At 06:02 29 June 2008, Alan wrote:
. . . my reaction was that I could do that pretty much any day in a
cessna 172. ( And in the cessna, I could do my own retrieves - which is
useful if you don't have a crew)
Alan
Yes Alan, you could, but would you get the same feeling of personal
s****ting challange and achievement? I personally do not! but I respect any
aviators view of what type of flying suits him personally. When many years
ago I had a go learning to fly a Cessna 180, but quickly realised that,
here in the UK I would not be able to use it for trans****t purposes, but
only during gaps in the weather to have leasure flights to relatively
local airfields, have a cup of coffee and fly back. (Going for the £200
burger, as we say here!). I used to chug along seeing the the ***ulus
forming and longing to go over and get 'stuck in'). I did not like the
noise, felt like I was in a flying telephone box, and mainly due to the
cost of avgas in the UK, it was costing me about five times the cost of
flying a club glider!
Therefore, I gave up, used the money I was spending to buy a share in a
performance sailplane and never looked back or regretted it. I remain very
fond of the club's old Pawnee 260 that does a great job of getting us up
to reach the ***ulus, but in the UK this costs the gliding club about
£150/hour to run.
Regards and happy landings!
Tony
PS. Please give my regards to Paul Hanson over there - and exprress my
regrets at the loss of his wonderful vintage sailplane.
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