On BBC Sussex Radio

This morning I was on the breakfast show being interviewed for 5 minutes. It was a brilliant experience, listen again here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00j4t2k

2 hours 50 mins...

In the local paper

Click to view a larger copy..

Weather predictions for Next Friday

Here are the latest weather predictions for next Friday. These charts come from a system called the GFS model, which basically is what the pro's use. As you can see when we are intending to launch (Friday afternoon of the 29th) it's looking quite good!

I will updating these charts on a regular basis to see if they change much. As you can see there is an area of high pressure which brings warmer temperatures, lower wind speeds and high cloud bases (or no clouds at all)

Practice flight, above the clouds

Tom and Mike went on a quick 1 hour flight as to see how we could cope with a taxing weather situation near our local aerodrome, in preparation of weather that we could face down route.  We could both have to decide if we were happy with the weather to go.  Today the clouds were low, but broken - so we could still see the ground, thus remain legal.  Coming back into Shoreham, over Brighton was lower than we would have liked due cloud base.  However this proved that we work well as a team.  Putting us in good stead for the trip.  

We think you will agree the amazing photos below are well worth it:

Beachy head

Falmer stadium

Beachy head

These were taken around 4800 feet

Above the clouds!

Viewing the aircraft for the first time

The aeroplane that Tom and I have arranged is a 1977 Piper PA28 Archer - 181 bhp, 4 seater single engine piston running a Lycoming O-360 engine.  We went to view the aircraft in maintenance as it was having some major engine work done to it.  I was very impressed with the condition of the engine, and to think not many people are lucky enough to see the guts of the engine before they rent the aircraft.  This has given me a mass of confidence!

The office

Tom looking at the engine's guts!

Shiny recent paint job

Very tidy aircraft

Testing our capabilities in the PA28 Sim

Today we both decided to rent a fully certified CAA simulator of the actual aircraft, a piper PA28.

We decided to test ourselves in the following, coming up with a proper brief and lesson plan, as the professionals do:

- Forced landings with no power
- Flight in Instrument Meteorological Conditions
- Water ditching
- Partial engine failures
- Working as a crew with the engine failure, checklists etc

Here's a couple of photos of us in action




Tom - in IMC




Mike - coming into land with a rough running engine, not sure why he's smiling!

Aircraft Secured

This morning I spoke to the CFI at Big Red Kite Keith Jones, who has secured us the use of G-BBPP, which is a Piper PA28 Archer (180bhp), to normal people it's a powerful enough 4 seater aircraft.

We have rented this for the first week in August (and hopefully the weekend before in July too) where we will initially relocate from Membury back to Shoreham, take on fuel then start the journey off from there where press will be waving us off.

As you can see below the aircraft looks in great condition.  We will be flying upto Membury next Tuesday to have a look at the aircraft (which will be in maintenance), pay some money and arrange a check ride by the chief pilot.

http://www.bigredkite.com/

T-Shirt Print Idea

St Catherines hospice have sent us through a couple of shirts to wear on the trip, however we really want to get another couple done up - in the spirit of the trip...otherwise we might start to smell!

This is the idea we currently have, the thoughts behind this are to be nice and tacky but still get across the message what we are doing, it's only the first draft so I've just plonked the sponsors etc on at the moment.  The personal sponsors are currently not up to date.

UK to Majorca - The Crew

Just so that you can get to know us a bit better I've copied a few photos of us both with a caption underneath!




Tom - Ready to fly




Mike - Just landed on the Isle of Wight




Tom - Mid Flight




Mike - Mid flight on what looks like a Ray Ban advert in the '80s




Tom - Two words...Lucky Man!




Mike - Checking the Checklist for the Checks




Mike - Obviously finding something funny!



Tom - Sitting in the Captains seat of a 744..after the trip Tom!




The Office

We Do It For The View...

French and Spanish Charts

On our trip we need a plethora of charts which cover France and Spain. Tom made the trip to the local pilot shop at Shoreham Airport to buy these...which cost around £20 each. Have a look how many he had to buy:

SPOT GPS Tracker

We now have a GPS tracker, so you can all track us in real time via the link. We have three buttons on the device which do the following:






- Check in / OK (which enables us to let people know we're doing ok)
- Help (which enables us to ask for help from a pre defined email/SMS list I.e. Family/Friends)
- SOS (which will call out the local authority rescue services)


A sample of the map below; it will track our footprint and plot our position every ten minutes

Oxford to Majorca - Meeting One

Tom and I met up on a showery afternoon at Redhill to discuss the arrangements that we have made, the aircraft owner that I've recently been in contact with, the route in which we plan to take and any other business.






Fig 1.0 - Sat at Redhill airport discussing flying

Firstly we both made sure that we both wanted to do the trip, ensuring we can both spare the time and both able to financially back the trip as it will take substantial amounts of both time and money. We were both extremely excited about the trip, and I think if the aircraft were sitting outside we would have gone today!

But we didn't. We sat down and very very roughly planned the route on an iPad running an aviation gps moving map which was fairly limited in planning 900 nautical mile trip, but we got the right idea. As were now planning to fly from Oxford and not the coast there are further ways of crossing the coast. One way at Lydd which is a shorter crossing over water (but longer) and is cheaper with fuel or a longer crossing over water (shorter in total). We decided that the longer water crossing shouldn't be discounted straight away as were looking to rent a life raft.

The route were planning to take is as follows (please ignore the directness of this, when it comes to planning properly we will need to avoid danger areas, avoid airspace and TMAs, CTAs, CTRs etc this was just a brief overview of which direction we will be heading in)




























































































































Current shopping list

French VFR Charts
Spanish VFR Charts
PLB
Life Raft
Backup Radio
Lifejackets
Tools for aircraft
Tent
Aircraft

Location:Redhill Airport