Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
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By Private Jet
#1421447
I agree with JAFO, support doesn't necessarily diminish the achievement, it is often necessary to achieve success in the desired timescales.

Alcock and Brown, for instance, had Vickers support for everything up to the point of takeoff. Still a great achievement.
#1546817
Hi Sam Rutherford,
We are making a documentary about Microlights flying from the UK to Australia. We have read your many inclusions about you doing a flexwing flight from the UK to Pakistan with the intention to carry on to Australia. We accept that you failed in Karachi, we would be very interested in hearing more about the trials & tribulations you had enroute to Karachi.
We are aware that quite a few others have also done this trip by flexwing & achieved reaching Australia, it would be good to have a story of woe to spice up the documentary a bit.
Could you please furnish us with details of which flexwing microlight you used? if you can recall the registration of the flexwing that would be useful for our research to commence with.
We look forward to your response as you could be the part of the documentary that we have missing. So far we only have success stories & your attempt would be ideal to show it isn't as straightforward as it would seem.

Sean Murphy... watersports@gmx.co.uk

Adrenalin Sports Documentaries.
#1546921
One of our White Waltham friends left last Thursday week in his RV7 solo and flew the North Atlantic route, he is currently heading to Texas before going to Oshkosh. He'll be back again at the end of the month. He spent a year or more getting ready for this flight but he is most definately solo. There is no team following him offering support, no camera crew or book deal. He's just having fun.
G-BLEW, Human Factor, Ben K liked this
#1546965
TLRippon wrote:One of our White Waltham friends left last Thursday week in his RV7 solo and flew the North Atlantic route, he is currently heading to Texas before going to Oshkosh. He'll be back again at the end of the month. He spent a year or more getting ready for this flight but he is most definately solo. There is no team following him offering support, no camera crew or book deal. He's just having fun.


Here is the link

https://share.garmin.com/RONALDMitcham
#1546968
We had two Gloucestershire Airport pilots that claimed solo world class flights.

Manuel Queiroz who went around the world in an RV7 that he built himself and Steve Noujaim in a similar aircraft that he built to take on the Cape Challenge.

Not truly solo :wink: , the passenger seat in each case was occupied by a b.......y great avgas tank.

Rather them than me. :salut:
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By Rob L
#1547015
Leodisflyer wrote:.....<snip> The engineers among us may wish for a return to a "Tomorrow's World" style of presentation that cuts out the unnecessary pauses, facial reaction shots and basically cuts to the chase!
PS - apologies to any hypersocial engineers out there, we've clearly yet to meet.


I agree with you, Leodisflyer. When I do watch TV (rarely) it is the technical stuff like what Tomorrows World used to show. I do find some of the Freeview (ex-Discovery) Channels suit my viewing hour.

Rob
#1547149
Not so sure that solo flights really are anything at all - it is not skill, it is not courage, it is not the raw juice of human endeavour - nope, it's all about the admin boys!

Personally, a few months back I flew my airplane from the US to Barbados - 1,500 miles solo having less than a hundred hours solo since my PPL but after it being in the US for three years during which time no solo for me but I did do an hour of dual in a 152 in 2016 to get my flight review up to date.

So up to the US, less than three hours with a brilliant instructor to remind me what all the knobs and switches did - and my first solo KFXE to Stella Maris and onwards - did it with four refuel stops and 12.9 hours (seven hours off previous times), VFR, none of that IFR nonsense - straight lines is how to get places - I figured if I go down in the sea being 50 miles off shore was not worse than 300 sitting in my four man raft wondering if the GPS locator beacon actually worked;) The flight - all rather boring truth be told - one cloud looks pretty much like any other.

For me the admin was quite easy - well the writing of the cheques was a bit of a pain - go around the world and there are the infamous admin problems, I'm sure we saw the chap who crashed his home build in Japan after it sitting for a year or so.

It is nice to see aeroplane programs on TV and if it has to be celebrities - it's something up with which I can put - prefer the ones with real people though - a good one if Africa and another I saw set in Alaska - new pilots building their hours in a grand adventure before they are condemned to a career of boredom on flying 737's to Dusseldorf :?