Lot’s of progress at Bidford in October
Over the last 2 weeks, Bidford has been working hard with its student pilots. The weather has been kind and it has been very busy with lots of visitors choosing to do their experience flights the last two weekends.
Our pilot, Allan, with an Experience flight visitor, who brought her family to watch
We also hosted a Scout weekend with a visit by 1st Littleton and Great Bear Explorer Scout Group. They had a brilliant weekend. It started with hiking up to the airfield from their Scout hut in South Littleton, setting up the camp, which was a fantastic sight. They had fish and chips from Bidford chippy and cooked their marshmallows on the camp fire.
Sadly the weather wasn't in the troop’s favour on Sunday for them to get involved helping to set up and working on stage 4 Air Activities badge. But with spirits high and Russel (Cadet pilot) and Mark (Operations manager) showed the troop around the hangers, which made up for it. The scouts then set off with full bellies from a cooked breakfast and navigated their own way home. The troop is looking forward to setting to return in the near future and completing their badges.
On the solo front, Richard was first out of the blocks. After a mere 27 flights, totalling 9 hours 2 minutes in the air, he did his first solo just over 2 weeks ago.
Super performance by Richard, being congratulated by our Chief Flying Officer, Frank.
Next was the two senior members Allan and Paul. We both took quite a lot more flights to get to the same point, but in general the younger you are the quicker you can go solo. We have 15 year olds who have recently gone fully solo and are now studying for the Bronze Award (next stage in flying development). Frank decided on Saturday 7th that it was time Paul flew alone.
Paul doing his first solo landing in our K13 on Saturday 7th October
The next day Graham, Deputy Chief Flying Instructor, was not to be outdone. Allan was given a set of tasks in our Puchacz training glider and then told him to go and do a solo on Sunday 8th October.
Allan looking very pleased with his first solo flight
Once a student has passed all his solo tests, the next stage if they wish to progress is to study for the Bronze Award, which is a first step in being able to fly cross-country safely and effectively. You can see Richard, Allan and Paul being presented with their “Bronze and Beyond” training book for the Bronze exam by their instructors on the day, Frank and Graham.
