Visiting Duxford

You can't fly out of one aerodrome your whole career, so on this day we went for a trip to Duxford to practise circuits there, over the Imperial War Museum. It was a productive day but we had a run-in with some cowboys.

Stalling the Tiger Moth Part 2

After experiencing the stall last time, this time I get to do it for myself. But even making the aircraft fall out of the sky turns out to be less exciting than dodging other Tiger Moths, Spitfires, and even a Boeing 777.

The long winding road

I was excited as I arrived at the aerodrome. For a start, I'd looked at the weather beforehand, and it was the first chance for a real flying day so far this year. On top of that, we'd been warned about some large aircraft operations, and it's always fun to see a 787 taking off from Cambridge's modest runway. I wasn't disappointed on either account. (But to make sure you're not disappointed, I'll warn you now that this is a two-parter.)

Talking the talk

One of the fascinating things about flying is the jargon used on the radio. Messages to air traffic services (ATS) are spoken in something more like a computer protocol than a language. This is especially needed in a noisy cockpit environment like the Tiger Moth's open cockpit: if you can barely hear what someone is saying, it's easiest if you already know roughly what they're going to say. To this end, practice is an important tool: if you can listen to ATS conversations even when you're not flying, you can get the hang of understanding what they're saying, and making yourself clear.