. I guess that eventually I would have figured it out, but not without a substantial loss of altitude.

I also noticed that I felt extremely uncomfortable and anxious during the stalls. I’ve never felt that way in a glider but for some reason, stalls in a powered aircraft feel much more hostile and dangerous to me. I have decided to have a couple more dual flights focused on stalls to start feeling more at ease because I don’t want to be uncomfortable with any aspect of my flying. I’m going to see where that takes me. I even started thinking about taking up aerobatic training after getting my PPL to get rid of this fear of unusual attitudes.

I have two more flight hours ahead of me before my first dual cross-country flight so I’m going to make them count. Despite this minor problem, I’m enjoying my training more than ever. After all, it is all about rising up to the challenge, right?

Learning by Experience

June 25, 2018June 25, 2018 / Fly Like You Mean It / 5 Comments

Flying around Pribram, Czech Republic

It’s been a while since I last posted because there’s been a lot going on but I am happy to report that my training is progressing nicely and I am enjoying every single minute of flight. Since going solo, I think I have become a more confident and precise pilot, but I have also uncovered areas where I have a lot to improve.

The following weekend after going solo, I managed to knock off the remaining 15 solo circuits that were required by the syllabus. After that, it started getting more and more interesting – emergency and precautionary landings, flights into training areas, both dual and solo. And as the latter is still fairly new to me, I am enjoying every minute of these flights and the emotions associated with them.

Every time I start up the engine for a solo flight, it is a moment of pride for me. It still feels surreal to me that it is really just me and this little airplane, nobody else. I don’t know why because flying solo in a glider was a pretty standard experience for me for the past few years. Perhaps it didn’t feel this way because gliding is a social discipline – even when flying solo, one wouldn’t get off the ground without the help of a host of other people. Whatever the reason, I really enjoy this feeling of freedom and accomplishment.

It is much more, however – primarily, it is a valuable learning experience. Each time I’m up there alone, I’m learning new things, perhaps even more efficiently than with the instructor. I have my own space where I can do things my way and experiment a little, seeing what works best for me – well inside the boundaries of what I consider safe, of course.

When I mess something up, I am able to experience it in my own way. I have realized that it is much more valuable when instead of the mistake being caught and immediately called out by the instructor, I am free to recognize it myself, figure out the solution inside my head (or out loud) and then to overcome the problem and learn from it.

Two weeks ago, I was turning base to final turn for RWY 06R and as I rolled out, I realized that there still are a few skydivers from the last drop hanging low over the runway. I aborted my approach and announced on the local traffic frequency that I was avoiding to the right and that I was going to come back from right base. A few seconds later, an ultralight aircraft came on the frequency and announced their departure from RWY 24L. No problem, I had the ultralight in sight so I would stay clear of him, let him do his thing and then continue with mine.

At that point, I was flying away from the airfield, nearing the right base position and I had to make another right turn. After banking the wing, however, I immediately lost my visual with the ultralight. After rolling back out, I was flying on right base, nearing the final turn, with the ultralight heading straight for me – and I didn’t see them.

It was an uncomfortable moment but it resolved itself – the other pilot had me in sight and turned crosswind, maintaining enough separation from me. Immediately afterwards, another ultralight called left base for RWY06L, said he also had me in sight and that he was number two for landing. By that time, I was already on short final for RWY 06R and I assumed there is plenty of separation between us. I didn’t really try to look out for him, fully concentrated on my approach and landing.

Twenty seconds later, the ultralight rolled out on the final right next to me. It startled me a little bit, but I continued the approach. We landed next to each other, each of us on their runway, not more than 150 feet apart. He did his full stop, I did a touch-and-go and went back to the training area.

Aerial shot of Pribram, Czech Republic

The rest of the flight was pretty standard but this situation kept bothering me. I have been thinking about it a lot since then and obviously, there is a number of lessons learned from this short story.

If I report I have an aircraft in sight, I must do my best to maneuver in such a way that I don’t lose it;
If I lose the visual, I must be more proactive and maneuver to increase the separation regardless of the actions of the other pilot – in this case, I sort of waited for the other guy to report that he’s clear;
I need to maintain my situational awareness and not assume anything – I should have checked for the position of the other ultralight;
If I become uncomfortable about anything, I need to go around without hesitation, even multiple times if needed.

Fortunately, stuff like this doesn’t happen to me too often but I fly from a very busy uncontrolled field so this was a good reminder that I need to be on my toes all the time. If I was flying with my instructor that day, we most likely wouldn’t get in that situation because he would recognize it early and prevent it. But as a solo student, I got to experience it and solve it as best I could. Looking back, I am not happy with my performance but at least it provided me with a valuable lesson I won’t forget anytime soon.

After all, as the old saying goes, we all start with an empty bag of experience and a full bag of luck – and the goal is to fill up the former before emptying the latter…

First Solo

May 10, 2018May 9, 2018 / Fly Like You Mean It / 4 Comments

I have just climbed out of OK-OKF after my first solo here. I wasn’t able to wipe that smile off for quite a few hours!

It just so happened that I managed to forget all my stuff before setting off for the airport. I turned up for my solo without my headset, without my logbook, and without my cameras. Not the best start. But otherwise, it was pretty amazing.

The first solo has always been a first “trial by fire” for new pilots, a do-or-die moment (unfortunately quite literally). It is said that every pilot will remember their first solo forever and although there are different requirements for it in different countries, the significance of this first major milestone of any pilot’s flying career is recognized everywhere around the world. In the Czech Republic, the first solo consists of two circuits ending with full stop landings. After that, the trainee is not allowed to fly again that day.

Before finally being able to fly solo, though, I had to make a final few circuits with my instructor first, which went okay – I have somehow managed to convince him I am not going to get myself killed (and/or his plane destroyed). So before long, we were taxiing to the apron, where my instructor stepped out with one last “Good luck”. It was finally happening…I felt great. Just me and this beautiful little airplane.

Holding short of RWY 06R prior to my second solo circuit

I announced myself on the local traffic frequency (or RADIO, as the service is called in the Czech Republic), taxied back to the runway and took off. For a few seconds, I allowed myself to celebrate the achievement. I quickly discovered that it really helps to talk to myself out loud – I started reciting the different checklists I had to go through. I also commented on everything I was doing and thinking. It had to sound totally crazy but it was pretty reassuring.

The weather was beautiful but it was also quite windy and the turbulence from the thermals was nasty at times. Even so, the first circuit went well up until the point when I called left downwind and another aircraft did the same immediately after me. That made me nervous because as far as I could see, there was no other plane around me.

Not being particularly interested in colliding with another airplane, I kept looking for them with growing sense of alarm. While doing so, I forgot to stop climbing and ended up leveling off some 400 feet above the circuit altitude. Realizing this and also the fact that if there was other traffic, it had to be well below me, I shifted my gaze toward the ground and finally located another Cessna in front of me and slightly to my right.

The rest was easy – I followed them around the circuit and onto the runway. My instructor then gave me the thumbs-up to go for the second circuit. So in a minute, off I was again, knowing that this was my last flight of the day and therefore enjoying it even more.

There was no traffic on the circuit this time, so I could fully concentrate on myself. The second circuit was a little shorter because I did not have to extend to give more runway time to the traffic in front of me. I think I did okay, even though the landing was a bit floaty…

And that was it. I backtracked the active runway towards my flight school’s area, I shut down the plane and went to shake hands with both my instructors who worked with me so far. I got chewed up a little bit for that first circuit, specifically for not keeping farther from that second Cessna. I felt the distance had been enough, but apparently it hadn’t. Another lesson learned.

Cessna/Reims F-150M OK-OKF, LKPM, Czech Republic – May 8th, 2018

It was a perfect day, except for the fact that after finishing my first two solo circuits, I wasn’t allowed to climb back into the cockpit and go flying at least for another hour. I enjoyed it tremendously – I used to fly solo before, in a glider, but this was different. Somehow this feels like a much bigger achievement, even though it’s probably not – after all, it was the glider training where I was learning the fundamentals of flying, now I am just building on them.

Anyway, by going solo, I have crossed off the first item off my Aviation Bucket List. Yay!

I will hopefully log some more pilot-in-command time this weekend before going back to dual flights covering emergencies and precautionary landings. And after that, the wonderful world of cross-country flying is waiting…I’ve got my work cut out for me.

First X-Country, 100th Landing

May 7, 2018May 6, 2018 / Fly Like You Mean It / 3 Comments

Bubovice, Czech Republic (LKBU)

I booked OK-OKF for today to complete the last 90 minutes of dual circuit flying required by the syllabus. After that I would be able to go for an instructor checkride and subsequently to go solo. I expected it to be pretty non-eventful and, honestly, a bit boring, but it ended up being far from it.

After making three touch-and-goes at LKPM (pretty good ones, too!), my instructor surprised me by suggesting that we could break the routine and fly to another airfield nearby, one with much shorter, grass runway (and with no landing fees!). As breaking the routine was exactly what I was dying to do for the last few weeks, I was immediately onboard.

So for the very first time (well…I guess that the first familiarization flight does not really count), I got to leave the circuit and the intimately familiar ATZ of Pribram airfield and actually do a bit of sightseeing. We crossed Brdy (a stretch of rugged highlands southeast of Prague), flew over the ancient Karlštejn castle, and soon we were switching to local frequency for Bubovice (LKBU). Their 600-meter-long grass runway seemed a little scary to me, but I somehow managed to get us there in one piece.

Cessna 150 OK-OKF during our short break today at Bubovice (LKBU)

We made one more circuit for me to get used to different conditions there and, as I found out during my post-flight debrief, the second landing there was my 100th total since I started my PPL lessons. And to be honest, it was pretty crappy too, with a bounce and everything. Oh well…

After a short break (my instructor had to say hello to a few friends), we took off again and this time, we headed east, in the direction of Prague. On the southernmost edge of our capital, there is Tocna airfield (LKTC), a beautiful private airstrip. That place is significant to me because that’s where I got married last July so I was pretty happy that we got to go there. Back then, I had a pilot friend of mine to fly me to the wedding in a Piper 28. Now, just a few months later, I was flying there myself for the very first time.

We made a low pass and hurried back to LKPM to hand over the aircraft to another trainee. It was just a short, 60-minute round trip but it was something that I wanted to do for a very long time. The feeling of just maintaining the cruise and absorbing the view, instead of loitering around the field and bumping wheels against the pavement every 5-6 minutes, was simply awesome.

I am now super excited about going solo on Tuesday, I expect I will write another post about it and perhaps put together a video as well. After that, I hope to transition to more cross-country flying, hopefully making this blog much more interesting. There is only so much one can write about flying in the circuit…but I am really looking forward to having much more to write soon. I also hope I’ll be able to introduce you guys to some beautiful places in the Czech Republic.

Getting Comfortable in Heavy Crosswind

April 14, 2018April 14, 2018 / Fly Like You Mean It / 1 Comment

Cessna 150 OK-OKF landing on RWY 06R, LKPM, Czech Republic.

Last Saturday, once again I was doing laps around the airfield in the little Cessna. With winter behind us, we finally got a nice sunny day with high ceilings and unfortunately, also with strong 90-degree crosswind and severe (at least it felt severe to me) thermal turbulence. I also started to get back into gliding.

With my first solo just around the corner, it was a welcome opportunity to get solid with my crosswind landings. The windspeed was just beyond what was comfortable for me – if I was already solo, I definitely would not have flown that day. However, with my instructor beside me, this seemed to be a perfect learning experience designed to extend my comfort zone. So off we were.

I actually can’t write anything too specific about it. It felt like a fight for bare survival. We were getting thrown around pretty hard, the thermals made it difficult to maintain any consistency in the circuits and the final approaches were spiced up by two areas of massive sink. When I thought I was coming in way too high, I ended up short and had to use quite a lot of throttle to actually make the runway. The views were beautiful, but I had no time to appreciate them!

It felt extremely wild, though I am sure that it was just my lack of experience. My instructor seemed to be pretty comfortable during the flight. I hope that the next time I am in the air, which is going to be only in a couple of hours, the experience will feel much more comfortable. At least I now know that in this kind of weather, flying can turn into a weight-lifting workout…and that I need to react much quicker with pitch, trim and throttle at the same time.

L-23 Super Blanik OK-5323 just after landing.

It was fun, even if I felt a little intimidated just after the flight. Another great experience was my first glider flight in almost three years! It was great to be back, even though it turned out that I am quite rusty, and flying the Cessna certainly didn’t help with maintaining my glider pilot habits either. It will take some work to get back into it but I think I am ready to become a more active part of my gliding club again – and I believe that by internalizing the differences between glider flying and flying with an engine, I will become a better, more conscious pilot. I guess I will keep mixing it up for a couple of weeks and I’ll see what happens.

As I said before, I am heading to the airfield again today so I am curious what it’s going to be like today. I believe that with my first solo being near, I will finally have more interesting things to write about. It’s pretty hard to keep writing about the circuit practice again and again. I have also accumulated a couple of hours of footage from my circuits, but I need to actually bring some story into my flying that would enable me to create some interesting videos for you guys to watch. Coming soon, hopefully.

Flying Club Pribram, LKPM, Czech Republic.

Getting There…

March 25, 2018March 25, 2018 / Fly Like You Mean It / 3 Comments

Entering RWY 06R, LKPM, Czech Republic.

It’s been a while since I wrote my last post. I flew twice in February and once in March (yesterday, actually). I got to do some engine-out drills and go-arounds which spiced up my circuit routine. I feel that I am pretty much where I need to be to go solo but it turns out it’s not so simple.

Even though my instructor has been hinting at me going solo as early as mid-December, I didn’t know he actually wasn’t all that familiar with the progress of my training. The basic EASA PPL(A) syllabus consists of 45 hours of flight instruction, both dual and solo; however, holders of other pilot licences (glider and micro-light pilots) can have their training shortened by as much as 10% of their PIC time (but not more than 10 hours).

I have logged about 50 hours in gliders and powered gliders over the last few years, but I only have 20 PIC hours which makes for lousy 2 hours off of my PPL flight time requirement. But the problem is that I’m way ahead in the syllabus. I skipped the first few lessons (straight and level flight, turns, stalls etc.) and went straight to circuit flying. So even with the 2 hours scratched off and despite having some 10 flight hours and 80 landings at this point, I still don’t have the minimum flight time to go solo, as required by my flight school syllabus approved by the CAA.

So, I will have to rack up three more hours before going solo. I’m not complaining – it’s valuable training and there’s still plenty to learn. But even so, I’m dying to finally be able to actually fly somewhere, not just around my home field.

I’ll jump on it after Easter and I hope to go solo by early May, if I’m lucky and my family and work obligations don’t keep me from the cockpit again. In the meantime, I am keeping my motivation up by flying in one of these (even if only in the back):

Ryanair B738 EI-FIM being prepared for departure from BUD to PRG, 03/23/2018.

The picture is from my short trip to Budapest this week. And we’ve got another one coming up – at the end of April, we are going for our very first family vacation since the birth of our baby boy. We’re pretty anxious about flying with an infant but hope that everything turns out okay. If you guys have any experience and advice on flying with family and with small children, please share in the comments.

First Flight of 2018

January 25, 2018January 25, 2018 / Fly Like You Mean It / 3 Comments

After a long break from both flying and blogging, it is time for a short post about my (modest) progress.

Cessna 150 OK-OKF having her engine pre-heated.

I had my last flight lesson of 2017 on 16th December. For the very first time, I felt remarkably calm while flying, without a trace of nervousness or excitement. It was a great flight and I enjoyed it greatly. After that, I managed to almost stop thinking about flying and just enjoy prolonged Christmas holidays with my family. I wasn’t in a hurry to get back into the cockpit in the new year – the weather was awful and I was pretty busy anyway.

That’s why I only managed to fly again this last Sunday, 21st January. This flight presented another challenge for me, and a very exciting one. When I arrived at the airfield, it was covered with solid 10 centimeters of snow. I have never flown from a snowy runway before, not even during my gliding days, so this was certainly new!

Winter wonderland in Pribram, Czech Republic (LKPM)

Operating on snow comes with a set of its own challenges, most notably the inability to use brakes during taxiing and the difficulty with estimating height above the runway during landing. I admit I had to pull out my phone, quickly google “flying on snow” and read up a bit on the basic “dos and don’ts”. I was quite nervous during the first takeoff and landing but I quickly found out that it was not as hard as it looked like. All in all, it was a very enjoyable flight lesson with a very unusual, beautiful winter scenery for me.

So, I’m still not solo and that’s okay. After my long Christmas break from flying and considering my lack of experience with flying in snowy conditions, I wouldn’t want to go solo anyway. But I certainly hope that day is not too far away.

Even though a little late, I would like to wish you all the best and many successful landings in 2018. I’m sure it will turn out to be a wonderful year.

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