Kate Burrows was flying from Guernsey back home to the Isle of Man in her PA30, a Comanche Twin, when she noticed problems with her right engine. She shut down the engine and, as she was still some 38 miles from the Isle of Man, she decided to divert to Blackpool. A few minutes later, her left engine lost power. She contacted the distress centre and they recommended she continue to Blackpool but she realised she wasn’t going to make it.

Another pilot heard the conversation and reported it on PPRuNe.
GA Aircraft Ditching Irish Sea

Heard this unfold on D&D when overflying – Female pilot reporting double engine failure and unable to make destination at that time reported to be 18 miles away. She sound relatively calm and composed under the circumstances, reporting that she was visual with some oil rigs and would circle around them…….and “possibly land on one”!! However I am delighted that she made it, job well done – even if it wasn’t the planned outcome!

Kate Burrows signed up to the forums as ManxLadyBird and gave a first hand account of her experience:

I did indeed ditch in the Irish sea. I was about 38 miles from IOM when my right prop had a runaway, it was overspeeding in excess of 2800 rpm and I could not stabilise it. The MP was low as well so I did not have much to play with. I felt it was uncontrollable and shut it down.

The PA30 can fly perfectly well on one engine so I descended to 4000 ft to get out of the cloud layers and diverted to Blackpool. About 6 minutes into my diversion my left engine lost power. My MP was down to 17 inches. I did all the checks changed fuel tanks, cross feed, electrics, boost pumps etc. No go.

D & D wanted me to try for Blackpool 18 miles away but I would not have reached there. I was near the oil rigs so elected to land in the vicinity. I spotted the support ship and ditched near it. I got out and had to hold onto the life raft. There were no steps on the life raft and no way to pull myself in.

The oil rig helicopter was hovering nearby to spot me whilst the support vessel rescue craft picked me up. Once on the ship I was checked out and the RAF Seaking from RAF Valley winched me up and took me to Blackpool. I was checked out at the Hospital there and ok to fly home on Manx2.com’s aircraft. All the emergency services and the police were fantastic and couldn’t have been more helpful.

Lots of things were in my favour. In my training as a commercial pilot it was instilled ‘fly the aircraft’. Sort out the problem and then make a decision and stick to it. This is what I did. My husband insisted on me flying in an immersion suit. Thanks to him, it helped. The weather was benign but cold. The sea had slight swell. If the wind had been greater than the 15 or so knots the waves would have been bigger and it might have been different. The ship was there and were alerted so I was only in the water for about 5 minutes.

Was there anything I would have done differently , no I don’t think so. I did everything I could think of the get my engines back but once I had made the decision I followed it through. Even having 2 engines doesn’t always guarantee getting there but someone was looking over my shoulder on Wednesday and I am here to have Christmas with my family.

The PA30 hit the water at approximately 90mpg. The pilot’s description of the final moments of the flight were published in the Isle of Man Today:

‘I opened the door of the cockpit prior to touching down. I didn’t really have time to think about it — I just got into emergency mode. I said a few Anglo Saxon words to the effect “oh dear, I’m going to get wet”.

‘I landed tail heavy so it took all the force of the approach. The tail took the brunt, the cockpit bellyflopped and the door flew open. An oil rig helicopter hovered about 100ft away.

‘I climbed on to the wing and made for my life raft but I couldn’t get in it — I was hanging on to the side. The tail of the aircraft was at 90 degrees to the fuselage.

‘I was only in the water for four to five minutes when the fast response craft from the support vessel came to pick me up.’

She rang and told her husband: ‘I’ve broken the aeroplane and my finger nail.

He replied: ‘Why can’t you just break cars like other people!’

Meanwhile, back at the PPRuNe forums, ManxLadyBird gave a detailed description of how she felt as this was happening.

GA Aircraft Ditching Irish Sea:

If you remember back to your very first landing you did as a student pilot, not even a solo, but your first. You thought you were going far too fast and ooooh ‘eck its gonna hurt, but you flared and the wheels touch down and all was calm…. well the first part is true and the second part isn’t.

I was lucky because I had my undercarriage folded away so I had a relatively smooth underside. But you feel you are coming in far too fast, but you cannot slow down, certainly in a Comanche as if you go much below 80 knots she will fall out of the sky, so you come in fast, the lower to the water you get you tend to lose a bit of elevator authority or so it felt, you feel like you want to stretch the glide but that won’t work either.

At the last couple of feet you haul on the elevator and touch down tail hard so it takes all the force of the landing and bleeds the speed off. It makes a hell of a bang, and if I knew what hitting a brick wall was like I would say it was like hitting a brick wall. It was hard.

The main fuselage then belly flops on the water. You should already have opened the door and latched it open on the way down so when the frame distorts your door is already open. On the way down you have opened the door, you should then tighten your straps and put your feet on the floor. If they are on the pedals they could slip past and get trapped. What are you going to do with the pedals anyway? I also held onto the controls as a way of bracing myself.

I think because of hitting the tail hard and my bracing I prevented myself taking the full force of the ditching and therefore prevented whiplash. I had also made sure my props were feathered so the water did not catch them and help water loop me.

All my safety equipment was in easy grab reach. I told the D&D people exactly where I was ( but they knew that) and what I was going to do and they worked the rescue round me. They wanted me to glide 18 miles but I knew I had about 10 miles glide so I had to make the plan and execute it.

The other thing to remember is that your time frames all go to pot. What you think is 5 minutes could be 30 seconds or 10 minutes. I do know however that I ditched at 1223, like a good pilot I looked at my watch on landing!!

It’s always good to reflect on accidents with a positive outcome.

I found it fascinating to read a first-hand account of the sequence of events and how Kate Burrows dealt with the situation.

I can only hope that I am as level-headed and organised if I end up in a distress situation.

In lieu of a post today, here are some links regarding the situation in Haiti, with a focus on aviation.

These photographs are not easy to look at but helped me to understand the scale of the devastation.
Earthquake in Haiti – The Big Picture – Boston.com

Tuesday afternoon, January 12th, the worst earthquake in 200 years – 7.0 in magnitude – struck less than ten miles from the Caribbean city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The initial quake was later followed by twelve aftershocks greater than magnitude 5.0. Structures of all kinds were damaged or collapsed, from shantytown homes to national landmarks. It is still very early in the recovery effort, but millions are likely displaced, and thousands are feared dead as rescue teams from all over the world are now descending on Haiti to help where they are able. As this is a developing subject, I will be adding photos to this entry over the next few days, but at the moment, here is a collection of photos from Haiti over the past 24 hours.

U.S. Provides ATC Support To Haiti | AVIATION WEEK

A member of the U.S. State Dept. Haiti Task Force said the U.S. Coast Guard was operating flights into the airport that were controlled from a USCG cutter operating in the bay outside the city.

Haiti Airport The Beachhead And Bottleneck For Aid

January 14, United States Air Force Special Tactics personnel were on the ground controlling airport operations at Toussaint L’Ouverture International, Haiti, but the ramp area was already saturated with 44 aircraft, forcing a temporary closure. The airport operates a control tower, two fuel trucks and one 9,974-foot runway. The control tower was rendered useless by the January 12 earthquake. Initial aid flights arrived using the UNICOM frequency to organize themselves, then by a U.S. Coast Guard Cutter off the coast. But two days later, the airspace was closed, turning away 11 aircraft that had been waiting for other flights to depart so they could land. Among those turned away was a C-130 from the 15th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Fla.. With ground damage hindering the expedient dispersion of supplies, and physical space preventing further arrivals, departures were at the same time beginning to be challenged by a dwindling fuel supply. The American aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson had by Thursday been dispatched to the region, primarily looking at providing increased helicopter capacity in the afflicted area.

The January 12 earthquake that struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti, leveled much of of the capital city and crippled the country’s infrastructure, including water pipelines. With the Haitian airport operating at capacity, the USS Carl Vinson will be able to provide helicopters for aid distribution and emergency air lift operations, including moving construction equipment to areas unreachable by now destroyed roads. First estimates from the American Red Cross listed the potential dead tally at 45,000-50,000.

Air Care Alliance has a Listing of Organizations with volunteers flying to help others.

Although Operation Teacup is not in this list (and I don’t know them personally), their website struck me as up-to-the-minute and with a clear plan.

Operation Teacup organises volunteer efforts for pilots and aircraft owners. They are concentrating their efforts on relief flights to the Eluthera, Bahamas staging area for ferry flights to Haiti. At the moment they are trying to collect 400 pilot / aircraft owners to volunteer to help with transport.

Single engine airplanes are useful for transporting supplies into Governor’s Harbour Airport in the Bahamas from Venice, Florida. For flights to Haiti, multi-engine airplanes are required.

If you want to offer transportation and/or flying skills, you can volunteer directly with your details and home airfield. Aircraft owners should include plane registration, pilot certificate number, useful load and runway needed for take-off at gross weight.

You can find details of the route planning on the Haiti information page on the Operation Teacup site.

Note that Craig Fuller from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association recommends donating the cost of a flight in wake of Haiti earthquake.

Alternatively, we encourage pilots to consider donating the cost of a flight to Haiti in their GA aircraft to an established organization that is helping with the relief efforts. To help you determine the cost, we’ve calculated the flight time from Florida’s Miami International to Port-au-Prince for various GA aircraft. For aircraft with cruise speeds of 110 knots, the flight would take 5.5 hours; 140-knot cruise speed, 4.5 hours; and 160-knot cruise speed, 4 hours. The average price of avgas this week is $4.61 a gallon.

FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: The Odds of Airborne Terror has done some interesting research:

Over the past decade, there have been, by my count, six attempted terrorist incidents on board a commercial airliner than landed in or departed from the United States: the four planes that were hijacked on 9/11, the shoe bomber incident in December 2001, and the NWA flight 253 incident on Christmas.

Leading to this detailed Gizmodo image of the data:

More surprisingly, both FiveThirtyEight and Gizmodo have managed to maintain sensible discussion within the comments (for the most part). One worrying aspect of the conversation from my point of view is how many people have stated that they avoid flying whenever possible – not due to fear of terrorism but to avoid the queues and hassle of going through security checks.

I’ve posted that when I’m travelling between Malaga and London, the 7-hour flight in the Saratoga is less stressful than flying commercially and with delays being common, it often takes the same amount of time or less. I used to joke that I’d prefer flying British Airways so that I could drink a gin and tonic but these days I’d rather have the option of leaving my shoes and belt on in public. It just seems as if the terrorists are managing to disrupt so many lives all over the world – isn’t the situation somewhat of a Pyrrhic victory on our part?

Anyway – head on over for more detail: The True Odds of Airborne Terror Chart – Odds of Airborne Attacks – Gizmodo with stats from FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: The Odds of Airborne Terror.

(via The Wings Stayed On!)

I’m not sure how 2009 managed to disappear quite so quickly! But it’s gone and I’m quite happy to be able to talk about my plans for twentyten like I’m from some sort of futuristic sci-fi film.

Before I start investigating what I need to get a space licence, I thought I’d take a final look backwards and see what posts you all seemed to enjoy most over the past year.

Here is the top ten for 2009:

Ten

Have You Seen These?

A selection of aviation articles and images that I found intriguing.

Nine

Sex and the Long Haul Pilot

I have quite a few friends who are pilots so I started to write up a quick questionnaire. Have you ever slept with a crew member? Did a layover ever turn into a hotbed of passion? Give me the real scoop!

Eight

Pitch vs. Power: Landing Better

Like most PPLs, I was taught to use attitude to control airspeed and power to control height. However, the inertia of the Saratoga and its tendency to sink like a stone at low speed, combined with my inability to nudge the power gently enough to keep my pitch steady, can make this difficult. A bad approach can feel like a ship in heavy weather as I adjust the power back and forth to try to keep my perspective of the runway correct.

Seven

Brookman’s Park VOR (BPK)

I shouldn’t have hopped the fence.

It was shut with a big padlock and surrounded by barbed wire so I can’t exactly claim that I hadn’t noticed it.

Six

Military Jet Buzzing Santa Monica Pier

Last November, two high-performance military jets departed Van Nuys airport in California as a formation flight to gather footage for a film in production called Kerosene Cowboys. The plan was for the jets to do four passes off of the coast of the Santa Monica pier, west of a banner tow aircraft towing a banner for the film. The first passes went as planned and then one of the pilots broke away and flew low over the beach area for multiple passes in excess of 250 knots (two of the passes were below 500 feet) and then pulled into a steep climb just before the pier.

Five

Just Like A Woman

I was no stranger to the attitude that women shouldn’t fly. I did my PPL training in southern Spain which was a unique introduction to Mediterranean machismo.

Four

All I Need is the Air that I Breathe

A tragic VFR case in 2003 involved a PA-28 flying over the Rockies. You can read the full accident report from the NTSB – again a number of issues came into play. The pilot was delayed due to bad weather and changed her planned routing to avoid further weather. She requested an altitude of 15,500 feet. The PA-28 was unpressurised and did not carry supplementary oxygen. Radar data indicates that the pilot flew above 12,500 feet for 2 hours, 17 minutes, above 14,000 feet for 1 hour, 49 minutes, and at approximately 16,000 feet for an estimated 45 minutes.

Three

A Mexican Adventure

Joe is a pilot, sailor, former Marine (sniper) and an excellent story teller. He is 83 now and still going strong. He has neuropathy in his hands which means he can no longer use a typewriter normally. He doesn’t let that stop him, slowly typing out emails with two pencils so that he can tell friends about his adventures. I asked for his permission to share one with you.

Two

Drunk steals plane at airshow

The pilot is Kyle Franklin from Franklin’s Flying Circus & Airshow. He is married to the beautiful Amanda Younkin, who manages Franklin’s Flying Circus and Younkin Airshows. Kyle and Bobby Younkin are the pilots – although Amanda can fly as well. When she was featured in the 2010 Bombshell calendar, she was the only babe to fly the planes as well as pose in front of them.

One

FAA Approved?

So, the story goes that the Alaskan pilot had 2 new tires, three cases of speed tape and several rolls of cellophane delivered to the site and promptly repaired his plane so that he could fly it home.

If I was hoping for a specific direction to go in, well, this has proved that my own personal eclectic tastes are shared by a good many of you. A good mix of topics and approaches seems to have worked so far!

I’ve very much enjoyed the online community that is growing around General Aviation and the conversations I’ve been able to take part in, both here and on your blogs.

I’m looking forward to 2010 and more of the same!

A retelling of the 19th-century story, especially for aviators. This has been floating around the Internet for years in various forms — and probably was passed around as photocopies for years before that.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and out on the ramp,
Not an airplane was stirring, not even a Champ.
The aircraft were fastened to tie downs with care,
In hopes that — come morning — they all would be there.

The fuel trucks were nestled, all snug in their spots,
With gusts from two-forty at 39 knots.
I slumped at the fuel desk, now finally caught up,
And settled down comfortably, resting my butt.

When the radio lit up with noise and with chatter,
I turned up the scanner to see what was the matter.
A voice clearly heard over static and snow,
Called for clearance to land at the airport below.

He barked his transmission so lively and quick,
I’d have sworn that the call sign he used was “St. Nick.”
I ran to the panel to turn up the lights,
The better to welcome this magical flight.

He called his position, no room for denial,
“St. Nicholas One, turnin’ left onto final.”
And what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a Rutan-built sleigh, with eight Rotax Reindeer!

With vectors to final, down the glideslope he came,
As he passed all fixes, he called them by name:
“Now Ringo! Now Tolga! Now Trini and Bacun!
On Comet! On Cupid!” What pills was he takin’?

While controllers were sittin’, and scratchin’ their heads,
They phoned to my office, and I heard it with dread,
The message they left was both urgent and dour:
“When Santa pulls in, have him please call the tower.”

He landed like silk, with the sled runners sparking,
Then I heard, “Left at Charlie,” and “Taxi to parking.”
He slowed to a taxi, turned off of three-oh,
And stopped on the ramp with a “Ho, ho-ho-ho…”

He stepped out of the sleigh, but before he could talk,
I ran out to meet him with my best set of chocks.
His red helmet and goggles were covered with frost,
And his beard was all blackened from Reindeer exhaust.

His breath smelled like peppermint, gone slightly stale,
And he puffed on a pipe, but he didn’t inhale.
His cheeks were all rosy and jiggled like jelly,
His boots were as black as a cropduster’s belly.

He was chubby and plump, in his suit of bright red,
And he asked me to “fill it, with hundred low-lead.”
He came dashing in from the snow-covered pump,
I knew he was anxious for drainin’ the sump.

I spoke not a word, but went straight to my work,
And I filled up the sleigh, but I spilled like a jerk.
He came out of the restroom, and sighed in relief,
Then he picked up a phone for a Flight Service brief.

And I thought as he silently scribed in his log,
These reindeer could land in an eighth-mile fog.
He completed his pre-flight, from the front to the rear,
Then he put on his headset, and I heard him yell, “Clear!”

And laying a finger on his push-to-talk,
He called up the tower for clearance and squawk.
“Take taxiway Charlie, the southbound direction,
Turn right three-two-zero at pilot’s discretion”

He sped down the runway, the best of the best,
“Your traffic’s a Grumman, inbound from the west.”
Then I heard him proclaim, as he climbed thru the night,
“Merry Christmas to all! I have traffic in sight.”

Thanks to AVweb: The Night Before Christmas – Aviation Style

A number of aviation bloggers have joined up to bring you The Twelve Days of Christmas: An Aviation Gift Guide. I’m going out on a limb with today’s recommendation but it can be hard to be sure what a pilot might like – we’re all different – and this was the one thing I could think of that every pilot would use.

OK, I admit, this is a gift you probably should have started saving up for last year. It’s cheaper than a Cirrus and more expensive than just about every other aviation gift you are likely to find recommended. But maybe you can get everyone in the family to chip in?

The Bose Aviation Headset X is a lightweight, noise-cancelling portable headset which I’ve found to be both comfortable and reliable. You can spot the pilots who have these at any training school, they carry their headset with them, refusing to use the set provided in the rental planes.

You can buy the headset online from Bose via Amazon.com for $995 in the US. In the UK, you’ll have to find the nearest shop using the Bose Dealer Locator.

Yes, it costs almost a thousand dollars. This is a big-ticket item, make no mistake. However, if you can get the cash together and you want to really surprise your favourite pilot, then take a look at this headset. I’m confident that every aviator would be very happy to find this in their stocking.

But if this isn’t what you had in mind, don’t despair! There is a a great collection of ideas in the the Aviation Gift Guide and more to come! I’ve listed the gift ideas so far and you can check the guide again over the next few days to see what other pilots came up with.

Day One: A Cirrus

Day Two: Flyabout DVD

Day Three: Intrument Coasters

Day Four: Breitling Navitimer

Day Five: Portable Collision Avoidance System

Day Six: Discovery Flight

Day Seven: Safer Pilots

Day Eight: Learn Your GPS

Trying to find presents is never easy and however much I swear I will be more organised next year, it always seems to end up December before I’m ready.

This year, a number of aviation bloggers have teamed up to bring you gift ideas and I’m thrilled to be one of them. With a theme of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” we’ll each be posting gift ideas for the aviator in your life.

Day One:
On the first day of Christmas… I wish me a Cirrus | Plastic Pilot

Day Two:
Max Trescott Aviation Trends Aloft: Twelve Days of Christmas – FlyAbout DVD movie for Aviation Lovers

Day Three:

Aviation coasters!

Seriously, it can be nerve-wracking to buy gifts for pilots when you don’t know what is missing from their flight bag but these coasters are useful in any household and they look great!

I am sure they will bring a smile to the face of anyone interested in planes.

I found them for sale over at Trintec Industries Inc.. They have three different styles – classic, round and modern – as well as a number of other fun household products in their aviation catalog. They accept Paypal for payment and will ship anywhere in the world.

Stay tuned for Day Four from Matthew Stibbe at Golf Hotel Whiskey.

I’m on the road this week but never fear! The well-known aviation blogger Plastic Pilot has kindly taken command of Fear of Landing for the day. I asked him to tell us what it is like in Air Traffic Control and he responded with the following post.

ATC Behind the Scenes

by Vincent, the Plastic Pilot

I’ve been working for ATC companies for the last nine years and gained a good understanding of how the whole system works, from both sides. Knowing what a controller working position looks like and how the guys on the other side of the radio are working makes the cooperation easier. This is what I’d like to share in this post to make you feel better when you talk to ATC…

Controllers are supported in their tasks by different systems: surveillance systems (radar, ADS-B and others) inform them about the aircraft positions, this information is linked with flight plan data.

Other systems provide controllers with so called “environment information”:

• weather,
• runway in use,
• military airspace,
• NOTAMs,
• and so on.

But all this nice technology becomes totally useless if the controller loses his ability to communicate with the pilots. This is why the radio system is the most important for controller.

The radio system on the ATC side is exactly the same as in the cockpit: a controller can transmit or receive, but not both at the same time. If you talk, the controller must listen and wait till the end of your transmission. There is no override or bypass system. This is why controllers hate it when their frequency get blocked.

Let me tell you a short story I saw once, directly from the tower…

An Airbus 320 was lined-up, ready for take-off. The controller was waiting for the preceding landing to vacate the runway before issuing the take-off clearance. A Boeing 737 was on short final. The timing was short, but not critical. At the very moment where the controller was ready to clear the Airbus for take-off, an incoming VFR pilot started a transmission.

The pilot did not use the standard “Tower, Call-sign, good morning” initial contact message. Instead, he started a very long transmission, not using ICAO phraseology. I don’t remember the very words he used, but it was something like “Tower good morning, this is HB-XXX… a PA28 we took off from LSXX and we are requesting landing clearance. We have two persons on board. We also copied airport information Quebec and are approaching VRP N”. The message was excessively long, and sounded anything but professional. During the time the frequency was blocked, the 737 on final had to go around, because the A320 was still standing there, by lack of landing clearance.

Without a radio, a controller becomes a simple spectator…

If the VFR pilot had use a short initial contact, the controller would have answered with a “Stand-by”, and then cleared the 320 for take-off, and the 737 to land, shortly after. I’m sure you don’t want to be this kind of pilot, so please use standard phraseology and keep your messages short.

VFR pilots mostly use ground, tower and approach frequencies, where pilots can hear each other, thanks to the relative small size of the airspace served by these frequencies. It is a good radio practice to wait for a couple of seconds before initial contact on a new frequency, to make sure you won’t interrupt some other radio exchanges. When contacting an “Information” frequency, an additional problem exist: given the size of the areas served by one single controller, possibly using multiple frequencies, the risk of simultaneous transmission is increased.

Depending how sophisticated the radio system is, it is possible for a flight information service officer to work several frequencies simultaneously, but this is not always the case. When you make your initial contact, it is possible that the guy on the other side must try different transmission frequencies to answer your call. He can also be talking to someone else on a frequency you don’t monitor.

One more thing for VFR pilots… Remember that if you fly without a flight plan, controllers do not have any clue who you are and what you want to do. They have to note down everything you say on the fly, so please don’t talk too fast when you pass your message. It’s much better to transmit once, slowly and clearly, than too fast and have them requesting all information again.

Finally, if you have the opportunity to visit a local ATC facility… just do it. You will be well received and will learn a lot. Controllers like to talk to pilots, even if this is a bit more complex than before September 11th. Look for ATC open house day at your local airport and don’t miss it.

Be sure to visit PlasticPilot’s General Aviation Blog and thank him for this insider’s view of the tower. Also take a look at his exciting initiative Flying Across America with a plan to fly from Daytona Beach, FL to Catalina Island, CA and back.

Last November, two high-performance military jets departed Van Nuys airport in California as a formation flight to gather footage for a film in production called Kerosene Cowboys. The plan was for the jets to do four passes off of the coast of the Santa Monica pier, west of a banner tow aircraft towing a banner for the film. The first passes went as planned and then one of the pilots broke away and flew low over the beach area for multiple passes in excess of 250 knots (two of the passes were below 500 feet) and then pulled into a steep climb just before the pier.

Buzzing of Santa Monica Pier leads to questions about aviation safety — latimes.com

Racing at speeds of up to 350 mph, the Soviet-made military jet made several low-altitude passes at the Santa Monica Pier, seemingly keying on the popular Ferris wheel as frightened onlookers scattered, some screaming.

Emergency calls poured in to police as the aircraft flew about 50 feet off the ground, then spiraled skyward in a series of tight rolls, smoke trailing from its tail as if it were an aerobatic plane. The lifeguard in Tower 26 said the jet passed so close that she felt a wall of heat.

David Riggs and Skip Holmes were the pilots of the military jets. The pilot in question of the lead aircraft that broke away was identified as David Riggs.

A video of the event:

The jet pilot has had his private pilot certificate revoked.

Flightwatch

The pilot in question was cited for a number of violations of the Federal Aviation Regulations including the following:
a. Section 91.117(a) [flying at an indicated airspeed of more than 250 knots below 10,000 feet];
b. Section 91.117(c) [flying at an indicated airspeed in excess of 200 knots while operating below Class B airspace];
c. Section 91.119(a) [operating at an altitude where an emergency landing cannot be effected without undue hazard
to persons or property];
d. Section 91.119(b) [operating over a congested area below 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet];
e. Section 91.119(c) [operating at an altitude of below 500 feet over an other than congested
area];
f. Section 91.303(c) [performing aerobatics in Class B, Class C, Class D or Class E Airspace];
g. Section 93.303(d) [conducting aerobatics within 4 nautical 3 miles of the centerline of a
Federal airway];
h. Section 91.303(e) [conducting aerobatics at an altitude of below 1,500 feet above the
surface]; and i. Section 91.13(a) [operating an aircraft so as to endanger the life or property of another].

The pilot stated that he was doing the flybys to promote his new movie; there was a meeting including “film market buyers and producers” at the Loew’s Beach Hotel overlooking the pier. Dave Riggs is the CEO of Afterburner Films, Inc.

You can read the full details on a PDF by National Transportation Safety Board (may be slow to load).

And that would seem to be the end of that. Although according to the LA Times article:

FAA officials also say they are still keeping an eye on Riggs. In August, they sent him a warning letter stating that the agency would not honor a Canadian pilot’s license he obtained in June, several months after his U.S. license was revoked.

Here is a photograph of the plane (taken by Chris Kennedy and featured on Airport-Data.com):

If you think it looks vaguely familiar, that might be because you’ve recently watched the viral YouTube video about a frightening Close Call with Terrain:

Is it the same plane in the video?

The markings match but I don’t know how common that colour scheme is for L-39s and there’s no chance of seeing the registration number. I’ve been looking for more information on the terrain incident but not seen anything other than the details on YouTube so far.

Hello there!

It seems I wasn’t the only one who thought that the bear-attack-and-repair photographs were pretty cool. Traffic to that one page over the past three days has been as much as I usually get to the site over three months.

Neat! And even better, you guys seem to be the chatty type.

I thought I’d mention that Fear of Landing updates every Friday (and sometimes in between, like today) with photographs, fun links, news and personal essays about general aviation. The easiest way to keep up is to subscribe to the feed. Or you can get an email every time I update by signing up to the email updates via Feedburner.

Also, I chat on Twitter with silly jokes, great websites as well as links to my essays about general aviation and motherhood. So if you use twitter, say hello to me as @akaSylvia.

Back to the subject at hand, I’ve been trying to track down the original source of the photographs to no avail. If you have any additional information about the plane, the pilot or the photographer, please let me know in the comments!

Meanwhile, it’s nice to see you. Pull up a chair and stay a while. Leave me a link to your favourite blog or website (even if its your own) and we can see what we have in common.

Not all of these questions are really all that frequent, if I’m honest with you. Most of them are more like occasionally asked questions. Or in the case of the last question: asked once, by my mother.

Nevertheless, I will endeavour to answer them all.

How many people can you fit into your plane?

The Saratoga seats six people. However, those six people should be fairly friendly as they will be bumping knees throughout the flight. The bigger issue is weight.

The Saratoga can carry up to 1,149 pounds or 521 kilos. Filling the fuel tanks uses up 614 of those pounds (278 kg), leaving us with 535 pounds or 278 kilos. You could fit 6 lightly dressed people into the plane but they’d have to weigh under 90 pounds each. That’s 6½ stone. 40 kilos. I haven’t weighed that little since I was 14 so among other things, you’d have to get a new pilot.

You can, however, take less fuel and more people, so having six seats can be useful for short flights.

How fast can your plane fly?

At 10,000 feet, the Saratoga has a cruise speed of 175 knots which is about 324 km/h (200 mph). We have a burn rate of about 18 US gallons an hour at this cruising speed.

Do you fly straight from Málaga to England?

No, we stop to refuel, usually in southern France as that makes for a comfortable break point. It’s about 6.5 hours in total, so it’s nice to split it after three and a half hours to have a lunch break.

How much fuel do you use?

This is very approximate, but:

At a cruising speed of 175 knots and a burn rate of 18 gph, that’s 11 miles per US gallon, 13 miles to the imperial gallon or 21 litres per 100 kilometres.

Do I have any antipodean readers? That’s 5 kilometres per litre to you.

How much does it cost to fill the plane full of fuel?

It depends on where we refuel. The tank takes 102 US gallons (386 litres) and prices are currently around €1.80/litre. So that’s around €700 or $1,000 or £640 for a full tank at today’s conversion rates.

Do you really always work out everything in all those different measurement systems?

Cliff does. I invariably mess it up. I watch the fuel gauges very closely to make up for my maths disability.

Could you fly direct from Málaga to England?

Yes, Cliff has done it once. However, it involves flying verrrrrrrry slowly in order to keep fuel consumption as low as possible, in order to make the journey without stopping to refuel. Even with a decent tailwind, it took him 7 hours to reach his destination in Essex.

Personally, I need to stretch my legs and a chance to “freshen up” so I have no interest in trying this.

Is it cheaper to fly from Spain to England with the Saratoga or with a commercial airline?

When we first started commuting using the Saratoga, we worked out that it was cheaper for the three of us (Cliff, Connor and me) to fly in the Saratoga than using British Airways. And the food was better.

Meanwhile, with rising fuel costs and the advent of low-cost airlines it’s now clearly much cheaper to fly commercial. However, in Faster than a Speeding Jet: Single Engine Travels I came to the conclusion that with the security checks and constant flight delays, it was more comfortable and just as time-efficient to use the Saratoga. Also, the food is definitely better.

Do you have a parachute?

No.

But in an emergency, shouldn’t you put on the autopilot and grab a parachute and jump out of the plane?

If I can get the plane controlled with the autopilot, then why on earth would I jump out of it?

Have you ever had to land in a field?

Thank goodness, no. Practised Forced Landings are a major part of pilot training. Part of pretty much every training flight and check out involves going through the motions so that your reactions to a real engine failure are instinctive. I’ve written about the experience in Falling Out of the Sky but I’ve never been in a situation where I thought I was going to have to land other than at my planned destination.

Do you always make sure you have clean underwear on in case you are in an accident?

Yes, Mom, I do. Not that I think it still would be once I got the plane on the ground!

Today’s xkcd made me break out with a smile before I’d even finished my first coffee:

As with all of the xkcd comics, be sure to hover your mouse over the image for a further comment from the author.

For more intriguing views of the world we live in, visit xkcd.com.

I totally lost control of my week! I had no idea it was Friday and now it’s the end of the day and I am out of time to write an interesting post for you.

So I am giving you permission to play a game. Spend the time you would have wasted reading my ramblings and see if you can get all the planes organised sensibly. I have to admit, I feel bad about all those passengers trapped in the planes while I made the pilots wait for taxi.

Choose to “Play Free Version” and then click on the planes to give them instructions. Read the rest of this entry »

I keep meaning to tell you guys that I am on Twitter. If you are already signed up for Twitter then you can follow me simply by clicking on the “follow” button on my Twitter page.

Or you can just visit akaSylvia on Twitter and see my updates there (no need to sign up for anything). My most recent tweets are in the left sidebar so you can also get the updates just by visiting this blog.

My Twitter stream has very little overlap with my website. I talk about all kinds of things, not just aviation, and I use it for the small things that don’t seem worth a full blog post for.

What will you find? Well, I link interesting web pages that I have found: fun videos and jokes and interesting news and exceptional blog pieces. I enjoy it because it’s a great way to make friends and chitchat.

I don’t use automated alerts at all – everything on my Twitter-stream is typed in by me. So you won’t get spammed although I often do a quick tweet to let people know a new blogpost is up.

And I have never, ever tweeted what I had for breakfast. Coffee and cottage cheese, if you are wondering.

So, if you are interested in a little bit more of me and fun links then follow me on Twitter. And be sure to say hello !

I don’t have a new opinion piece for you today but I did put together a selection of aviation news from the past week. Unfortunately, plane crashes have dominated the headlines.

Aviation Headlines

Cessna takes off without pilot – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

A light aircraft has taken off at Coober Pedy in outback South Australia without the pilot.

Continental Airlines Flight 128 makes emergency landing in Miami after getting slammed by turbulence

Four people aboard Continental Airlines Flight 128 were seriously injured, and 10 others had to be taken to hospitals, authorities said.

Eight hurt on Spanish jet at Paris airport – Yahoo! News UK

The plane was evacuated after the fire began on the Airbus A320’s right engine at 10:36 a.m. (9:36 a.m. British time), as it taxied from the terminal, Vueling said in a communique.

Bangkok Post : 1 confirmed death in Bangkok Airways crash

The plane reportedly skidded off the runway and collided with an old control tower as the captain attemped to land at Samui airport.

Plane Carrying 16 Disappears in Indonesia – International News – FOXNews.com

Nikmatullah, who goes by a single name, said no trace had been found of the plane more then four hours after it took off. The aircraft was carrying enough fuel to keep it in the air for 3 1/2 hours, he told Metro TV station.

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Laser owners ‘arrested on sight’

The worst affected areas were regional airports with 15 in Cardiff, 12 in Manchester, nine in Liverpool, nine in Birmingham and seven in Edinburgh.

Update

I posted a number of aerial shots from a flight over England where I was the passenger. One of them has been identified!

Scott Dunn from Yellowbird – The adventures of a boy and his airplane (recommended reading) identified the location in the comments:

The last photo (Abandoned junk in the yard) is Salisbury Hall, originally built in the 1600’s. During WWII, the famous de Havilland Mosquito fighter-bomber was developed there in secret. The site now hosts the de Havilland Aircraft Heritage Centre, where the original Mosquito prototype is on display along with a number of other historic de Havilland aircraft and artifacts.

So now I need to go back so that I can visit the de Havilland Museum from the ground!

The other day, Paul Tocknell from Ask a CFI.com made a throw-away comment on Twitter:

Just learned about the D.B. Cooper story. Crazy.

As I am easily distracted, I wandered off to find out who D.B. Cooper was and spent the rest of the day reading about the only unsolved hijacking case in the US.

Paul is right, the story is crazy and fascinating. In an attempt to justify the amount of time I spent reading about the the man and his disappearance, I’ve compiled this set of links on the web to share with you.

The Full Story

D.B. Cooper, the legendary skyjacker – extortionist – Crime Library on truTV.com

Cooper handed a note to Flo Schaffner moments after the jet was airborne. Men traveling alone often passed phone or hotel room numbers to the attractive young stewardess. She assumed another come-on and gave the note her usual treatment, sticking it unread in a uniform pocket.

The next time Schaffner passed, Cooper gestured for her to lean close. He said, “You’d better read that. I have a bomb.” He nodded toward the briefcase in his lap. Schaffner went to the galley, read the note, then shared it with fellow attendant Tina Mucklow. They hurried to the cockpit, where Capt. Scott had a look. The pilot immediately radioed Sea-Tac air traffic control, who alerted Seattle police, who in turn alerted the FBI. The feds placed an urgent call to Northwest Orient’s president, Donald Nyrop, who ordered full compliance with Cooper’s demands. Nyrop no doubt hoped to avoid the negative publicity that a disaster aboard a Northwest flight would bring. By comparison, $200,000 was a pittance.

Sluggo’s Northwest 305 Hijacking Research Site

When the flight landed in Seattle, the hijacker exchanged the flight’s 36 passengers for the money and parachutes. Cooper kept several crewmembers, and the plane took off again, ordered to set a course for Mexico City.

Somewhere between Seattle and Reno, sometime around 8:13 p.m., the hijacker did the incredible: he jumped out of the back of the plane with a parachute and the ransom money. The pilots landed safely, but Cooper had disappeared into the night and his ultimate fate remains a mystery to this day.

D. B. Cooper – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Despite aerial and ground searches of the projected 28-square-mile (73 km2) landing zone in late 1971 and spring 1972, no trace of Cooper or his parachute was found. An exact landing point was difficult to determine, as the plane’s 300 feet (91 m)-per-second speed in winds varying by location and altitude would make even small differences in timing move the projected landing point considerably. This led the FBI to determine that Cooper could not have known exactly where he would land, and therefore must not have had an accomplice waiting to assist him upon landing.

FBI Files

The FBI have released a set of 7 PDF files with the full details of the initial case:

Federal Bureau of Investigation – Freedom of Information Privacy Act

On November 24, 1971, an unknown subject, also known as Dan Cooper, purchased a one-way ticket on Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305. The flight was carrying 36 passengers and crew. The flight originated in Portland, Oregon with the final destination of Seattle, Washington. The plane was hijacked just prior to its arrival in Seattle. In Seattle, the hijacker allowed the passengers and two stewardesses to depart the plane. Northwest Orient Airlines paid the hijacker $200,000. The plane departed Seattle for Reno, Nevada. It is believed the hijacker parachuted from the plane during this flight. Authorities and personnel from Fort Lewis, Washington searched for Mr. Cooper but he was never found. In 1980, an 8-year-old boy found $5,800 on the bank of the Columbia River. This is the only money ever recovered from the ransom.

Popular Literature

There have been a number of books written about the man – from both FBI agents and amateur sleuths:

• Amazon.co.uk listing
• Amazon.com listing

Could D.B. Cooper still be identified?

D.B. Cooper, where are you?

Forman said a friend of his — who was a loner, like the FBI described — confessed to Forman and his wife. The friend, who looked similar to the FBI sketch, was a proficient skydiver, an expert with dynamite and mysteriously disappeared in the days around the hijacking.

The kicker: Forman’s friend was a woman named Barbara Dayton; family and friends say she is believed to be the first person in Washington to have a sex-change operation.

Check Your $20 bills

D B Cooper’s Loot Serial Number Searcher

All of the ten-thousand $20 bills were photographed with a high-speed Recordak machine to create a microfilm later to be used to prepare a list of serial numbers.

Our engine will take the information you supply, and comb our database of the nearly 10,000 serial number of the hijacker’s ill-gotten gains. If you got a bill with one of the serial numbers, the program will tell you.

FOXNews.com – D.B. Cooper Skyjacking Cash Sold in Dallas Auction

Fifteen tattered $20 bills recovered from the 1971 D.B. Cooper skyjacking sold Friday for more than 120 times their face value at a Dallas auction.

Heritage Auction Galleries said the bills sold for a total of more than $37,000 — two to three times higher than expected.

Winning bidders paid about $6,500 each for two of the $20 bills. The money has the handwritten initials of investigators who examined the bills, which were found buried in sand in 1980.

Recent Copy Cat?

Pilot Jumps From Malibu, Flees Authorities

Authorities in Alabama are looking for the pilot of a Piper Malibu that crashed in Florida after the pilot apparently made a fake distress call, put the aircraft on autopilot and parachuted out late Sunday. The plane went on to crash near East Milton on the Florida panhandle while the pilot, identified as Marcus Schrenker, 38, an investment broker from Indianapolis, was being taken to a hotel in Harpersville, Ala., by a local police officer. According to the Childersburg Police Department, Schrenker told an officer he’d been in a canoeing accident and he was escorted to the hotel. Some time later, when police there heard about the crash and recognized Schrenker’s name, they went back to the hotel but Schrenker was gone. A hotel employee told them he put on a black cap and disappeared into the woods. The unusual string of events began with Schrenker taking off from Anderson Municipal Airport in Indiana Sunday evening.

The plane crashed at about 9:15 p.m. Sometime earlier, about 220 miles to the north near Birmingham, Ala., Schrenker made a distress call, saying the windshield on the aircraft had imploded and he was severely cut. At some point after that he “appears to have intentionally abandoned the plane after putting it on autopilot over the Birmingham, Alabama, area and parachuting to the ground,” according to a news release from the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office in Milton, Fla. The cop who took Schrenker to the hotel in Harpersville said the pilot was wet from the knees down but didn’t appear hurt.

The Search Continues

FBI — D.B. Cooper – Press Room – New Developments in the Unsolved Case 03-17-09

Larry Carr thinks it’s highly unlikely that Cooper survived the jump. “But he came from somewhere and from someone. And that is what we want to know.” Based on what he has learned so far, here is Carr’s profile of Cooper:

• He served in the Air Force and at some point was stationed in Europe, where he may have become interested in the Dan Cooper comic books.
• He worked as a cargo loader on planes, giving him knowledge and experience in the aviation industry, which was in its infancy in 1971.
• Because his job required him to throw cargo out of planes, Cooper would have worn an emergency parachute in case he fell out. This would have provided him with working knowledge of parachutes but not necessarily the functional knowledge to survive the jump he made.
• He may have come from the East Coast, but taken an aviation job in Seattle when he got out of the military. It’s possible he lost his job during an economic downturn in the aviation industry in 1970-71. If he was a loner with little or no family, “nobody would have missed him” after he was gone.

Can You Help?

FBI — D.B. Cooper Redux – Help Us Solve the Enduring Mystery

Who was Cooper? Did he survive the jump? And what happened to the loot, only a small part of which has ever surfaced?

It’s a mystery, frankly. We’ve run down thousands of leads and considered all sorts of scenarios. And amateur sleuths have put forward plenty of their own theories. Yet the case remains unsolved.

Would we still like to get our man? Absolutely. And we have reignited the case—thanks to a Seattle case agent named Larry Carr and new technologies like DNA testing.

This three-part story was originally published in the November 2007 issue of Piper Flyer magazine.

Come back on the 26th of June for Part Three.

When my mother announced she’d be in Europe for a few weeks, I asked for her itinerary so that we could arrange to meet. She had an eight-hour day dedicated to traveling from Rome to Germany to see her family in Mannheim.

Cliff jumped into the conversation and told her that it was only a three-hour flight in the Saratoga, flying from Roma Urbe direct to Mannheim City Airport. The small airfields at Roma Urbe and Mannheim were clearly much more convenient. She could avoid all the lines and the security checks and the standing around waiting for something to happen. She wouldn’t even miss lunch.

He then told her I would be happy to fly it.

I panicked. I tried to come up with coherent arguments. Meanwhile, my mother was telling everyone how excited she was, stopping strangers in the street to inform them that her daughter was a Real Live Pilot and was going to take her flying and that it was more direct than a commercial flight and wasn’t even going to cost her a cent.

Cliff promised he would sort out all the navigation and planning: all I had to do was fly the plane. We could buy VFR charts there, meanwhile he’d plan it using IFR charts. The clincher was my son. He was so excited about going to see Rome and Grandma that he didn’t even complain about having to travel in the “little plane”.

By the time Cliff flew us IFR to Italy to meet her, I was almost excited. The views on the inbound flight were stunning. I stared down at the dusty Mediterranean coast, jagged and harsh against the bright blue water shimmering beneath us. Islands floated atop a glassy sea, tiny lighthouses on their edges.

My son sat in the back, playing his Gameboy and occasionally muttering “uh huh” when I told him to look out the window. Eventually he closed the window blind to keep the sun from reflecting off his screen. I gave up on him with a stern comment that when we were flying with Grandma in the back, he better pretend to be interested. He agreed and I left him in peace.

Ah, Rome! So beautiful and ancient and vibrant: you could never mistake this for any other city. We were thrilled with every minute despite the heat and the crowds of August. It wasn’t until the night before the flight that my fears came back to me: was I really going to put my mother and my son into that little plane? Did they really trust me to be in control of it? What if I lost concentration and twiddled the vertical speed knob counter-clockwise instead of clockwise, causing us to dive into the ground, ending up a fiery inferno on an isolated Tuscan farm?

These visions of disaster are a standard part of my pre-flight ritual. I have, on one occasion, twiddled that very knob the wrong way. The moment the nose tilted down, I disengaged the auto-pilot and tilted it back up. No drama, no fuss. I know the fear isn’t rational. But, still. My mother doesn’t like getting into a car with me driving but she was willing to climb into the plane? Was she out of her mind?

We arrived at Rome Urbe at nine, expecting my mother to arrive at eleven after everything was ready. The plan was to get away promptly and arrive in Germany in time for a late lunch. We were greeted by a tall man with a gray uniform and a scowl on his face. He asked what we were doing here. We pointed at the plane and smiled ingratiatingly but he was not so easily impressed. “Passaporto, please.” Italy and Germany are both members of the Schengen treaty, there are no border controls. Flying from Rome to Mannheim is like traveling from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Savannah, Georgia: a hefty dose of culture shock but no red tape nor official processes. We shrugged and complied but he didn’t seem satisfied. “Follow,” he told us. “Fill out.” Forms. Lots of them.

An hour later, we were still grappling with the paperwork. Our sour-faced friend had put every bag through the metal detector and been making ominous noises about searching the plane itself. A French pilot subjected to the same absurd treatment lost his temper in the heat, “Are we here not in Europe?”

Cliff dealt with the customs man while I dragged the luggage to the plane and did the walk-around. We were no further along when my mother arrived to be greeted with the same surly suspicion: what was she doing here?

I eventually convinced him that she was with us while Cliff continued to struggle with the forms. A embarrassed gentleman was at the desk trying to help. I asked him about charts for the local area. He explained that Urbe is split between two terminals and that I would have to go to the other terminal for that. And fuel? The man’s eyes widened and he looked at the clock. “It is Sunday,” he said. “They will leave at noon.” It was 11:30.

“You must hurry,” he told us.

Cliff dashed out to the plane and then came straight back with a scowl. The battery was dead.

Part Three: Mother Told Me Not to Come

I was speaking to a friend about flying and she asked about language issues when flying around mainland Europe. These are thankfully few and far between as English is generally accepted or even required for speaking on the radio. I’ve written before about struggling to understand a French controller with a strong accent but generally I know what to expect in a radio call which makes it a lot easier to understand the detail.

It did make me remember a flight into Altenrhein (St Gallen), an airfield in Switzerland on the coast of Lake Constance. It was a gorgeous flight, my first time over the Alps, but it mainly sticks in my mind as the place where I forgot my ABC’s. I became completely confused as to what language I was speaking simply because of the difference in alphabets.

As I was approaching our destination storm clouds had begun to gather and I was somewhat stressed. I was there for the first time and the load was high. Someone spoke on the radio in German – just asking a quick question, not anything critical – and I started feeling serious language interference.

I speak fluent German but I don’t speak Aviation German and even where it might be allowed, I wouldn’t speak German to ATC as it would cause a higher workload for me. I suspect there are a lot of Europeans who are most comfortable speaking in English when it comes to radio communications, simply because that’s what they are taught and the speech patterns and routines are so ingrained.

Anyway, none of this would have made a difference if things were quiet. As I was already stressed and dealing with a heavy workload, the part of my brain that deals with keeping my words straight was temporarily distracted.

At that moment, the controller asked me how I was coming in. European airfields use VFR reporting points for where you can enter their area which are based on the points of the compass: November, Echo, Sierra, Whiskey. Often there are additional reporting points further out which are marked with a single letter.

On this flight, I was coming in via point Z. Zee, I thought to myself, and then immediately corrected myself to British English. I should say Zed, not Zee! I keyed the microphone but somehow that didn’t seem right. I let go as I thought it through. The controller doesn’t sound English. I’m not in England. I’m in Switzerland! How do the Swiss say Z?

I opened my mouth again to speak and the words on the tip of my tongue were: I’m coming in via Zurich. Luckily, the controller chose that moment to ask the question again. That split second delay gave me the chance to work out what I was supposed to be saying. “November 666 Echo X-ray is approaching the airfield for runway 28 via point Zulu.” International alphabet to the rescue!

My brain was faster than my mouth on that occasion, but only just.

We were flying into North Weald, I was in the left seat with Lee coming along for the ride as a passenger. The plan was to pick up Cliff who had been in London for meetings before taking Lee to Newcastle.

Lee is a commercial pilot and ex-CFI. He was flattering, in a backhanded manner, about my ability to fly the Saratoga: “so much better than the last time I flew with you!” I told him that I had been finding it difficult to keep up my hours, to find the time to stay in practice.

“Every time you fly into a small airfield, do circuits,” he said. “Just let them know as you approach that you’ll be doing a touch-and-go and a circuit or two before coming in for your landing. In fact, let’s do that right now.”

I called North Weald and told them that I was inbound to them and would like to do a few circuits before coming into land. He said that he had a plane looking to start aerobatics in 20 minutes but if I was quick, he didn’t mind.

Clearly, the polite thing to do would be to simply get out of the way and I confirmed to North Weald that I would simply come in to land and do my circuits another time. He sounded somewhat relieved as he contacted the pilot of the other plane to let him know that after the inbound PA 32 the field was clear for him to do his aerobatics.

Now one thing you need to know about North Weald is that it is directly underneath Stansted Airspace and as a result, you have to stay under 1,500 feet. As we taxied off the runway, we saw the other plane – a beautiful looking bright-red tail dragger that I later discovered was a Yak 55 – entering a spin directly in front of us.

“Oh my god,” said Lee. It was only at that moment that it dawned on us that he was going to do low level aerobatics directly over us, under Stansted’s airspace, with no margin for error.

I didn’t mean to block the taxiway but seeing the plane flying upside down directly in front of us, I instinctively slowed to a halt and watched, mouth wide open.

The Yak climbed at an impossible angle and then disappeared. We both leaned forward to look up. We saw it plummeting straight down towards us.

I couldn’t really think what I could possibly do to remedy the situation so I did the obvious: I closed my eyes.

I heard the engine gather steam and opened my eyes again to see the Yak climbing away. Lee kept his eyes open – in fact it took a few minutes for him to close his mouth.

The plane did a loop over our heads and then the tower called to ask where we were headed, a subtle hint that maybe we shouldn’t just park on the taxi-way, gawking like kids at the circus. We taxi’d to the other side of the Squadron and by the time we got out of the plane, the impromptu display was over.

The pilot parked the tail-dragger right in front of the Squadron and I was rather tickled to see its registration: G-OHNO

I found a video of the plane (no idea if the pilot is the same) on YouTube. All I can tell you is, I never saw it fly straight and level like this

Mark Twain said: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” Sometimes, reading travel blogs on the web, it seems like the converse is true.

If I see one more article about how obnoxious holiday makers are and how popular resorts are ruining travel for real adventurers who want to truly experience foreign countries, I might scream. The online definition of true experience varies but the overall litany is the same: tourists who are not travelling the way I am are wasting their time, should just stay at home, are to be pitied. I understand that as visitors to a foreign place, we’d like to feel special, as if we have a special connection. But honestly, a tourist is a tourist is a tourist – there is no special brand of travel that is somehow elevated from the rest.

And yet, the litany continues that somehow other people are not experiencing the trip the way that they should. Somehow, they are doing it wrong.

I’ve been tempted to comment on these travel pieces, pointing out that the only “real” way to experience authentic travel is to fly yourself. If you’ve flown commercial, you’ve had a layer of red tape between you and the people who live and work in your destination. Herded from one building to the next without the chance to walking around the plane or seeing the details of the airport, limited by a schedule devised by business men in starched suits who have probably never even made the journey.

And then I take a deep breath and reach for my blood pressure pills.

I live in a resort town – we have beaches and mountains and ancient cities and Moorish forts. We have had a huge influx of tourism over the years and there are times when I shake my head in sadness at the loss of the village that I knew. At the same time, I recognise that the same instinct which drove me here is driving the other tourists: I am not somehow special nor more deserving of the delights of this place. Arriving early isn’t clever, it’s simply presaging the changes to come.

I do understand the frustration of watching people close themselves off from the local experience and ask for home delights, telling locals what they think should be there. We have the Irish pub and a fish-and-chip shop and an Indian restaurant and, most recently, kebab to take away. The Andalucians, eager for an income, have always tried to deliver what the tourists expect. In recent years, the tourists themselves have become residents, the ex-pat population swelling and providing for itself. Slowly, my favourite comida casera disappears in favour of fake tapas and international cuisine, my dusky shops are replaced with beach gear and flamenco skirts in toddler sizes.

I sympathise with the people who arrive only to discover this display of tourist kitsch. They complain, “I want to see the real Spain.” My response varies based on mood: “if you want to go there, you shouldn’t be starting from here, your real Spain is not where the cheap flights go.” But really, what, exactly, is fake about this place? Do you mean you want to see what it was like before people like you arrived? It was wasteland with a few fishermen trying to scratch a living. The Spaniards who live here welcomed the tourists for a reason and funnily enough they aren’t interested in staying poor for your viewing pleasure.

I’m not usually that bitchy. I do understand the dilemma and usually I’ll offer an alternative: – come with me inland. Lets go to one of the white villages off the coast, in the farming area, and get something to eat and I’ll show you a different Spain. But these authentic restaurants, they may leave something to be desired.

“It’s so loud in here,” is the most common complaint – a good Spanish restaurant is one full of people shouting across the table at each other. Not one for passive gestures and gentle smiles, you can spot the “real” Andalucian restaurants by the level of ambient noise. If it is quiet, perhaps with gentle music in the background, then you have gone astray.

“Is there a vegetarian option?” This area is built on agriculture: the Andalucians love their olives and aubergines and firm salad tomatoes and green peppers. They also love their cured ham and sardines in vinegar and deep-fried delicacies of the sea. You can have a salad if you wish (you may have to ask them to leave off the tuna) but if you have a restricted diet, then a land based on subsistence farming is perhaps not the place for you.

Sometimes it seems that adventurous travellers looking for authenticity are most likely to try to bend local cuisine around their personal dietary requirements. I respect the social decisions that people have made to reduce their impact on the world. And if you have a special diet, your requests will certainly be catered to … but this is not the “real” Andalucia you are tasting, any more than the burger and chips that you sneered at.

And then there’s the accommodation snobbery: staying in a campground is a completely different experience from staying at a four-star hotel but neither is traditional. I have a soft soft for the Paradores, hotels situated in interesting old buildings, castles and monasteries, but they’ve been rebuilt with central heating and en-suite toilets, with restaurants featuring top-quality dishes from all over the country. Life was never like this in the ancient buildings until tourism arrived with a healthy cash infusion. None of this is really Spain.

I have to remind myself that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. At the local market, I wince with embarrassment at the things people say (at full volume, as if the locals couldn’t possibly understand English) but then I look at the stall owners, smiling patiently, cracking jokes to one another, always happy for a chat. They greet me, offer me almonds to taste. The toy-stall owners shout at my son like an old friend, “Tío! Come look at this.” They are selling junk, plastic guns and knock-off laser lights but my boy loves the attention, enjoys feeling a valued customer – a feeling he never gets at Toys-R-Us.

And I realise I’m wrong to get wound up at the friendly Spaniards at the market – who am I to tell them not to pander to the tourists? That’s the same implication: that they aren’t being real Spaniards, this is some fake version of their home. What the hell? This is their life.

An authentic destination is like Schroedinger’s Cat, once you’ve arrived, it probably no longer exists. But it’s not a stage set, pulled down as soon as you have boarded your flight and filed away your passport until next year. They are still there, standing at the market, living their life. It’s not just for show.

I like to camp, my best friend likes sheets and a double bed. If staying at a hostel makes him miserable, who am I to tell him what his experience should be? This is a man who talks to everyone, who will get the chef out of the kitchen for a chat and a drink. He’s as happy to talk to the farmer in the hills as the owner of a restaurant chain all along the coast. And not one of them think he’s a fraud for staying at a hotel. His views of comfort don’t interfere with his experience of a place. His refusal to view a particular aspect of a country as “authentic” is much more telling.