Latest / Flyer Magazine / What is the cost in 2026 for Private Pilot’s Licence? - The FLYER Show - 2nd April 2026

Transcript

What is the cost in 2026 for Private Pilot’s Licence? - The FLYER Show - 2nd April 2026 · Flyer Magazine

0:05
SPEAKER_06: Welcome to this week's fly show from Once Week.
0:07
SPEAKER_06: My name is Ian Seeger, I'm ATX, and I'm Dave Gorderwood.
0:10
SPEAKER_06: We'll be talking about learning to fly as we launch Learn to Fly Month.
0:13
SPEAKER_06: Super proud of that.
0:15
SPEAKER_06: A whole bunch of stuff in the news, but first, big thanks to SkyDemon for supporting this, and here is this week's top tip.
0:24
SPEAKER_04: Hi, I'm Tim from SkyDemon.
0:26
SPEAKER_04: Welcome to this week's top tip.
0:28
SPEAKER_04: In the pilot log, you'll have noticed that SkyDemon works out the minimum safe altitude for each leg of your flight.
0:35
SPEAKER_04: If your leg is planned below its MSA, we show it in red here, and also outline it in red in a virtual radar.
0:43
SPEAKER_04: There's a warning shown here, and you can fix it like this, which will reset the planned altitude for the leg to be the minimum safe altitude.
0:55
SPEAKER_04: But how does Skydemon work out the minimum safe altitude in the first place?
0:59
SPEAKER_04: Well, you're actually in full control over this.
1:02
SPEAKER_04: In the planning options, scroll down to minimum safe altitudes.
1:08
SPEAKER_04: Here you can tell SkyDemon how close you're prepared to get to terrain and obstacles, vertically as well as horizontally.
1:15
SPEAKER_04: For example, if you're going to be flying in mountain valleys, you'll need to narrow the horizontal terrain clearance to get an MSA that's helpful to you.
1:25
SPEAKER_04: And if I increase the minimum vertical distance from obstacles, our leg goes red again.
1:34
SPEAKER_04: Because I'm now exceeding the MSA.
1:37
SPEAKER_04: For our full user manual, go to skydimon.aro and choose help and support.
1:47
SPEAKER_06: MSAs.
1:48
SPEAKER_06: So some really good stuff in SkyDemon.
1:50
SPEAKER_06: Sometimes you have to dig around the menus a little bit to find it.
1:52
SPEAKER_06: But once you get it set up and you understand it, it's really important to understand it.
1:56
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
1:56
SPEAKER_06: What it's doing, then it's fantastic.
1:58
SPEAKER_08: Like Tim says, our manual is on the Sky Demon website.
2:01
SPEAKER_08: And you know what?
2:02
SPEAKER_06: It's a pretty bloody good manual.
2:03
SPEAKER_06: And it's updated super regularly as well.
2:06
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
2:06
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
2:06
SPEAKER_08: Must be one of the best products in the world for that.
2:10
SPEAKER_08: If Carlsberg made manuals, it would be the Sky Demon manual.
2:14
SPEAKER_08: Absolutely.
2:15
SPEAKER_08: Splendid.
2:16
SPEAKER_08: Well, I'm a bit concerned about the weather because the Easter weekend is rolling up on us with two bank holidays, and I'm feeling that it's not going to deliver.
2:24
SPEAKER_08: Shall we see what Simon has in store for us?
2:26
SPEAKER_08: Let's have a look.
2:27
SPEAKER_03: Evening all, I hope you're having a good evening.
2:30
SPEAKER_03: Looking forward to the Easter Bank holiday weekend.
2:34
SPEAKER_03: And it looks like there will be some flying to be found, but wow, it's a bit of a messy one.
2:40
SPEAKER_03: Just follow these charts through during the course of Friday.
2:43
SPEAKER_03: Look, it's quite breezy, it's cloudy.
2:45
SPEAKER_03: We've got outbreaks of rain around most of them across northern and western areas during the course of Friday morning.
2:51
SPEAKER_03: More persistent rain affecting northern England, getting into parts of northern Wales.
2:55
SPEAKER_03: But you see, even that is going to be breaking up as we go through the afternoon across parts of northeast England.
3:02
SPEAKER_03: Just about anywhere, though, exposed to the risk of some hill fog and cloud drifting onto western and southern coasts and hills.
3:10
SPEAKER_03: More persistent showers affecting western parts of Ireland, uh western parts of Scotland, sorry, and into Northern Ireland.
3:17
SPEAKER_03: And really about just a hit and miss sort of day.
3:20
SPEAKER_03: Windy in the south, I think the channel is going to be basically blocked with some low clouds and some drizzle at times.
3:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's just a mess through Friday, probably leaning into the non-verifiable for most of us.
3:34
SPEAKER_03: Now, into Saturday, again, quite a murky start to Saturday morning across many parts of England and Wales, better across northeastern Scotland, but yet another area of rain moving through Ireland, getting into western Scotland, as you can see here.
3:48
SPEAKER_03: That's a warm front again.
3:49
SPEAKER_03: And what that is going to be doing is wafting in moist, mild air from the southwest.
3:55
SPEAKER_03: It increases the cloud and brings us some drizzle across many western and southern coasts and hills, making for non-verifiable conditions here.
4:06
SPEAKER_03: Becoming better though through most inland areas of England and Wales, becoming more flyable in the afternoon.
4:12
SPEAKER_03: 3,000 foot bases tops at about 12,000 feet, but always quite murky and more persistent rain for western parts of Scotland and for the west of Ireland, with that rain becoming heavy at times as we go into the late afternoon and into the evening.
4:28
SPEAKER_03: Now, through the course of the night, that rain tracks its way eastwards into Easter Sunday.
4:33
SPEAKER_03: Eventually the front will clear away from south east England, but not before it's left a right old mess behind across parts of England and Wales, with some showery outbreaks of rain.
4:43
SPEAKER_03: Better across central and eastern Scotland, northern England, across Wales, across Ireland, heavier showers affecting western parts of Scotland going into Easter Sunday afternoon, and a few showers affecting western Wales and northwest England too.
4:58
SPEAKER_03: Much better though for the east and south.
5:00
SPEAKER_03: And the afternoon definitely on Sunday is a better option.
5:04
SPEAKER_03: Improved visibility, more broken cloud, 4,000 foot bases, typically around 10 to 12,000 foot tops, although QNIMs across western parts of Scotland and into northwest England.
5:15
SPEAKER_03: And then at the moment, Monday, holiday Monday, is looking a better day.
5:19
SPEAKER_03: Rigid high pressure builds in.
5:21
SPEAKER_03: Maybe murky to start the day at first, but that will be clearing, it will be lifting, the clouds will be breaking, and overall it looks to be a better sort of a day.
5:32
SPEAKER_03: So it's a messy weekend ahead.
5:34
SPEAKER_03: Now, if you've been to aviation weather school, I know you'll be using all your forecasting techniques at the moment to try and pin down those forecasts.
5:42
SPEAKER_03: And if you've not been to weather school yet, this is your chance.
5:45
SPEAKER_03: I am holding a live online course on the consecutive Tuesday evenings of the 12th and 19th of May between 6.30pm and 9 pm.
5:53
SPEAKER_03: I'll show you how you can better predict weather windows up to five days in advance.
5:57
SPEAKER_03: Forecast things like cloud bases, tops, winds, visibility, etc.
6:01
SPEAKER_03: Pretty similar to what I've just been doing here.
6:03
SPEAKER_03: And I will build your confidence in weather and get you flying more safely and more often.
6:08
SPEAKER_03: To book your place now, go to weatherschool.co.uk or use the QR code.
6:13
SPEAKER_03: Whatever you're doing, have a great, have a safe flying weekend and a very happy Easter.
6:19
SPEAKER_03: I'll see you next week.
6:20
unknown: Bye bye for now.
6:21
SPEAKER_05: Wow, that's a real mixed bag, isn't it?
6:23
SPEAKER_08: Yes.
6:24
SPEAKER_08: Maybe a flyable day or two, but not a full house.
6:28
SPEAKER_06: I just got a ping on my phone just before we started recording saying that there's a warning been issued for high winds in the UK.
6:38
SPEAKER_08: Weekend in the hangar.
6:41
SPEAKER_06: It's a great weekend to sit in the warm and look at some of those Sky Demon things that you can see around.
6:48
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
6:48
SPEAKER_08: A whole bunch of there's like the back catalogue of Sky Demon top tips.
6:52
SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
6:52
SPEAKER_06: Back catalogue of all sorts of things, really.
6:54
SPEAKER_06: Speaking of which, and we'll mention this later because why not?
6:58
SPEAKER_06: You should join the Flyer Club if you're not a member.
7:00
SPEAKER_06: Flyer.co.uk forward slash membership.
7:02
SPEAKER_06: Get access to everything we write, the free landing, so the full forums, plus our back catalogue.
7:08
SPEAKER_06: Webinars.
7:08
SPEAKER_06: Webinars.
7:09
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
7:10
SPEAKER_06: Fantastic stuff.
7:11
SPEAKER_08: Best bargain in GA.
7:12
SPEAKER_08: Absolutely.
7:12
SPEAKER_06: We'll come back to that later, regularly, until you all join.
7:16
SPEAKER_08: Okay.
7:17
SPEAKER_06: Right, news then.
7:18
SPEAKER_06: News.
7:18
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
7:18
SPEAKER_08: Who's first?
7:19
SPEAKER_08: You are.
7:20
SPEAKER_08: You are.
7:20
SPEAKER_08: I am.
7:20
SPEAKER_08: Ah.
7:21
SPEAKER_08: And this is the sad yeah, this is the sad news that um Sonic's aircraft have closed.
7:26
SPEAKER_05: Um that is really sad.
7:28
SPEAKER_05: I mean, there's such a fixture of Oshkosh for the event, aren't we?
7:30
SPEAKER_08: Well, yeah, partly because um Sonics are based at uh Whitman Field um and have been there, you know, since they were formed by uh John Monet.
7:39
SPEAKER_08: Um and uh this was a video statement uh put out um end of last week uh by current owner of the business, Mark Charbel, uh basically saying um that that they've reached the end, it's a perfect storm of challenges and um uh drop-off in sales, rising operational costs, and increased competition.
7:57
SPEAKER_08: W interestingly, he said from their own aeroplanes, like this the the Sonic's aircraft on the second hand market have ironically become their own competition to new kit starts.
8:08
SPEAKER_06: I mean that's that's I think that's the thing that that goes for a whole lot of people.
8:12
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, even though text run are not selling bonanzas anymore.
8:14
SPEAKER_06: If you wanted to buy a brand new bonanza, you would still go north of a million dollars.
8:18
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
8:18
SPEAKER_06: And you can buy some really, really, really nice used bonanzas for much less than that.
8:24
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
8:24
SPEAKER_06: Um and the same applies to pretty much all of them.
8:27
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
8:28
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
8:28
SPEAKER_08: But um yeah, Shabel uh he's been involved uh with Sonic since 2003.
8:32
SPEAKER_08: He and took ownership in 2022.
8:35
SPEAKER_08: He said the decision had been made suddenly as cash flow constraints left the business unable to consider uh continue trading.
8:42
SPEAKER_08: Uh and it was, if you haven't seen the video, it is a very it's a very personal, heartfelt statement.
8:48
SPEAKER_08: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
8:48
SPEAKER_08: It's a bit emotional.
8:49
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, and clearly, you know, it I Sonics occupied a segment of the Kit Play market that was uh considered by many to be it's like this is just the right sort of thing and it's keenly priced, um it used alternative engines, um, so you weren't necessarily tied to the expensive engine choices.
9:09
SPEAKER_08: Um and people are people are sad.
9:11
SPEAKER_08: I mean it's and it's a big blow for people building Sonic's kits who may not have all the kits available to them.
9:18
SPEAKER_08: Um as Schabell said, he said there have been other b high-profile bankruptcies recently in the kit plane industry.
9:26
SPEAKER_08: He said Vans.
9:27
SPEAKER_08: Vans, yeah.
9:28
SPEAKER_08: And he said the Sonic's story isn't gonna go that way.
9:31
SPEAKER_08: He said, I don't think there's there's a bailout package that's gonna help us.
9:35
SPEAKER_06: Maybe someone maybe someone is sat there right now going, I've got the money and I want to Maybe you're sitting there and you'd like an adventure in aviation and you'd like to show everybody how it's done by producing many, many kits people want at low cost.
9:48
SPEAKER_06: I mean, I think the ultimate problem is it's bloody expensive to produce kits and airplanes.
9:52
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
9:52
SPEAKER_08: It really is.
9:53
SPEAKER_08: You know, yeah.
9:54
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
9:54
SPEAKER_08: And and Sonyx had their own they essentially had their own line of engines as well.
9:58
SPEAKER_08: They had the Aero V engine that um that many of their designs used, and even that didn't seem to be the magic bullet for for success.
10:06
SPEAKER_08: And obviously that they just launched the the Sonyx High Wing, so um and much fanfare in terms of selling kits for that.
10:13
SPEAKER_08: So I f I fear a whole bunch of people are are gonna be gonna be struggling a little bit.
10:20
SPEAKER_06: I mean it's interesting.
10:21
SPEAKER_06: The aircraft that is the biggest selling aircraft at the moment is also the most expensive piston aircraft, you know, the whole Cirrus range.
10:28
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah.
10:29
SPEAKER_06: And they are they are the biggest sellers.
10:31
SPEAKER_06: Um and that's well north of a million dollars now.
10:34
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
10:34
SPEAKER_06: Beyond my price range for sure.
10:36
SPEAKER_06: But you know, the the it's really difficult to go and buy a new aircraft for not very much money.
10:41
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
10:41
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
10:43
SPEAKER_05: I think the s the most amazing thing about Sonics is that they made the jet, the personal jet.
10:47
SPEAKER_08: The Subsonics.
10:49
SPEAKER_05: I mean, that is a crazy project.
10:51
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, but but it's sold.
10:53
SPEAKER_08: It's sold.
10:54
SPEAKER_08: And I I think that was uh Sonics had would come up with unique solutions to brilliant, you know, to unusual problems sometimes.
11:03
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
11:03
SPEAKER_08: And obviously we were promised there was the potential of the two-seat Subsonics jet.
11:08
SPEAKER_08: Uh we never saw that, unfortunately.
11:10
SPEAKER_08: But um and Sonics were doing there was certainly some work where Sonic's little subsonic single-seaters were operating as drones.
11:19
SPEAKER_08: And it's one of those things where you go, gosh, there's a few fingers in different pies here.
11:24
SPEAKER_08: Maybe this'll this will help them keep going, but clearly whatever was happening, it wasn't enough.
11:29
SPEAKER_06: Well, we know when we went here, when we want to put more fingers in more pies, there's just not enough resources.
11:34
SPEAKER_06: There aren't enough fingers to go round is is the basic problem.
11:37
SPEAKER_05: Mine were only half the size after last week.
11:40
SPEAKER_06: Fingers cost money.
11:41
SPEAKER_08: That's it, yeah.
11:42
SPEAKER_08: Um also um just just literally got the news, but um also sad is that uh designer, Kip Belane designer Dean Wilson died.
11:49
SPEAKER_08: Now you well know Wilson because uh he was uh he was behind the Avid Flyer, which probably, I think you can say, revolutionized and inspired a whole bunch of other aircraft in the early 80s.
12:02
SPEAKER_08: I mean the Avid Flyer first flew in '83.
12:05
SPEAKER_08: Um and it's fair to say that uh the whole bunch of aircraft like the Kit Fox, the SkyRinder, the Just Highlander, the Eurofox and others, all kind of took some of that DNA and is still a successful formula nowadays.
12:21
SPEAKER_08: Um remarkable fact about um uh Wilson's work, uh Explorer Hubert DeShevne flew an avid flyer.
12:31
SPEAKER_08: Uh flew uh flew an avid flyer to the um uh to the North Pole uh in 1987.
12:39
SPEAKER_08: Um so um and then DeShevne and Wilson worked on an amazing airplane called the Explorer.
12:46
SPEAKER_08: You might remember that.
12:47
SPEAKER_08: The Private Explorer.
12:48
SPEAKER_08: No.
12:49
SPEAKER_08: The Explorer was like it was an amphibious um amphibious giant fly-along Camper airplane, two IO5 uh two Lycoming 540s.
12:59
SPEAKER_08: Uh it was built built for an It was built for an adventure.
13:03
SPEAKER_08: It did crash, unfortunately.
13:04
SPEAKER_08: And then they made another they made a replacement which is still around somewhere.
13:08
SPEAKER_08: Um but yeah, so there was that and then the pr the Explorer um create helped Wilson create the private explorer, which I think you you did you flight test it?
13:18
SPEAKER_06: Uh I didn't.
13:19
SPEAKER_06: I was sitting in the back.
13:20
SPEAKER_06: Oh, it was being flight tested.
13:22
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
13:22
SPEAKER_08: But that was essentially that was like a that was a single-engined um kind of personal camper, wasn't it?
13:28
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
13:28
SPEAKER_06: I mean it basically looks like a normal airplane that someone took a high-pressure airline, pumped it into the side.
13:35
SPEAKER_06: You know hydroforming.
13:36
SPEAKER_06: Yes.
13:37
SPEAKER_06: This was like hydroforming for telegraph.
13:40
SPEAKER_06: But it had a bed in the back and a kitchen.
13:42
SPEAKER_06: This one had a wicker chair and a little sink.
13:44
SPEAKER_08: Nice.
13:44
SPEAKER_08: Did you fly in the wicker chair?
13:46
SPEAKER_06: Uh yeah, I think I did.
13:49
SPEAKER_08: But yeah, so um, yes.
13:52
SPEAKER_08: A gazillion years ago.
13:53
SPEAKER_08: A gazillion years ago.
13:54
SPEAKER_06: But yeah, sad loss to aviation.
13:56
SPEAKER_06: Absolutely, absolutely.
13:58
SPEAKER_06: Okay, my turn for the next news story, I think.
14:00
SPEAKER_06: Haven't cut you out, have I, Dave?
14:02
SPEAKER_06: Okay, this is Amy Leversage, who's the General Secretary of BAUPA, a British Airline Pilots Association.
14:08
SPEAKER_06: They are increasingly worried about the cost of becoming a commercial pilot, which, uh whether you know it or not, is gonna be roughly speaking 100,000.
14:15
SPEAKER_06: Now, there will be people who go, it's not that cheap, you can spend a lot more.
14:18
SPEAKER_06: That is true.
14:19
SPEAKER_06: There's gonna be others who go, it's not that expensive, you can spend a bit less.
14:23
SPEAKER_06: That is also true.
14:24
SPEAKER_06: But effectively, most people spend around that amount of money.
14:27
SPEAKER_06: And Balper is saying that what we've got is this barrier that is just money.
14:32
SPEAKER_06: If you haven't got a hundred grand, which unsurprisingly, not many people have, um, or you can't find a way of rising uh raising a hundred grand, you are stuck.
14:41
SPEAKER_06: There are a few um fully sponsored courses, but compared to the amount of people who learn to fly commercially, that's a tiny, tiny amount.
14:48
SPEAKER_06: Um, and so they're proposing that we that we relaunch and get the uh the pilot apprenticeship up and running, that we make it available to um make student loans available because you can't get a student loan to for commercial training, and there are all sorts of other things that VAT, another thing that people have been going on about, shouldn't be on commercial training, etc.
15:07
SPEAKER_06: Um, and so Balpa are really bringing this to the fore and trying to persuade the government to uh to make it a lot easier and to get rid of what they're calling the paywall, you know.
15:14
SPEAKER_06: And it's true.
15:15
SPEAKER_06: For years we've heard airlines say, you know, we we we want more diversity, we want this to be open to everybody, but most of them haven't gone, it's okay.
15:24
SPEAKER_06: The easiest way to do that is we'll pay for you.
15:27
SPEAKER_06: Um there certainly are a growing number of those schemes, but ultimately it's gonna cost people who aren't on those schemes a load of money.
15:33
SPEAKER_08: And I presume I mean you talk about I mean obviously student loan and we think of university.
15:37
SPEAKER_08: In the States, I there are universities where you can become an airline pilot, right?
15:43
SPEAKER_06: Uh yeah.
15:44
SPEAKER_06: Well, in the States it's a very different situation.
15:46
SPEAKER_06: And most many universities I think I looked at it once, there was something like 163 universities in the States that have a flight department.
15:52
SPEAKER_06: Wow.
15:53
SPEAKER_06: Um because in order to fly for the majors in the US, I don't know if this is still the case, but it used to be the case that you needed a degree.
15:59
SPEAKER_06: Right.
15:59
SPEAKER_06: Not not for the regionals and stuff like that, but for the majors, which is what everyone was targeting ultimately.
16:04
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
16:04
SPEAKER_06: And so you'd have to go to university to get your degree.
16:07
SPEAKER_06: It didn't have to be in in anything aviation related, but it is.
16:10
SPEAKER_06: Although it generally was.
16:11
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
16:12
SPEAKER_06: And so you ended up with universities had an aviation department with a flight department.
16:15
SPEAKER_06: The big famous ones are University of North Dakota, Embry Riddle.
16:18
SPEAKER_06: Embry Riddle.
16:20
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
16:20
SPEAKER_06: And then but but even when you go away from those sort of big universities, even the smaller universities have their own flight departments.
16:27
SPEAKER_06: Yes.
16:27
SPEAKER_06: So Purdue being another one.
16:29
SPEAKER_06: Purdue used to have its own airplane.
16:31
SPEAKER_06: Why?
16:32
SPEAKER_06: I mean, they've all got lots of their own airplane.
16:33
SPEAKER_06: I can't.
16:34
SPEAKER_06: I'm trying to remember what it was.
16:35
SPEAKER_06: I think it was a big four-engine, possibly two-engine thing, and it would fly and it had this boom that would get wound down and it would transmit live television pictures from over all sorts of really funky historical stuff going on there.
16:48
SPEAKER_06: But every every year.
16:49
SPEAKER_08: Chances of us having universities in the UK?
16:52
SPEAKER_06: Well, there's a lot a lot of them have are they don't have flight departments, they tend to contract with other flight departments.
16:58
SPEAKER_06: So there are there are rather a small number of universities that have aviation-related degrees and they'll contract with other flight department providers.
17:06
SPEAKER_06: And that sometimes happens in the US as well.
17:09
SPEAKER_06: Sporters, for example, is a is the flight department for I think one of the University of Ohio's sections.
17:17
SPEAKER_06: But yeah, but I mean anything to make it more accessible.
17:19
SPEAKER_06: Um you know, we know that shows that we come along, there are unfortunately people who come through the door who have the aptitude, certainly have the desire, but don't have underground.
17:29
SPEAKER_06: And there there are still ways of doing it, but it's much, much harder.
17:32
SPEAKER_05: Whichever way you go into to be a c become a commercial pilot, it's really hard work and there's a lot of money, and it's there's so much at risk as well.
17:41
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
17:42
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
17:42
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
17:43
SPEAKER_05: I mean right at the moment, with jet fuel going in the way, it is gonna be a challenge.
17:49
SPEAKER_05: It's gonna be a challenge, yeah.
17:52
SPEAKER_06: Yep.
17:52
SPEAKER_06: Dave, your turn, Dave.
17:54
SPEAKER_05: Right, at the weekend, the British Microlight Aircraft Association, the BMAA, held its annual awards.
18:00
SPEAKER_05: But instead of going into a big tent at Popham when they have the microlight trade fair, they went into a proper venue and had a really nice event, really good event.
18:11
SPEAKER_05: Anyway, to find out a bit more about it, I had a quick chat with Owen Johns, the boss of the BMAA, and this is what he had to say.
18:19
SPEAKER_05: So, Owen, thanks for joining us on the Flyer Show.
18:21
SPEAKER_05: Um, how did the awards go?
18:24
SPEAKER_01: Uh they were absolutely fantastic.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're still really buzzing from what was a superb night um back on Saturday at Chesford Grange up in Warwickshire.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: We had 130 members, we had 11 award winners.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, it was just a superb night.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: Could you tell us about some of the award winners?
18:41
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, we had we had um 11 awards in total, um, and these have existed since the uh BMA was founded back in 1982.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we have a young person award, uh Laney Lindsay was presented with that.
18:53
SPEAKER_01: She's um she's doing uh an apprenticeship level four.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: Um Industry Award, Ballardo Airfield, they're doing some lovely things up in Scotland.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: Um the Kernan Youth Week team, based in Northern Ireland, they won the Keith Nigga Trophy.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: And if anybody knew Keith, he was certainly somebody who got things done, so that was named after him.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: Um Kath Spence was awarded the Patricia Ann Trophy for all the all the hard work that she's put into the BMAA.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: Um Tam Carr, he he was also somebody who won uh I think the Dawn to Dusk, he was nominated for that.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: Did a brilliant flight up in Scotland in his Eurostar.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: Um Mick Moulton, who is um one of our sort of unsung heroes.
19:31
SPEAKER_01: Uh, he had friends and family there and people from Cottage Farm, just for the fact he's got involved in the sport.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, the Seven Valley Microlight Club, which are really active.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: They won a new award, which is the Community Cohesion Award.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: And we also had our photo awards.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: And then we had a break for food, and then afterwards we finished off with the three three sort of awards, which were the chairman's trophy, which was awarded to Barry Underwood, who's a um a long-serving instructor in the East Midlands, really, really um just brings that whole area together.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: And then two medals of honour.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: Uh, one was for Dave Simpson, which I presented, uh, who is an engineer who does an incredible amount of work behind the scenes.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: Um, inspector number 25, I think he is.
20:14
SPEAKER_01: So he's been right at the early days of the sport.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then also fitting in with that theme of youth, um, Laney was the young person award.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, we went with a BMAA Medal of Honor for Rob Grimwood, who at 44 years old is probably one of the youngest recipients of the a medal of honour.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that's significant because he's been in the industry since he was a similar age to Laney as well, and has given an awful lot to the sport, not only in competition flying, but also as an industry instructor.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and he had two tables from Exodus flying there as well.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: So it was a great, really great night.
20:49
SPEAKER_05: Great, great.
20:50
SPEAKER_05: So will he be doing it again?
20:52
SPEAKER_01: Of course, of course.
20:53
SPEAKER_01: The feedback from everybody who's completed the evaluation so far is when can I buy next year's ticket?
20:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, when will it be held?
21:00
SPEAKER_01: And we'd love to we'd love to come back.
21:01
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a a vast improvement on what we used to do, which would be in a in a in a windy marquee at uh uh Popham just after the AGM.
21:09
SPEAKER_01: So I think it gives it the credit and the status and really brings the um microlighting community together.
21:16
SPEAKER_05: Thanks very much for your time, I mean.
21:18
SPEAKER_05: Great, thanks.
21:18
SPEAKER_05: I mean there's some really good categories in there.
21:20
SPEAKER_05: I think the the the what things like the Unsung Heroes and also the Kernan Flying Club in in Ireland, they uh they have this really good thing where they wanted to they've been talking for years about having uh uh a sort of a day to encourage young people to come and try flying.
21:38
SPEAKER_05: But a group of them just said, enough of talking about it, let's go and do it.
21:41
SPEAKER_06: Uh at the other end of the scale, away from the uh micro light category.
21:46
SPEAKER_06: Yes.
21:47
SPEAKER_06: Ed, you must have some news because we're next on here.
21:50
SPEAKER_08: Uh yeah, so this is um uh news for uh news for fans of air racing.
21:55
SPEAKER_08: Uh Roswell this year, which is the national championship air racing.
22:00
SPEAKER_08: Yes.
22:00
SPEAKER_08: Um uh they will have all the races, they say.
22:04
SPEAKER_08: Uh this is the big news that actually I n when they went to Roswell for the first year, Unlimited and Sport Class didn't go.
22:10
SPEAKER_08: Um and actually the big news for twenty twenty-six is that uh they will field a full race series from Unlimited all the way down to the Formula One.
22:20
SPEAKER_08: Um so biplane, T six, um uh uh sport class uh will all figure.
22:26
SPEAKER_08: So yeah, so big deal.
22:28
SPEAKER_08: Uh it's still it's still at Roswell, which is in the middle of nowhere, but Yeah.
22:32
SPEAKER_06: I saw a I saw a comment saying, Oh, that's fantastic.
22:35
SPEAKER_06: Now the the search for affordable accommodation begins.
22:38
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
22:39
SPEAKER_05: But Americans are very good at putting infrastructure in.
22:41
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
22:42
SPEAKER_08: And every and and certainly all the reports from Roswell in 2025 were that the the enthusiasm for the event on the ground was what kind of drove it.
22:53
SPEAKER_08: They're in the middle of nowhere.
22:55
SPEAKER_06: They need enthusiasm.
22:56
SPEAKER_06: I mean, you know, if the one thing that people in America don't lack is enthusiasm.
23:01
SPEAKER_06: They've only got to get off a ski lift and they're yelping.
23:06
SPEAKER_08: Because they can't help it.
23:07
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
23:07
SPEAKER_08: But but more reasons to go to Roswell, I think, is that is the main thing.
23:11
SPEAKER_08: So um that would be great.
23:12
SPEAKER_05: It's good to see it's back to its full strength.
23:14
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
23:15
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
23:15
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
23:16
SPEAKER_06: So what was the emerging class?
23:17
SPEAKER_06: Sport class was the emerging cloud.
23:19
SPEAKER_06: But that was also getting super expensive, I think, wasn't it?
23:22
SPEAKER_08: Well, yeah, certainly the the the top runners in sport class invest a huge amount in their aircraft.
23:29
SPEAKER_08: But there's there's a whole number of categories in sport class, um, particularly for RV flyers, um, you know, and people in in in kind of the simpler races, um, that was and sport was definitely had some of the most competitive rating.
23:43
SPEAKER_06: So well that's I think I think we'll take that as good news.
23:47
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, good news.
23:48
SPEAKER_06: Um, just a quick catch-up on last week's story.
23:50
SPEAKER_06: Last week's story is about the fuel price and and what's happening to the fuel price.
23:53
SPEAKER_06: But and over the space of the last week we've seen quite a few places either putting up their prices or announcing their intention to put out their prices, probably starting from the first of April.
24:03
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
24:04
SPEAKER_06: So um average prices that we that I've seen going up, uh average price is probably the wrong term, but some of them have been clustered around the 40 pence a litre.
24:14
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
24:15
SPEAKER_06: That's not total price, right?
24:16
SPEAKER_06: Unfortunately, that's an increase of.
24:18
SPEAKER_06: Increase of, yeah.
24:18
SPEAKER_06: Um so uh if you've got anything and you can see any any prices, then leave them in the comments for other people to see.
24:24
SPEAKER_06: But certainly a good check around to make sure, you know, if you can if you're looking to save some save some money and who isn't, then find those places that are still selling some previous shills they had.
24:32
SPEAKER_08: And tell us in the comments.
24:34
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and tell us in the comments, absolutely.
24:36
SPEAKER_08: Oh, before we go, um I I I attended the last regional Gasco safety evening.
24:43
SPEAKER_08: Very sad.
24:44
SPEAKER_08: But also brilliant, and reminded me of why Gasco, uh, while we may be losing Gasco, Gasco is a f has been a fantastic resource for general aviation.
24:54
SPEAKER_08: So um but uh yeah, so that was held at Kemble, uh, really well attended, and it was on the the subject of infringements and um and how to avoid them and things like that all around Bristol.
25:05
SPEAKER_08: So uh Yes.
25:08
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
25:10
SPEAKER_06: I was just wondering whether I was gonna say anything about that or not.
25:14
SPEAKER_06: I don't know.
25:14
SPEAKER_06: I went to I went to the A Popilot's Day ages ago.
25:17
SPEAKER_06: Yeah or not, it was earlier whenever it was, um at Old Warden, which was great.
25:22
SPEAKER_06: And there was a there was a section of that on infringements.
25:24
SPEAKER_06: And I have to say, there was a little bit of you know, the CA have embraced moving map technology and GPS, but they haven't embraced it as wholly as I wished they would.
25:33
SPEAKER_06: And there was there was some kind of there were some remarks that I thought didn't I mean I personally I think Sky Dream has absolutely revolutionized it and must have saved a huge number of infringements and all sorts of things.
25:44
SPEAKER_06: And rather than recognising that, I felt there was someone from the CA was basically trying to pick holes and looking negatively.
25:50
SPEAKER_06: And I thought it it did the whole thing a disservice, personally.
25:53
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah.
25:54
SPEAKER_08: And there was I I didn't want to go there, but there was some negativity about moving map apps.
26:01
SPEAKER_08: Just bonkers.
26:03
SPEAKER_06: I have tried to engage with the CA to to discuss this on a serious point, but nothing happened.
26:08
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, they decided they didn't want to engage.
26:11
SPEAKER_06: And I like to believe that's because they're wrong.
26:13
SPEAKER_06: You're wrong.
26:16
SPEAKER_06: Come on here and tell us why you're right.
26:20
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, well we I bet you we really would welcome the chance to have a chat with some of the people at the CA, wouldn't we?
26:26
SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
26:26
SPEAKER_05: There's quite a lot of things we've got.
26:27
SPEAKER_05: I have tried.
26:28
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
26:28
SPEAKER_05: There's quite a lot of things we'd like to ask them about.
26:31
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
26:31
SPEAKER_06: Yep.
26:32
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
26:32
SPEAKER_06: Right.
26:33
SPEAKER_06: Let's look to some positive stuff.
26:35
SPEAKER_06: The most positive thing you can Dave you can do if you're flying today is to join the Flyer Club.
26:40
SPEAKER_06: Uh, flyer.co.uk gives you access to everything we produce, whether it's written, whether it's video, whether it's on the forums, um, it gives you the webinars, there's a big webinar library, all sorts of things.
26:50
SPEAKER_06: Plus, of course, there's the landing fees.
26:52
SPEAKER_06: And this is a new month of a new test.
26:53
SPEAKER_06: Oh, yeah.
26:54
SPEAKER_06: Test is gonna be.
26:55
SPEAKER_06: Is it gonna be a pronunciation test?
26:57
SPEAKER_06: Oh, but I can see that coming up.
26:59
SPEAKER_06: So the free landing fees for April are orderly end.
27:03
SPEAKER_05: Audly end, yes, as well.
27:05
SPEAKER_06: Manchester button.
27:06
SPEAKER_08: Yes, yes.
27:07
SPEAKER_08: Sky.
27:08
SPEAKER_08: Sky and Ballado.
27:11
SPEAKER_08: Ballado.
27:12
SPEAKER_05: No, not Ballado.
27:14
SPEAKER_05: Ballado, surely.
27:16
SPEAKER_08: No.
27:17
SPEAKER_08: You say Ballado, I say Ballado.
27:19
SPEAKER_08: Well, we we do know that it's definitely not Balladoo.
27:22
SPEAKER_08: Balladie.
27:24
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
27:25
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
27:25
SPEAKER_06: And I would like to, I mean, much to Barton's in there, which is great.
27:28
SPEAKER_06: And I have to say, I've used Barton a couple of times last year.
27:32
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
27:32
SPEAKER_08: Lovely people too.
27:33
SPEAKER_06: Really nice people.
27:34
SPEAKER_06: It's not like you look at it sometimes if you're from if you're from the south, and you go, oh my word, there's the corridor anymore, but whatever it's called, North Transit, North West Passage or something.
27:45
SPEAKER_08: The transit, yes.
27:46
SPEAKER_08: Um the low transit passage, whatever it is.
27:49
SPEAKER_06: And you look at it, you go, ah, and and then of course, being as it's grass when you're just go, where's that grass patch?
27:55
SPEAKER_06: But it's absolutely fantastic place, really, really good.
27:58
SPEAKER_08: But yeah, fine recommended.
27:59
SPEAKER_08: Thank you to all four of those airfields for supporting uh the fly club members with free landings for that month.
28:05
SPEAKER_06: And look out for information on an upcoming webinar about flying in and around the Channel Islands.
28:10
SPEAKER_06: So uh as soon as Annabelle's got the information, Annabelle, are you watching?
28:13
SPEAKER_06: We're waiting.
28:14
SPEAKER_06: Um then that will be good.
28:15
SPEAKER_06: Great.
28:16
SPEAKER_06: Okay.
28:20
SPEAKER_08: So uh big news, it's Flyers, Learn to Fly Month.
28:24
SPEAKER_08: Whole month of April, Learn to Fly Month, and this year we are supported by British Airways.
28:29
SPEAKER_08: Fantastic.
28:30
SPEAKER_08: Fantastic.
28:31
SPEAKER_08: Thank you, British Airways, yeah, for supporting that.
28:34
SPEAKER_05: Yep, they've uh they've come in enthusiastically and uh told us a little things we want they want to do.
28:39
SPEAKER_05: Um so we're gonna get it on and do with them.
28:41
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
28:41
SPEAKER_05: What we're gonna be doing with Learn to Fly Month is really we've got a whole bunch of material on the website, and we're gonna be releasing you know more of this material as the month goes on.
28:51
SPEAKER_05: It's all being updated for 2026.
28:53
SPEAKER_05: Um fuel prices may need a bit more updating still, but uh we'll have to see about that.
28:58
SPEAKER_08: So uh what can people expect to find um through the month in terms of uh subjects covered?
29:03
SPEAKER_05: Well, the big feature, if you like, is um how much is your PPLA cost?
29:07
SPEAKER_05: Right.
29:08
SPEAKER_05: Um and that that's a really big subject.
29:10
SPEAKER_05: Um we we look back at the myths of the 10,000 pound uh PPLA.
29:15
SPEAKER_06: Well you give away too much.
29:16
SPEAKER_06: People, if you're watching this, put it in the thing.
29:18
SPEAKER_06: How much do you think a PPLA costs, and then we'll we will let you know.
29:21
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
29:21
SPEAKER_06: It's probably not even called a PPLA anymore, is it anyway?
29:24
SPEAKER_06: But you know what I mean.
29:25
SPEAKER_06: Yes.
29:26
SPEAKER_06: The IKA PPL.
29:28
SPEAKER_05: Yep.
29:28
SPEAKER_05: So there's an updated version of that big feature.
29:30
SPEAKER_05: Yep.
29:31
SPEAKER_05: Um and as we go through the month, we'll be releasing similar features on microlites, gyroplanes, helicopters.
29:37
SPEAKER_05: Gliding.
29:38
SPEAKER_05: Gliding, yes.
29:39
SPEAKER_05: And uh commercial training.
29:41
SPEAKER_05: Commercial flight training, yep.
29:43
SPEAKER_05: Uh and a whole bunch of other stuff, including things about medicals, uh and also what next?
29:47
SPEAKER_05: Once you've got your PPL, what you can do with it?
29:50
SPEAKER_06: I mean, I think, yeah, if if we're honest, there are a couple of things that the aviation industry needs, but the thing that drives everything is pilots.
29:57
SPEAKER_06: Without pilots, there is no general aviation industry.
29:59
SPEAKER_06: No.
30:00
SPEAKER_06: Um and everything starts from there.
30:01
SPEAKER_06: And you know, no one I say no one, that's probably not strictly true.
30:04
SPEAKER_06: Most people don't go out and go, I fancy buying an airplane today.
30:07
SPEAKER_06: I'm not a pilot.
30:08
SPEAKER_06: There you go, I'll buy that, I'll stick it in my hangar, I'll pay for it.
30:10
SPEAKER_06: No, nothing.
30:11
SPEAKER_06: That doesn't happen.
30:12
SPEAKER_06: That's driven driven by pilots.
30:13
SPEAKER_06: Airfields business driven by pilots, maintenance driven by pilots, aircraft is driven by pilots, the OEMs we're building, the engines and the avionics and everything else, all driven by pilots.
30:21
SPEAKER_06: We want more pilots.
30:23
SPEAKER_06: And the whole thing about becoming a pilot is if if you if you go, I quite like to learn to fly, it's a massively confusing subject.
30:30
SPEAKER_06: So we're taking the content, making it simple, giving people the things they need to do, and growing.
30:35
SPEAKER_06: Now, I reckon that most of you out there can fly already, but if you can't, if you can't, look out for this content.
30:40
SPEAKER_06: And if you can, look out for the content and share it with the people who can't.
30:44
SPEAKER_06: And if you've got to spread the word.
30:46
SPEAKER_08: And if you fly, this is a great month to take someone who's never flown flying.
30:51
SPEAKER_08: Because that it's we all know it, it's the beauty of flight is is absolutely infectious.
30:57
SPEAKER_08: You put someone so you put someone in the cockpit, and it's very, you know, how often do they come back and they go, That was terrible, I need to take up knitting.
31:04
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah.
31:05
SPEAKER_06: So I mean, if you do take someone flying, then refer them back to all of the material.
31:09
SPEAKER_06: Now, most of the material uh flyer is behind a paywall, but this will all be public.
31:13
SPEAKER_06: Public.
31:14
SPEAKER_06: So this will be open to everybody.
31:15
SPEAKER_06: Free to read.
31:16
SPEAKER_06: As a student forum is the only forum.
31:18
SPEAKER_06: So free to read.
31:20
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, so Flyer becomes for the whole month of April and onwards into 2026.
31:24
SPEAKER_08: Flyer becomes a go-to hub.
31:26
SPEAKER_08: If you're learning to fly, we want to be your home.
31:29
SPEAKER_08: Yep, absolutely.
31:31
SPEAKER_08: Very true.
31:31
SPEAKER_08: And there's something about if you go solo.
31:34
SPEAKER_08: Yes.
31:35
SPEAKER_08: What's that then?
31:36
SPEAKER_08: So it's the return.
31:37
SPEAKER_08: So when Flyer was a print magazine, we used to do um the famous Flyer solo cover um to celebrate your solo.
31:45
SPEAKER_08: And if you go solo uh in the month of April, uh then send us a photo and we will create a uh flyer cover in the style of our current PDF uh to help you celebrate.
31:56
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, absolutely.
31:57
SPEAKER_06: So because I think going solo is probably the pivotal, the first pivotal moment in a in in someone's flying company.
32:04
SPEAKER_08: Can you well everyone remembers their first solo, don't they?
32:07
SPEAKER_08: What was your first solo?
32:09
SPEAKER_05: Well, I if if in a way I had more than one first solo, if you can imagine that, because I went first solo flying was in a flex-wing microite.
32:17
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
32:17
SPEAKER_05: Uh and my That impresses me.
32:19
SPEAKER_05: And my my my next first solo was obviously in a in a fixed-wing aircraft.
32:23
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
32:23
SPEAKER_05: So the fur the the microlite one was at a little airfield uh near Sandy, Bedfordshire, microlight field.
32:29
SPEAKER_05: And there were the approach to this on this particular day with the wind coming from the north, the approach is over a whole bunch of trees right at the edge of the of the airfield.
32:41
SPEAKER_05: Right.
32:42
SPEAKER_05: So you come over these poplar trees, and then you have to really die for the ground.
32:46
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
32:46
SPEAKER_05: And so it was you know, it's it's it was pretty hair, pretty uh exciting.
32:51
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
32:51
SPEAKER_05: But I got I loved my flying mic, flex wing mic, rights.
32:54
SPEAKER_05: The only reason I went over to Fixwing was because I had several lessons cancelled.
32:59
SPEAKER_05: You got called.
33:00
SPEAKER_05: In a what did you I've used to riding motorbikes?
33:02
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
33:02
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you wear the gear.
33:04
SPEAKER_05: But uh it was just that I had several lessons cancelled in a row because of the conditions were a bit too windy or and I just thought, let's go and try fixed wing.
33:13
SPEAKER_05: And I kind of got hooked on it from there on.
33:15
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, but you could definitely see a path back to Flexwing, maybe.
33:18
SPEAKER_05: I I would love to go back to Flexwing, actually.
33:21
SPEAKER_05: And since my wife is about to ban me from riding motorbikes.
33:24
SPEAKER_05: Oh, that's perfect.
33:25
SPEAKER_05: Because I'm still a I get on a motorbike and I'm a 23-year-old hooligan again.
33:30
SPEAKER_06: Maybe I need to buy one of some of those low-value motorbikes you've got that aren't worth anything to you anymore.
33:35
SPEAKER_06: Ian, what about your first solo?
33:37
SPEAKER_06: I've got I've got three first solos.
33:39
SPEAKER_06: Oh, okay.
33:39
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
33:40
SPEAKER_06: First solo was in a glider, a Boschan two seat glider.
33:42
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
33:43
SPEAKER_06: Obviously it was and that was from uh Kivall.
33:46
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
33:46
SPEAKER_06: Okay.
33:47
SPEAKER_06: That was fantastic.
33:48
SPEAKER_06: I must admit, I couldn't.
33:49
SPEAKER_06: Was that a winch launch?
33:50
SPEAKER_06: It was a winch launch, yeah.
33:51
SPEAKER_06: And it was I loved it.
33:52
SPEAKER_06: Absolutely brilliant.
33:53
SPEAKER_06: It was just that feeling of being on your own.
33:55
SPEAKER_06: It was that was kind of like the one that sticks in my head.
33:58
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
33:58
SPEAKER_06: Then I did quite a lot of gliding, and then I did a solo in a PA28 Gulf Brother Killer Charlie Charlie from Gloucester.
34:05
SPEAKER_06: I remember that still flies today.
34:06
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
34:07
SPEAKER_06: Um and that that that was good.
34:08
SPEAKER_06: But it I don't want to say it wasn't any go, because it was, it was an amazing experience.
34:12
SPEAKER_06: But the the the glider one had been the real kind of oh my god.
34:17
SPEAKER_06: Right.
34:18
SPEAKER_06: And then lastly, um this is going back a long time, but after that, I did a helicopter solo in R22.
34:24
SPEAKER_06: Okay.
34:24
SPEAKER_06: And that was that was probably the most different because if you take, you know, instructor sitting next to you and you, yeah, the when you take off and it's like, hang on a minute, the sticks over here, this hang on a minute.
34:37
SPEAKER_06: And I bust my altitude that I was trying to get to downwind because the performance and the whole thing is is so much better with one person rather than two.
34:45
SPEAKER_06: Um, but the three of those were kind of like yeah.
34:48
SPEAKER_06: But the botion, that was probably That's what you remember.
34:52
SPEAKER_06: That's that's kind of what I remember because that was the you know that that first time of being up in here and I'm going, Am I gonna get this done?
35:00
SPEAKER_08: I um I learned at uh at Clacton.
35:02
SPEAKER_08: I I'd saved up when I was a kid.
35:04
SPEAKER_08: Uh Farage International.
35:07
SPEAKER_08: I'd I'd I saved up as a kid um uh birthdays and Christmas for a few years, and uh during one uh one long summer holiday I went to Clacton to do the famous three-week residential PPL.
35:19
SPEAKER_08: And uh so my solo, first solo was in August 1994 on um a super cub, Golf Alpha Romeo Alpha Mike, uh which appeared on a few magazine covers at the time at the time because they were because you went solo.
35:33
SPEAKER_08: No, no, no, just because you know I think Clacton did a very good job of promoting the fact they were teaching on tailwheel.
35:38
SPEAKER_08: But um I d my overwhelming um memory of that was that uh the instructor got out and I taxied to the end of the runway, and there was a footpath, there is a footpath across the runway at Clacton, and literally as I was about to go, a d no never been anyone on the footpath before.
35:54
SPEAKER_08: But then this this dog walker appeared.
35:56
SPEAKER_08: It's like I'll just sit here just waiting for you to cross.
36:00
SPEAKER_08: Don't get this one wrong.
36:01
unknown: Don't get this one wrong.
36:02
SPEAKER_08: So yeah, that was my first high-load.
36:04
SPEAKER_08: But yeah, I there's you turn around and you go, There's no one here.
36:08
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it's a weird thing.
36:09
SPEAKER_06: It's a big thing.
36:10
SPEAKER_06: So if you can if you remember, can you remember how much you paid to fly back in the R.
36:15
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, it was I think it was three thousand a little bit over three thousand pounds.
36:19
SPEAKER_08: Which sounds little, but it was nineteen ninety-four, so I guess with inflation that's gonna be a probably seven and a half, nearly eight grand nowadays.
36:29
SPEAKER_06: I I paid two thousand seven hundred and ninety-five through archer flight training at Gloucester.
36:33
SPEAKER_06: Gloucester.
36:34
SPEAKER_06: Right.
36:34
SPEAKER_06: And that was payable in three chunks, I remember.
36:37
SPEAKER_05: Well, I pay for it lesson by lesson.
36:39
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
36:39
SPEAKER_05: I don't remember the price of the micro-like lessons, but the the uh the 152 that I learned in at Henlow, Golf Brother Golf Alpha Alpha.
36:48
SPEAKER_05: Everyone knows.
36:49
SPEAKER_05: Everyone remembers.
36:50
SPEAKER_05: But that was£58 an hour.
36:52
SPEAKER_05: And I and I I don't actually remember how many hours I took altogether, but presumably it was about£45.
36:57
SPEAKER_05: So that works out at yeah, about three grand.
37:00
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
37:00
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
37:01
SPEAKER_06: So we we mentioned earlier um about the the average cost of a PPO and the myth of the£10,000 PPO which people have been talking about.
37:09
SPEAKER_06: So our research shows what?
37:11
SPEAKER_06: Well, uh we have a range uh a range of prices as you expect, depending on you know where you are in the country and which aircraft you're learning on.
37:19
SPEAKER_06: But realistically speaking, uh, and this is given the fact that you know most people don't do it in the minimum time, yeah.
37:24
SPEAKER_06: Um, it's it it's between 14 and 19,000 pounds of the price.
37:29
SPEAKER_06: Yes, you can find some cheaper, yes, you can find some more expensive, but we got some pretty detailed cost breakdowns for those.
37:35
SPEAKER_06: And at first, point, you go, bloody hell, that's a lot of money.
37:39
SPEAKER_06: You know, when you take someone flying for the first time, I'd love to learn to fly, what's it gonna cost me?
37:42
SPEAKER_06: If you turn around and go 19 grand, they're gonna go, well, maybe they're not, maybe they're going, I thought it was gonna be much more expensive.
37:50
SPEAKER_06: Um, but bear in mind, you know, we we definitely don't suggest that people pay up front.
37:54
SPEAKER_06: No.
37:54
SPEAKER_06: You pay as you go, it's probably gonna take most people 18 months to two years.
37:59
SPEAKER_06: So once you break it down, it's not quite as shocking.
38:03
SPEAKER_05: And I think you've got to go into it thinking, I'm gonna enjoy the whole process.
38:07
SPEAKER_05: Because learning to fly is really hard.
38:09
SPEAKER_05: I mean, just you know, the round exams and and the learning in the air, it's really hard.
38:14
SPEAKER_08: It is hard, but it is massively rewarding.
38:17
SPEAKER_08: It is.
38:19
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah.
38:19
SPEAKER_08: Uh and I think it's it's it's uh it's something that stand because nowadays the world is all about instant gratification, isn't it?
38:27
SPEAKER_08: It's like it's like hit that button, buy that now.
38:30
SPEAKER_08: But flying isn't like that.
38:32
SPEAKER_08: It's um it's about your investment and your kind of love in the action of learning.
38:37
SPEAKER_06: There's there's still the if if I could go back and change any one thing, yeah, I would I would go back and change and force myself to try and force myself to enjoy it more during the process.
38:46
SPEAKER_06: Because I remember certainly in the the SCP, yeah.
38:50
SPEAKER_06: I really want to go solo, I really want to go solo, and I go, why am I not going solo kind of thing?
38:54
SPEAKER_06: And then okay, then I really want to do cross countries.
38:56
SPEAKER_06: And it was like just putting something, chill, enjoy, yeah, learn.
39:00
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
39:02
SPEAKER_06: Because you know you you never get someone and go, Oh, I wish I'd learnt less.
39:05
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
39:07
SPEAKER_05: What I would do actually this time, having learned a bit more, is Pooley's have a very good publication, which is basically the whole PPL course, all the exercises laid out in order, and there's places, you know, there's there's bits of text to learn and things like that.
39:23
SPEAKER_05: So be a very organized structured course.
39:26
SPEAKER_05: I must admit, when I went when I learned, I was kind of winging it, if you like, the whole time.
39:31
SPEAKER_08: And obviously, we've talked about uh the average cost for a PPLA, but there are other there's there's lower cost options, there's the NPPL, you can learn on microlites.
39:39
SPEAKER_08: Uh you can start with gliding.
39:40
SPEAKER_06: Gliding.
39:40
SPEAKER_06: I I started with gliding and really, really enjoyed it.
39:44
SPEAKER_06: The only reason I stopped gliding was I ran out of time.
39:46
SPEAKER_06: It's it's a commitment that at the time took you know pretty much all day and I didn't have lots of spare days.
39:51
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
39:51
SPEAKER_06: Um but it was it was fantastic.
39:53
SPEAKER_06: I wouldn't change that for the world.
39:54
SPEAKER_06: Gliding's amazing.
39:55
SPEAKER_05: And the important thing is that uh these days there is a pathway through from a microlight license to a glider.
40:01
SPEAKER_08: If you want to be an airline pilot, you can start at microlight.
40:04
SPEAKER_05: You can.
40:05
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
40:05
SPEAKER_05: That's a recent change.
40:06
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
40:06
SPEAKER_05: It's very good.
40:07
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
40:07
SPEAKER_06: Excellent.
40:08
SPEAKER_06: Good.
40:08
SPEAKER_06: We'll keep out keep an eye out for that stuff throughout the month.
40:10
SPEAKER_06: Don't forget, uh, there'll there'll be all sorts of content, there'll be social media stuff, but spread the word.
40:15
SPEAKER_06: We need more pilots.
40:16
SPEAKER_06: Yep.
40:17
SPEAKER_06: Let's have more pilots.
40:18
SPEAKER_06: And once again, thank you very much to British Airways for supporting it.
40:20
SPEAKER_08: Yep.
40:21
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
40:21
SPEAKER_08: And obviously, do tell us.
40:22
SPEAKER_08: I know the joy of learning to fly is being able to share your story.
40:26
SPEAKER_08: So tell us about your first solos.
40:28
SPEAKER_08: Yes.
40:29
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
40:29
SPEAKER_08: Absolutely.
40:30
SPEAKER_08: Absolutely.
40:31
SPEAKER_08: Right.
40:34
SPEAKER_08: What caught my eye?
40:35
SPEAKER_08: What did catch your eye?
40:36
SPEAKER_08: I'm going to go to Ian first.
40:38
SPEAKER_08: Yes.
40:39
SPEAKER_08: Ian, tell me what caught your eye.
40:41
SPEAKER_06: One of my first.
40:42
SPEAKER_06: Well because I say so.
40:44
SPEAKER_06: Okay, fair enough.
40:45
SPEAKER_06: Um, what caught my eye was a couple of videos that I saw on the internet, one after the other.
40:50
SPEAKER_06: Obviously, didn't watch them both at the same time, but they were kind of two videos of a two-part series.
40:54
SPEAKER_06: I don't think it's going to be a third part, but you never know.
40:56
SPEAKER_06: Right.
40:57
SPEAKER_06: Um, and this is you remember the kit fox that Trent Palmer used to fly there the Freedom Fox.
41:01
SPEAKER_06: Freedom Fox, and and he sold that, and uh he sold that to a guy called Dave Rowe.
41:06
SPEAKER_06: Yes.
41:06
SPEAKER_06: Um and to cut the cut long story short, Dave Rowe was basically he was gonna go and fly to Alaska and he had a bit of an engine issue, so he got a new engine.
41:14
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
41:15
SPEAKER_06: And he was gonna do some other flying and sort of had a bit of time to burn, and he was he was flying down Hell's Canyon.
41:21
SPEAKER_06: Yes.
41:21
SPEAKER_06: Um, which is an absolutely spectacular place to fly.
41:25
SPEAKER_06: I haven't flown there, but I've got to be.
41:26
SPEAKER_06: This is in Oregon on the Snake River?
41:28
SPEAKER_06: Oregon and Idaho on the Snake River.
41:30
SPEAKER_06: And it is the kind of deepest river canyon in the US.
41:35
SPEAKER_06: But it's six six thousand feet or something.
41:36
SPEAKER_06: Something like that, yeah.
41:37
SPEAKER_06: Something like that.
41:38
SPEAKER_06: It's it's pretty, pretty, pretty 7,993, according to my notes.
41:43
SPEAKER_06: Okay.
41:43
SPEAKER_06: Um good notes.
41:44
SPEAKER_06: Anyway, so flying along in this canyon, and and it's a it's it's part of a huge recreational area, but it's super sparsely populated.
41:52
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, like there's no roads, no houses, no, no stuff like that.
41:55
SPEAKER_06: No.
41:55
SPEAKER_06: Da da da da da da.
41:56
SPEAKER_06: Um cameras rolling.
41:58
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
41:58
SPEAKER_06: Because obviously Freedom Fox Adventures is a YouTube channel.
42:02
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
42:03
SPEAKER_06: Um and it was a fuel problem.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: How long's fuel pressure?
42:15
SPEAKER_06: You look at it, you go, there ain't nowhere to land down there.
42:18
SPEAKER_06: No.
42:19
SPEAKER_06: It's not graced with lots of sandbanks and other places.
42:23
SPEAKER_08: No, but amazingly.
42:24
SPEAKER_06: Amazingly.
42:25
SPEAKER_08: There was a he he identified a small patch.
42:28
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, the only bit of sp flat ground, I think, that he he could see.
42:31
SPEAKER_06: But it wasn't super long, I don't think.
42:33
SPEAKER_06: No, it did like two, three hundred feet.
42:35
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, trees and boulder and stuff like that.
42:37
SPEAKER_06: Did a 180 turn in a narrow narrow canyon, and the the videos got the stallwater going off, going around the turn, and I'm going.
42:44
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, it's tight.
42:45
SPEAKER_06: Put it down, rolled up a hill, which obviously helps break things.
42:49
SPEAKER_06: And talking about breaking things, there was he hit a couple of trees, didn't he?
42:52
SPEAKER_06: Trees and stuff like that, and did some damage to the aircraft.
42:55
SPEAKER_06: And that was video one.
42:56
SPEAKER_06: Um, and that was it was the production value was really high.
42:59
SPEAKER_06: There was stuff going on in the airplane, and that was spliced in with an interview, a pretty emotional interview, it has to be stunning.
43:05
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, it was it was it was stunningly produced.
43:08
SPEAKER_06: It was it was yeah, yeah.
43:09
SPEAKER_06: I I mean I don't want to upset Henry, but it was Yeah.
43:13
SPEAKER_06: It it set the bar high for us.
43:14
SPEAKER_06: It set the bar high for us, yeah.
43:16
SPEAKER_06: So um and and the comments were pretty much not exclusively, but I would say you know, 90 to 95% positive, you know, fantastic, fantastic handling, uh, etc.
43:29
SPEAKER_06: etc.
43:29
SPEAKER_06: etc.
43:30
SPEAKER_06: Then came video two.
43:31
SPEAKER_06: Then came video two, which is about what happened next.
43:34
SPEAKER_08: Um because you'll go, well, he's in a he's he's on a sh on a tiny bit of patch of land with a damaged aeroplane, you know, unknown issue caused him to land there.
43:45
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, because he had one tank Video one, basically there was one of the kit fox tanks that wasn't feeding, one of the kit fox tanks that fed and then had nothing left to feed.
43:56
SPEAKER_06: And in it in a kit fox, the fuel I mean, the the experimented aircraft.
44:00
SPEAKER_06: So there are various different fuel systems.
44:02
SPEAKER_06: But effectively you've got two tanks feeding ahead of a tank.
44:05
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
44:05
SPEAKER_08: And he's and he and basically he said, I've got a fuel pressure problem, and that was it, yeah.
44:10
SPEAKER_08: Caused little or no power for the engine.
44:12
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, and this was a new engine as well.
44:15
SPEAKER_08: Brand new rotators 916.
44:17
SPEAKER_06: I think it was 915, I think, maybe.
44:19
SPEAKER_06: Was it?
44:19
SPEAKER_06: Okay, right.
44:20
SPEAKER_06: Um anyway.
44:22
SPEAKER_06: A second video came along and he said he said, I I think I I think I can fly this out there.
44:28
SPEAKER_06: I've checked it.
44:29
SPEAKER_06: Th the the it looked like a little bit of lead, a very little bit of leading edge damage, looked like some damage on the strut potentially, which is a bit that worried me, and the tailwheel was was kind of short and some yeah, the tailwheel and some of the structure on the fuselage looked a bit twisted and yeah, you know when you know if you twist the fuselage sometimes the the fabric ripples, fabric ripples, and you go, it doesn't look quite right.
44:50
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
44:50
SPEAKER_06: But anyway, he decided he was gonna fly it out and you know, made a load of phone calls and talked to a whole load of people, etc.
44:56
SPEAKER_06: etc.
44:56
SPEAKER_06: etc.
44:57
SPEAKER_06: Uh and as it turns out, flew it out.
45:00
SPEAKER_06: There was a guy who gave him a lift back in it in a jet boat, yeah.
45:03
SPEAKER_06: He was there filming it from the ground.
45:05
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, it was it again, it was a beautifully, beautifully produced rescue, wasn't it?
45:09
SPEAKER_06: Because it was like shot with drone footage and in camera and shot from the boat and the guy from the boat does has got his own YouTube, does some YouTube stuff for it?
45:16
SPEAKER_06: So he bought his camera and his drone and stuff like that.
45:19
SPEAKER_08: So they they But I comments-wise for the second video.
45:23
SPEAKER_06: It kind of flipped, and there's people going, um great flying, but you're mad.
45:28
SPEAKER_06: Terrible decision making one.
45:30
SPEAKER_06: Etc.
45:30
SPEAKER_06: etc.
45:31
SPEAKER_06: etc.
45:31
SPEAKER_06: And that's kind of that's kind of kicked off the there was even people going, yeah, well, I've seen this before, except this time he didn't have a parachute.
45:38
SPEAKER_06: Parachute on.
45:41
SPEAKER_06: Insinuating that he was a kind of another stunt like Trevor Jacobs pulled.
45:46
SPEAKER_06: Um and uh yeah, so an interesting balance between the two videos.
45:52
SPEAKER_06: I'm not sure whether there's gonna be a third video or whether we've seen the end of it, or whether someone else is gonna come along and and kind of look at it all.
45:58
SPEAKER_08: There's lots of information and stuff.
46:00
SPEAKER_08: There was there were a few comments on the second video going.
46:02
SPEAKER_08: Uh you know, I bet the internet's gonna come along and pick this apart.
46:05
SPEAKER_08: So I mean the internet does that all the time, doesn't it?
46:09
SPEAKER_06: Yes, for sure.
46:10
SPEAKER_06: Um anyway, I've certainly had people suggest that I think things are anyway.
46:14
SPEAKER_08: Well we'll we'll put we'll put a link in the in the description to the videos.
46:18
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
46:18
SPEAKER_06: Go and watch Freedom Fox Adventures and Freedom Fox Adventures, have a look at it, have a look at the the comments, have a look, and then make your end mode up and let us know.
46:26
SPEAKER_06: Let us know what you think.
46:27
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah.
46:27
SPEAKER_06: But yeah, I mean the good news is um an aviators live to survive and an aeroplane.
46:33
SPEAKER_08: Live to survive another day.
46:35
SPEAKER_08: Absolutely.
46:35
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah.
46:36
SPEAKER_08: Dave, what did you find?
46:38
SPEAKER_05: Well, do you remember the 1964 Bond film called Goldfinger?
46:41
SPEAKER_08: Might be one of the I don't I I'm not into best of the Bond films, but that was probably that may be regarded as one of the best.
46:49
SPEAKER_05: One of the best, absolutely.
46:50
SPEAKER_05: And of course it has Sean Connery in who some might say was probably the best Bond.
46:54
SPEAKER_05: Anyway, it the era one of the aeroplanes featured in that film was a Piper PA28, a Cherokee 180, um, flown by um Ola Blackman, British actor.
47:05
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
47:06
SPEAKER_05: And her her her uh stage uh film name, if you like.
47:09
SPEAKER_05: Did she really fly it?
47:10
SPEAKER_05: Or was it just in the film?
47:11
SPEAKER_08: Actually fly it.
47:12
SPEAKER_05: Well, yeah, in the film, in the film.
47:14
SPEAKER_08: But there was a famous flying circus, wasn't there?
47:15
SPEAKER_05: There was a famous flying circus called Pussy Gallore's Flying Circus.
47:19
SPEAKER_08: Yes.
47:20
SPEAKER_08: Which was all Piper Cherokees, wasn't it?
47:22
SPEAKER_05: All Piper Cherokees, all flown by very attractive young blonde women.
47:25
SPEAKER_06: I mean, great aircraft, but I'm not sure you'd choose a whole load of them for a flying circus, really.
47:29
SPEAKER_08: It was it was an odd choice at the time, but hey, it was it was the Cherokee was new and exciting, wasn't it?
47:35
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
47:35
SPEAKER_08: Product placement, probably.
47:36
SPEAKER_08: And and of course it figures in the film because they use it to disperse the it's a bond villain tool and it's used to disperse gases.
47:43
SPEAKER_05: That's right.
47:43
SPEAKER_05: If you remember the story of Goldfinger, Goldfinger's the chap, the the the villain.
47:47
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
47:48
SPEAKER_05: Um he wants to contaminate all the gold in Fort Knox um with a a nuclear device.
47:53
SPEAKER_05: And by doing that, his own holdings of gold will be go up in value.
47:58
SPEAKER_08: And of course, it's it's it's a Bond film, therefore it has to be done in the most complex possible way.
48:03
SPEAKER_05: Anyway, yeah, the aircraft uh that was featured that uh Putti Glorf uh flew, yes, um, it's come up for sale.
48:10
SPEAKER_05: No way in the it's on sale in in Phoenix.
48:15
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
48:15
SPEAKER_05: Um it's$90,000.
48:17
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
48:18
SPEAKER_05: Which for a 1963 Cherokee 180 is quite punchy.
48:21
SPEAKER_05: Sounds quite punchy, but it has been thoroughly looked after and well well overhauled.
48:25
SPEAKER_05: Got a brand got a new engine in it.
48:27
SPEAKER_08: I see it's not it's not in its original colours.
48:30
SPEAKER_05: No, no, no, they've they've given it a different package.
48:32
SPEAKER_05: You'd have to return it, wouldn't you?
48:33
SPEAKER_05: You'd have to return it.
48:34
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, and I and I have seen it because this part is it this has been quite popular across Facebook, and uh a few people have been going, someone needs to buy this and put this back in the flying circus.
48:43
SPEAKER_06: I can't remember the film, I may not have even seen it, but was did it have like a rig to disperse stuff on it?
48:50
SPEAKER_08: There was there was and it was classic Bond, there was like some little they almost looked like little soda stream gas cylinders.
48:56
SPEAKER_08: And you go, that's that would be that would have no effect whatsoever, because it would be they were like type.
49:00
SPEAKER_08: Well are they like under the wings?
49:01
SPEAKER_08: Under the wings on on PA28 hard points.
49:04
SPEAKER_05: The idea was that the gas would par would lay out immobilize all the all the security forces.
49:12
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
49:13
SPEAKER_06: But yeah, I mean you'd have to you'd have to put those back because they're presumably not on it at the moment.
49:16
SPEAKER_06: No, no, not so.
49:17
SPEAKER_06: You'd have to put those if you had that, if you bought that, you've got to do that, haven't you?
49:20
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
49:20
SPEAKER_08: I mean you've got to put some like Yeah, I'm hoping.
49:22
SPEAKER_08: I mean, if if there's one uh one little hope for Oskkosh is that between now and then someone gets it.
49:28
SPEAKER_08: Because that would that would be a strong contender in the classic park, wouldn't it?
49:31
SPEAKER_05: Wouldn't it, just it it it is actually uh I thought the name Pussy Galore must have been made up for the film, but it is actually in Ian Fleming's original book, written in 1959.
49:40
SPEAKER_05: Oh, okay.
49:41
SPEAKER_05: But it wasn't called Pussy Galore's Flying Circus that it was Pussy Galore and the Cement Mixers.
49:46
SPEAKER_05: How bizarre.
49:47
SPEAKER_05: Really bizarre, yes.
49:48
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
49:48
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
49:48
SPEAKER_05: Anyway.
49:49
SPEAKER_08: Anyway, someone needs to buy that aeroplane.
49:51
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
49:51
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
49:52
SPEAKER_08: Fantastic.
49:53
SPEAKER_08: Not us, no, but somebody else.
49:55
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
49:57
SPEAKER_08: As for me.
49:59
SPEAKER_08: Yes.
49:59
SPEAKER_08: And it's new and exciting.
50:01
SPEAKER_08: It's this, the 86 uh PSE.
50:04
SPEAKER_08: And that's you might be going, 86?
50:06
SPEAKER_08: That's uh that's the Harvard, that's the World Time Trainer.
50:09
SPEAKER_08: Well, this is not.
50:09
SPEAKER_08: This is a tri-surface.
50:11
SPEAKER_08: PSE, did you say?
50:12
SPEAKER_08: PSE, which stands uh for um uh it does stand for something.
50:17
SPEAKER_08: And I it's not I've I've deleted that out of my notes.
50:20
SPEAKER_08: It does.
50:21
SPEAKER_08: It does.
50:22
SPEAKER_05: Was it Performance, safety and economy.
50:25
SPEAKER_08: Economy, yeah.
50:26
SPEAKER_08: There we go.
50:26
SPEAKER_08: We've saved the day.
50:27
SPEAKER_08: Um but anyway, this is a tri-surface aircraft, so Canard wing and tailplane.
50:32
SPEAKER_08: Um powered by it's powered by two 915 IS engines.
50:36
SPEAKER_05: Um they're planning to put two ones.
50:40
SPEAKER_08: But basically, this is a guy uh called uh Thomas Antoneschi.
50:44
SPEAKER_08: Very good with this.
50:46
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I'm not gonna fall in the Dave trap.
50:48
SPEAKER_08: Um uh who's designed the AT3 and the AT-4 um trainer aircraft.
50:53
SPEAKER_08: And this is a so it's been on the go for a while.
50:56
SPEAKER_08: The 2012 this started.
50:57
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
50:58
SPEAKER_08: Uh picked back up in 2022.
51:00
SPEAKER_08: Um, and uh this has flown, uh it looks really nice.
51:04
SPEAKER_08: Retractable gear.
51:05
SPEAKER_08: I bet that's gonna be quite a hot chip, I would think.
51:07
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, it's a very interesting shape.
51:09
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
51:09
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
51:09
SPEAKER_08: Um and you might go, oh, it's composite, but actually it's all it's all metal, isn't it?
51:12
SPEAKER_08: It is all metal, yeah.
51:13
SPEAKER_08: Which is amazing.
51:14
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
51:14
SPEAKER_05: He's got a new way of forming the metal, so it behaves like composite.
51:17
SPEAKER_05: You can get unusual shapes.
51:19
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
51:19
SPEAKER_06: So for anyone listening to this in the podcast, if you can't see the picture, to try and describe it, I would say the the empennage is a little bit diamond DA42.
51:27
SPEAKER_08: I guess the simple way to say is you know the Technam twin?
51:31
SPEAKER_06: Yes.
51:31
SPEAKER_08: The Technam twin met a Piaggio Avanti.
51:34
SPEAKER_08: And that's and this was the out this was the offspring.
51:37
SPEAKER_06: I was gonna say the Technam twin met a Piaggio Avanti and had a threesome with a diamond.
51:42
SPEAKER_08: Oh my gosh.
51:43
SPEAKER_08: Oh my goodness.
51:43
SPEAKER_08: My mind is blown.
51:46
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it's worth looking at.
51:47
SPEAKER_06: I mean uh yeah.
51:49
SPEAKER_08: I I'm hoping we see the thing.
51:51
SPEAKER_08: You know that adage, keep it simple.
51:53
SPEAKER_06: Stupid.
51:54
SPEAKER_08: No, this is exciting.
51:55
SPEAKER_08: This is exciting.
51:57
SPEAKER_05: And it's got state funding from the Polish government.
52:00
SPEAKER_06: So discover it, I know what, we're gonna have canards, we're gonna have there's a lot of stuff going on there, isn't there?
52:05
SPEAKER_08: It is, and plus uh apparently it's the first twin with a ballistic recovery chute.
52:10
SPEAKER_05: That's right, yes.
52:11
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
52:11
SPEAKER_08: So um Wow.
52:12
SPEAKER_08: So yeah, so I'm hoping and apparently and fundamentally I think he's pitching after going after the mosaic market, isn't it?
52:20
SPEAKER_08: There's an allowance for some twins there.
52:22
SPEAKER_08: Yes.
52:22
SPEAKER_08: So and it's exciting looking.
52:24
SPEAKER_08: You'd think that that would that would have some market traction if they I mean who knows what price.
52:28
SPEAKER_08: It reminded me a little bit of the Pantera, in as much as Yeah.
52:34
SPEAKER_05: It has that very unusual aerodynamic shape, doesn't it?
52:37
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, like a porpoise.
52:38
SPEAKER_08: And he's so um uh uh so Antoneschi has um uh has came up with an aeroplane that was at Aero, I think it was last year, the 85, essentially the missing link between these three and four and the six, uh which is is a four-seater.
52:53
SPEAKER_08: Uh it's got a similar canopy on to this, uh but it's it's retractable, really quite nice looking.
52:59
SPEAKER_08: That was Rotex, I think that was 916 powered.
53:02
SPEAKER_08: Right.
53:02
SPEAKER_08: Um you can see definite cues from that to to this twin.
53:07
SPEAKER_08: Yes.
53:08
SPEAKER_05: It's one thing to have uh develop an aircraft as a flying prototype, if you like, but putting it in production.
53:13
SPEAKER_05: And there's a big idea.
53:14
SPEAKER_08: I know I think there was a statement saying that um he's hoping that the the uh development uh flight testing is expected to finish by November 2026.
53:23
SPEAKER_08: Yes.
53:23
SPEAKER_08: Uh but maybe a longer road to certification.
53:26
SPEAKER_08: But exciting.
53:27
SPEAKER_08: I hope we see that at Aero.
53:29
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
53:29
SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
53:30
SPEAKER_06: Talking of Aero, just a quick aside from that, from the Pantera.
53:33
SPEAKER_06: And the Pantera is still not certified, is it?
53:35
SPEAKER_06: And Textron presumably working at the are you sit are you sitting down with Textron people to talk about the Pantera this year?
53:42
SPEAKER_05: We are, we are.
53:42
SPEAKER_05: We've got a we've got a slot box with them.
53:44
SPEAKER_05: Excellent.
53:46
SPEAKER_05: That's a big question, probably the first question we'll ask them.
53:48
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
53:49
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
53:49
SPEAKER_08: Was that Penta was Pantera which everyone was really excited about, but was that 2012 or something that was first?
53:58
SPEAKER_06: A long, long time ago.
53:58
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
53:59
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
53:59
SPEAKER_06: There's a song about that somewhere.
54:01
SPEAKER_06: I'm not going to sing again, don't worry.
54:04
SPEAKER_08: Cool.
54:04
SPEAKER_05: And uh and if uh talking of Aero, if you're a Flyer Club member, you get a discount of the uh ticket entry fee.
54:13
SPEAKER_05: Ticket entry fee, yes.
54:14
SPEAKER_06: See, see, join flyer.co.uk forward slash membership.
54:18
SPEAKER_06: Just six pounds per month.
54:21
SPEAKER_06: There's no better value in general aviation.
54:23
SPEAKER_06: No, that's fantastic.
54:25
SPEAKER_06: Dave, events.
54:26
SPEAKER_05: Well, the weather is causing a uh bit of a concern for some events.
54:30
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, there's already one cancelled, which we've heard of, which is the Easter at Easter Airfield Flying.
54:35
SPEAKER_05: Um they also had a classic wheels and uh wings uh event going on there, so I guess the wings part of that is going to be off.
54:42
SPEAKER_05: They might still hold the wheels bit.
54:43
SPEAKER_05: Maybe.
54:44
SPEAKER_05: Maybe.
54:44
SPEAKER_05: There is also supposed to be flower bombing at sleep.
54:47
SPEAKER_05: Hadn't actually heard whether that's on yet.
54:49
SPEAKER_08: But um and there's a couple of other events as uh I think the key thing is if you see an event in the events listing, yeah.
54:58
SPEAKER_08: Check before you set out.
54:59
SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
55:00
SPEAKER_06: And then double check on the day because maybe the weather's crap anyway.
55:03
SPEAKER_08: So you open the curtains and go, yeah, it's a home day.
55:06
SPEAKER_06: It's a home day.
55:07
SPEAKER_06: It's a it's a day to learn lots of other bits and pieces.
55:10
SPEAKER_06: Good.
55:10
SPEAKER_06: Right.
55:10
SPEAKER_06: On that basis, I think it's time to go.
55:13
SPEAKER_06: Say thank you very much, everyone, for watching.
55:15
SPEAKER_06: Have a great Weast Weaster, Ouiste, Ouiste.
55:19
SPEAKER_06: Have a great Easter weekend.
55:20
SPEAKER_06: Uh thank you very much, team.
55:22
SPEAKER_06: Uh have a good one.
55:23
SPEAKER_06: Bye.
55:23
SPEAKER_06: Bye.
55:25
SPEAKER_08: Join the Flyer Club and be part of the UK's biggest GA community.
55:30
SPEAKER_08: Save hundreds of pounds with freelancing vouchers, watch expert led webinars, and access all the online content on flyer.co.uk.
55:37
SPEAKER_08: All this and more from just£6 per month or£62 for the full year.
55:42
SPEAKER_08: Join today at flyer.co.uk forward slash membership.