Scott James Remnant

Judging by tomorrow’s weather forecast, I’ll be having my first cancellation. Can’t say that I’m surprised or disappointed, since I’ve been rather expecting this.

EGBB 131647Z 140024 18010KT 9999 BKN025
TEMPO 0018 7000 RA BKN012
BECMG 0306 19018G28KT
PROB30 TEMPO 0312 4000 +RA BKN008
PROB30 TEMPO 1016 19020G38KT
BECMG 1720 22017KT

Cloud at or lower than 2,500 ft all day with rain showers and a 30% probability of heavy rain.

On the bright-side, the week-ahead forecast doesn’t look too bad for Friday right now; so maybe booking two lessons this week was prescient.

Update: as expected, the flight was cancelled.

Another day of clear skies, my run of good fortune with the weather can’t last for much longer. In fact, looking at the forecast for the coming week, it looks like it’s at an end and I’m due some cancellations!

Arrived at the airfield early and had some lunch in the cafe while watching people doing touch-and-gos, go arounds, and other usual bits of circuit practice.

I must admit that I’ve been feeling slightly impatient about getting on with things in the lessons and wanting to be doing circuit practice and even cross-country jaunts myself. Obviously I know that all that’s no good if I can’t even hold the plane in a straight line, and these things have to be done one step at a time.

Today’s lesson was to be the effect of flaps, the control surface on the inner side of the wing’s trailing edge. Having read the first Thom book cover-to-cover on first buying it, and re-reading it before and after each lesson along with the equivalent Pratt book I was given by the club I felt pretty comfortable with the theory of them and was confident about the practical.

John asked how I felt about doing the checks, we’d done them together last week and I’d read up on them again at home so felt fairly confident about being able to do them. So I walked out to check over the aircraft, G-WAVV again this week, while he wrote up today’s lesson on the board.

Interrupted when doing the checks by somebody who’d just booked out Victor Victor and thought they had it; they went back to check, and took a different plane instead.

Had to go around a couple of times as I remembered things on one side that I hadn’t checked on the other, but was pretty happy that I’d checked everything I was told to. Back into the school for the briefing, and all the reading I’d done had set me in good stead since after just a few minutes, John declared that I clearly knew all this and let’s get flying!

Hurrah, a whole hour before the end of the lesson so maybe a good length of flying time this week!

Did the pre-start checks myself, and started the engine while John got himself strapped in. Made a slight error in that I didn’t have the parking brake on hard enough, so we lept forward when the engine started. Mental note to check that harder next time, and keep my feet on the brake pedals just in case.

The plane needed some fuel, so I taxied us down to the bay and parked us by the pumps; carrying out the pre-stop checks and stopping the engine there. Finding taxying easier this time, much more natural feeling holding the pressure on the pedals to hold the line rather than assuming that we’d carry on in a straight line if I release them.

Now just a matter of waiting for someone from the tower to come down to switch the pumps on for us… and waiting, and waiting. Precious flying time being wasted with no sign of anybody. John gave them another call on the radio, and eventually they came down. John filled the plane up, and then I got the pre-start checks underway and even thought to hold the brake pedals down while he climbed in (since we hadn’t had the parking brake on in case of fire).

While we were waiting, the runway direction had changed and we were to take off on 18 rather than 36, so had to taxi all the way back across the airfield again. Still, good practice and I guess it’s no good learning to fly if you can’t get to the start of the runway in the first place. Rudder and steering checks at the start of the dis-used runway and turned into wind to do the pre-takeoff checks.

Lined up for take-off and John asked me to follow through on the controls as he did it. In the end, it turns out that I was moving things in the right direction anyway so he let me direct the control and I did almost half of work myself! Another Robin had taken off just before us and turned to the west for a training flight (our usual direction) so we headed south instead to keep out of his way.

Things seemed much more natural and comfortable today, some of the basic stuff has obviously sunk in so I was more relaxed. Instead of trying to correct every small movement the plane made, I was just keeping the wings level after any major deviation. As a result, a much smoother ride!

Some testing on the throttle, I’ll need to know by feel and sound how many revs the engine is doing so John asked me to set various power settings while hiding the dial. Nailed every single one of them, with no idea how; I guess the previous knowledge of how much the control moves has been remembered since I was able to set the different power settings pretty accurately.

Looped around Shipton-upon-Stour towards Long Marston and some work on the effects of flap; setting them, pitching the nose down and increasing power. Noticed that the plane was much more stable with lots of flap, but much harder to make it change direction!

Turned towards Stratford and did a sneak-peak at next week’s lessons, flying straight and level. I don’t think I did too badly here, nose attitude is definitely becoming easier to judge and I’m finding the trim wheel much less difficult to control.

Three other aircraft in the circuit on landing, the busiest yet. Post-landing checks, taxi’d us back to park and then engine shut-off.

P/UT Hours Today 0:40, Total 2:20

Beautiful flying weather this morning, nothing more than a light breeze and virtually clear blue skies. Didn’t worry about phoning ahead, and set off straight after dropping my partner at work so that I’d be there in plenty of time; mindful of the traffic last week!

Turns out that I didn’t even have to worry about that, the traffic in the air above Wellesbourne was worse than on the motorway down there. Arrived with plenty of time to relax before my lesson, and sat out in the sun while John was up with somebody else.

Todays lesson was on the effect of the controls (elevators, ailerons and rudder), both their primary effect (pitch, roll and yaw respectively) and the secondary effects that they also have (change in airspeed, yaw and roll). We’d also be doing some examination of the different feel of the controls at different airspeeds, as well as some more work on trim.

I’d already got the general hang of it from my previous two lessons, and had been reading up at home, so I was able to ask a few quite specific questions about the different effects.

Flying today was in G-WAVN, my third plane in as many weeks. Same type as Victor Victor last week, but with a standard nav/comm unit rather than the fancy GPS that Victor Victor had.

The lesson started with a walkround of the plane, checking the various surfaces and components to make sure there was no damage, etc. There seems a lot to remember here, but the process was quite methodical and there’s a handy written checklist anyway, so I’m pretty confident that I’ll have that licked.

After the checks, we taxied to the holding point for more checks with me controlling the rudder (though I’m sure John was helping correct my changes along the way) and then a quick takeoff on 18 and we were up in the air.

This is started to almost feel natural now; no apprehension in the takeoff and I found I was much more able to both enjoy it and pay attention to other things going on. I was even able to follow John on the controls to see how it was done. Turned towards Long Marston again and out to the usual training ground. Found I was much more familiar with the area this time, but again was surprised how quickly we covered the distance to it.

The lesson itself was pretty straight forward, I made various changes on the controls and observed the change in attitude of the aircraft and any secondary effect the change had. Some work on trimming, which I’m still finding a little tricky to get right; mostly because I can’t quite get the nose on the horizon properly, but I felt it came together better than last time. And finally on the way back, some demonstrations of the different feel of the controls at different speeds; firm and responsive when going fast, but sloppy when slow.

A moment of radio hilarity on the way home as a passing aircraft reported themselves to be “over Green Farm”, leading to a little argument between them and the tower over where exactly that was (tower having never heard of it). In the end they settled on “3 miles South” and the aircraft passed without further argument.

Followed John on the controls through the landing, and we were down again. A relatively short time in the air, due to the longer briefing and pre-flight checks, with more homework to do on the effects of flaps and on straight and level flight.

P/UT Hours Today 0:30, Total 1:40

After the recent heavy rainfall and flooding, I really didn’t expect to be flying today; especially since the airfield was a little wet a few days ago. The weather forecast throughout the week was quite hopeful, fairly consistently indicating no worse than light showers, and this remained true this morning.

Of course, the sky outside didn’t quite match the weather. Woke up to a dreary grey sky out of the bedroom window, but strangely, a blue sky out of the bathroom window. It was going to be that kind of day. Phoned the school to find out that they were flying this morning, but that the report was changeable so there were no guarantees.

Since I had the day off, and needed to sort out proper membership anyway, I figured that I would drive down and if the weather wasn’t flyable I could at least have lunch in the cafe and pick up my log book, etc.

I set off with what I thought was plenty of time to get there and have a snack or relax before the flight. This didn’t go quite according to plan. It turns out that I need to add another “pre-flight check”; it’s all very well watching the weather and NOTAMs, but it helps to cast ones eye at the ground and read the traffic report! Everyone seemed to want to park on the M42 today, so I made it to the school five minutes late rather than half an hour early like I planned.

No matter, John was ready and waiting so we jumped straight into the briefing. Since my trial flight was in a PA28, and this and future flights were to be in the HR200 Robin, he decided that this would be the same trial flight again to allow me to get used to the different aircraft and controls.

This turned out to be a good idea, since the handling was somewhat different from the Warrior. Even the controls were different, the Robin being a “stick and rudder” plane, rather than the Warrior’s control wheel. I’d also felt not entirely in control of the Warrior, I didn’t like the feel of banking it too steeply and couldn’t get the hang of trimming it at all!

The wind was blowing straight across the main runway, so instead we took off from 23, backtracking up it first. One of the advantages of flying in the week being that there’s no market stalls in the way!

Once in the air, John handed control to me and I tried out some turns in the Robin. This felt much better than last time, I was able to quite comfortably get the plane into a good turn in both directions, and John showed me how to use the rudder to ease the feeling of my bum sliding out of the window.

I then tried a climb, and a descent; again the Robin felt much more like it wanted to go where I put it. Yet to figure out quite where the nose is supposed to be relative to the horizon, but I know that’ll be handled sub-conciously soon enough. Trimming was a doddle, unlike the Warrior where I had to search around the wheel for ages, this was easy to feel the difference with even the tiniest turns of the wheel.

While playing around, John talked about some of the features we might use for navigating. Being a Southern boy, and not knowing the area, there wasn’t much I could name myself so he pointed out various things we might use such as Long Marston airfield and the Fosse Way. “If you’re completely lost, just follow the Fosse Way and turn left at the roundabout. Trust me, it works!”

Did some descending turns, and all too quickly, it was time to finish the lesson and head back to the airfield. I must have seemed much more at ease with this plane since John commented that he thought I’d take to flying and learn very quickly!

Landed on 23 again, and taxied the plane back to its parking spot.

Afterwards, while I had my lunch in the cafe and listened to the radio traffic, I realised I hadn’t noticed it at all during the flight. I’d been concentrating too hard on everything else. Other student blogs have talked about the sheer amount of information you have to process, and how it seems overwhelming at first, but becomes natural after a while.

P/UT Hours Today 0:40, Total 1:10

Some pictures taken by David during my first flight…

I’d spent the entire month since making the booking preparing myself for the disappointment of it being cancelled due to weather, and having to rebook and wait another few weeks.

The weather report the day before wasn’t too bad, and the weather outside looked pretty nice. A fair amount of high fluffy cloud, but good visibility and nothing too low to worry about.

So I was even more nervous when I phoned up to find out whether the flight would be going ahead. “A bit of a cross-wind, but a couple of guys have been up already with no problem” was the report. It was still on!

Had I been lucky enough to pick, four weeks ago, one of the only good days for flying so far?

We set off for the airfield, and I couldn’t help but keep an eye on the weather all the way there. At one point, a pretty nasty cloud appeared ahead and my heart sank, but then we turned away from it and there was blue sky ahead with the wind coming towards us.

As we got nearer, we started to see aircraft flying around. It turns out that all that worrying was for nothing, the weather for miles around the airfield was beautiful with nothing more than a bit of wind.

We’d intended to stop off for a pub lunch on the way, but had left a little later than we intended. Therefore we arrived early, but without enough time to stop off for something to eat.

Popped into the club to let them know we were there, and paid for the flight. Since this was my first flight, my partner was paying for it as my birthday present; and it would be in a 4-seater Piper Warrior so he could come along too and ride in the back.

The instructor was out with another student, so we opted to have something to eat at the airfield’s busy “Touchdown Cafe”; and sat on the decking outside the club afterwards watching the planes and waiting for the instructor to return.

The plane I was to fly in was G-GYTO, a seven year old PA28 Piper Warrior. Someone had taken it out that morning, so it was briefly checked for fuel before the briefing.

I was very happy to discover that my instructor would be the same man who had shown us round the aircraft on my first visit to the airfield. His relaxed and patient style had left me with a really good impression of the club, and I was delighted that he would also be taking me up in the air for the first time.

The briefing covered the aircraft’s controls with a cute little meccano model, headsets were picked up and then it was time to walk out to “Tango Oscar”.

David got settled in the back while I climbed into the left seat, through the Piper’s single left door. Headsets were plugged in and the volume checked, engine was checked and started, and then we were taxying out to the hold for the runway.

Along the way I got a chance to swerve the plane left and right a bit with the pedals, until we reached the holding point where we turned into the wind and performed the final pre-flight checks.

We were held as a couple of other aircraft landed, and then it was our turn; “Tango Oscar, Wellesbourne Information, take off at your discretion” … “Take off, Tango Oscar”.

The power went up, and so did my nerves, as we accelerated down the runway. John (the instructor) talked through each of the movements he did along the way, and then we were up in the air and flying through the crosswind and turbulence.

Noticed very quickly that the smaller aircraft was much more at the mercy of the elements than the commercial jets, and needed more input; or maybe it’s just that I was now sitting in the front and could actually see everything.

Once we were up to 1,500ft; we levelled off and I had control.

The first task was understanding the effect of the controls. The pedals yawed the aircraft, and finished up with a bit of roll. The control column rolled and pitched the aircraft.

My next task was to keep the aircraft straight and level while we flew towards Long Marston airfield. All of my concentration was taken up just trying to keep the plane going in one direction.

The nose wanted to turn in all sorts of directions, and it needed continual input to try and keep it going where I wanted.

We then tried some turns, and I was amazed by how hesitant I was to seriously bank the aircraft. It felt uncomfortable to do anything too tight; and it wasn’t until I was on the ground that I remembered that rudder correction can solve that.

Throughout the flight, John was pointing out various landmarks along the way; and David was happily taking photos in the back, but I was entirely occupied for keeping us in something like a straight line.

He only took control once when David spotted a glider, to get out of its way, and returned control to me afterwards.

Somewhere along the way John introduced the trim wheel, since I was obviously pulling on the column to keep it level. I found this quite hard to sort out at first, turning the wheel didn’t seem to make much difference, but eventually I think I got it somewhat in trim.

After Long Marston, we turned towards Birmingham, and tracked towards that keeping it on the horizon. We then turned right towards Stratford-upon-avon, “and ok, we’ll descend a little as well” John cheerfully added as I failed to hold the nose up during the turn.

All too quickly I was heading over Stratford and had Wellesbourne in sight ahead; John called them on the Radio, and took control for the join, approach and landing. And then we were on the ground and taxying back to the school.

For the rest of the day, I was grinning like a child and making “neyowm” noises to myself.

After a light snack, we visited a little nursery we’d seen on the way in to look at some plants. Every time a plane flew overhead, I looked up; and for one of them, my heart leaped even more when I saw that it was Tango Oscar.

P/UT Hours Today 0:30, Total 0:30

EGBB 131607Z 140024 19014KT 9999 BKN025
TEMPO 0002 7000 -RA BKN010
BECMG 0811 26015KT
PROB30 TEMPO 0919 26015G25KT 7000 -SHRA

A thirty percent probability of light showers tomorrow, with cloud base at 2,500ft.

As my nan used to say, it’s got two chances…

Look what happens; the whole world goes “carbon neutral” mad, planting trees and burning Jeremy Clarkson instead of Fossil Fuels and what do we get? A summer so wet that you can pick up the “dropped sausage” as it floats past the barbecue. I want the global warming back, at least then it was nice out!

A combination of the glorious English summer, and a busy social and work calendar has meant that I’ve had no chance to get airborne.

I’ve made a booking with Wellesbourne Aviation for Saturday July 14th, one of the few days in July that I have free, so hopefully the weather can be persuaded to behave by then.

Wimbledon will be over and the British Grand Prix a memory, so I’m hopeful that the rain gods will bugger off for a while and give us some clear skys for a couple of weeks (since we’ve got yet another re-booking of a balloon flight that I bought for my partner last September scheduled for the week after!).

I’ve put the time to good use however, and purchased the complete set of “Trevor Thom” books. The flying school slightly favours the Jeremy Pratt, but I found after reading through both that the style of the Thom books far better suits me.

The usual comments against them are that they’re overly technical or precise, which makes them to me read more like the computer manuals and science articles that I’m used to; and a far better fit. I found the casual tone of the Pratt series more difficult to learn from.

I don’t think there’s any particular disadvantage to starting the exam study this early, without the practical experience to back it up. Both reinforce the other; and I do think that the longer run-up you have on the written side, the more likely you are to learn it rather than just cram the answers into your head before sitting the exam.

For me, I think it’s even more useful. I’ve found that I’m sometimes not able to fully grasp a subject without the necessary technical background. I don’t know whether my physics teacher remembers my difficulty in understanding how a capacitor worked; I couldn’t understand why the simplistic description of them didn’t cause the same effects with an ordinary switch. It wasn’t until later on when I learned the underlying principles that I fully grasped how they could be used.

I can already think of an example where this is true in flying.

Some people may be content to know that the altimeter can be set to one of four settings; and happy to just learn by rote which of QFE, Aerodrome QNH, Regional QNH or 1013.2mb they need at which point in their journey. They can probably remember learning why for their exams, but not worrying about it anymore.

For me, knowing what the difference between them is, and how to calculate one from the other, has given me a far greater understanding. I could’ve probably learned them by rote, but it would have never been entirely clear to me. Instead, I now understand them, so the appropriate choice at each point in the journey is obvious to me; not to mention the effects of moving from one pressure region to another.

Another useful thing from starting the reading so early is that I’m able to read the aviation weather forecasts.

EGBB 021644Z 030024 21009KT 9999 SCT020 TEMPO 0009 8000 SHRA PROB30 0007 BKN008 TEMPO 0921 6000 SHRA BKN020CB PROB40 TEMPO 0920 3000 +SHRA TSGR BKN014 BECMG 1013 27014KT

Unfortunately, this is still depressing reading …

Having made the decision to learn to fly, the next task in hand was to find somewhere that would teach me!

Being a computer programmer for a living, the first place I turned to for advice was the good old Interwobble. The first instinct is just to type “flying schools” into Google and see what we get in return.

Eventually I found the Flying Schools lists at Flyingzone and PPL Mania which gave me a good idea of what was in the area.

The first immediately obvious thing is the difference in website quality, ranging from quite professional through to 404s. Clearly you can’t directly gauge a school on their website; this surprised me at first, I figured that they would be trying to attract the relatively cash-rich Internet generation.

The second obvious thing was the wind range of hourly prices and aeroplanes flown by each school, without much information to differentiate them.

Plan B then, which was pretty much a follow-on from Plan A anyway; get in the car and actually visit the schools.

A dull Saturday while my partner was away gave me the perfect excuse; not that I really needed one. I was itching for any reason to go and get my first look at the schools.

Tatenhill

My first stop was Tatenhill Aviation at the airfield of the same name.

They’d ended up on my list because their website was one of the nicest to look at, and their prices were one of the cheapest!

The drive there was quite pleasant, and I found the airfield without any trouble.

The weather had made sure it was a quiet day, so there was an instructor round who I was able to chat to and ask various questions about the training.

And I got to sit in a plane for the first time! Ok, it never left the ground, and never even moved, but it was an experience nonetheless!

Popped into the little cafe afterwards, and had a coffee and a chat with Margaret; who I’d read about from other people’s PPL Diaries.

Overall impression was that it was a nice, friendly, place; albeit a little on the small and quiet side, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Halfpenny Green

I hadn’t spent as long getting to Tatenhill as I expected, and had plenty of time left in the morning, so I decided that rather than heading home I would head to the second airfield on my list; Halfpenny Green (Now known as Wolverhampton Airport).

I knew from my research that there was a handful of flight schools based here, though the only website was for The Flight Centre who seem to mainly deal with commercial ratings. Their prices certainly reflected that!

It was the other two schools I was interested in. The airfield impression was markedly different from Tatenhill; where that gave the air of a casual airfield, this had the feel of a small run-down airport.

RJP Aviation was the first, and I spent a pleasant hour or so having a cup of tea with Tony there and met one of the instructors. He answered most of my remaining questions, and I left there with a good feeling for the place.

On the way out, I popped into “The Flying School”. A friend had done his training with the instructors who’d gone on to form this school, so I had to at least take a look. Unfortunately it seems like they’re still just getting going, and didn’t have any prices other than for a trial lesson. The solitary plane was a bit of an issue too, as I figured that would make booking harder (not to mention no possibility of hiring it after I passed!)

The day was getting on, so I headed home. And this is where I found out the main problem with this airfield; from where I live in Birmingham, it’s practically impossible to get to! The journey into Birmingham city centre took over an hour, ruling it out completely.

Wellesbourne-Mountford

The third airfield on my list was Wellesbourne-Mountford. I’d discounted it at first, because it seemed like it was quite a way out, and it wasn’t until I told my partner about it that we realised we passed it on the way to his parents and that it was only just off the M40 by Warwick!

Well within travelling distance, and in fact, almost exactly the same time to get there as Tatenhill.

Made the trip down there together on the Sunday following my previous excursions.

First impressions were as different from Tatenhill and Halfpenny Green as they had been from each other. This was clearly an airfield, but rather than the solitary school in the corner, was much busier with several schools and lots of people around.

Ok, the people probably had something to do with the improved weather, but the difference was there.

Visited each of the schools there in turn, and popped our heads into the cafe to see what it was like.

Nobody was in at Take Flight so we left with a very glossy brochure, and no real lasting impression other than it seemed like a bit too much of a business and not a nice club.

Wellesbourne Aviation was next on the list. This turned out to be a very friendly and busy club, with a good sized club house and selection of modern aircraft.

I got to sit in my second and third plane, being shown the differences between their two types (Robin HR200 and Piper Warrior) while referring back to the Cessna 152 I’d sat in at Tatenhill.

While their prices were a little higher than others, we left with a very good impression of them!

Pilot Flight Training was next door; not much to say about them, we popped in and were given a leaflet, and that’s about it.

Lastly there was the South Warwickshire Flying School, which we’d passed on the way in as it was a little more out of the way than the others.

This was a place that really highlighted the difference amongst the clubs. They flew Cessna 152s, and since David had not seen in one (but had sat in the Robin and Piper with me earlier) I thought I’d ask whether we could see the plane they used. We were pointed towards the plane on the grass and warned “don’t touch anything”.

Not the best approach to get someone to spend several thousand pounds learning to fly with you, that!

As my mother reminded me when I announced my intention to learn to fly, when I was a child I firmly wanted to be a pilot!

Comes from growing up under the Gatwick flight-path I guess, when playing out in the garden would be regularly interrupted by an over-flying jet.

Unfortunately this was a dream I had always assumed would never happen. I was born with Glaucoma, an eye disorder that means the fluid in my eyes does not drain correctly resulting in an increased pressure that can, if untreated, cause irreparable damage to the optic nerve and eventually blindness.

I was lucky enough to have it diagnosed while still a toddler, and operated on at an early age. I was prescribed eye drops for most of my childhood, and had a second round of operations in my mid-teens.

Since then I’ve had no problems, and haven’t needed to take eyedrops to regulate the pressures. And thanks to the early intervention, my visual fields are completely normal and I’ve experienced no loss of vision.

Despite this, I still believed that flying was out of my reach, since my medical history would exempt me.

Fast-forward a few years, I’m now in my mid-twenties and working as a computer programmer for a startup software company.

One of the unusual perks is that regular travel to conferences, “summits” and “sprints” is required as part of the job. And if you’re lucky, you’ll be invited to fly there on the CEO’s own private jet, affectionately nicknamed “Canonical One”.

I had my first trip on it a couple of years ago, flying to Australia.

For someone used to commercial aviation, having access to the cockpit was an amazing experience; I’d only ever had the chance before as a nine year old.

I’d wandered up a few times and chatted to the both of the captains and second-seats we had on each leg of the journey. As we flew in towards Canberra at night, I began to really appreciate the the pilots have some of the best views in the world.

The most recent time on board was during a tour of various US technology companies; for visa reasons, we flew in and out on ordinary commercial flights but the flights around the states were done aboard the jet.

By far the highlight of the trip was kneeling in the cockpit while we flew over San Francisco, with the moon shining off the bay, and descended into San Jose airport.

The bug I had picked up as a child came back full-force.

The captain was staying in the same hotel as us in the week after, and I took full opportunity to find out some information about how he trained to be a pilot, etc. I learned that the second-seat for the return leg used to be an instructor, so quizzed her for all sorts of information.

And most importantly, I learned that while the medical is comprehensive, and while vision requirements are set, having been born with Glaucoma but otherwise having excellent eyesight should not be a problem.

Once home, I started to find out more, and eventually spoke to the CAA Medical Advisor who confirmed that provided my vision was within the acceptable limits, that I should pass that aspect of the medical.

A visit to the optometrist provided the necessary confirmation. My visual fields are normal, and while I’m slightly long sighted in one eye, it is not enough of a difference for glasses; let alone a large enough difference to fail the medical.

Obviously I still need to undergo the actual medical examination, but a childhood dream has been reawakened.

The next step would be to find a local flying school, and take a trial lesson!