Back in England
Back in England
I arrived back on Saturday 12th July on Air Canada 860 into Heathrow, caught the
Railair Bus which is now £
As Guildford was
choc a bloc with traffic it was easier for Paul to pick me up from Woking
Station and so I alighted there.
Lunch in Devon
Trevor was keen to go flying on Sunday, and there was an
invite to go to Devon and have lunch with Martin and Jan who are old friends of
mine.
Paul K and his son Iain were to fly down in the Sling 2 as well.
So I tackled the road works and drove with delays to
White Waltham to fly down in the Luscombe.
The visibility was excellent there
and back.
The ground was arid, but most of the fields are covered in wheat
until Devon itself was reached and the terrain was once again green. Devon
benefits from much more rain!
At Eaglescott we landed beyond a T21 Sedburgh glider that was subsequently towed out by a 7KCAB Citabria; quite a task on a warm summer's day!
There was a corroding Tomahawk abandoned at Eaglescott, it is beyond
restoration.
Brad in Canada is looking for a pair of elevators for a Tomahawk
he is restoring there, and so I am on the lookout for Tomahawk parts, please let
me know if you see a suitable donor.
Unfortunately the elevators on this
Tomahawk have rotted beyond recovery.
As ever hospitality was excellent, and we had sausage and bacon baps followed by
Jan's excellent scones, clotted cream on first, then jam on top. Lovely.
There was a chocolate cake too, but I didn't sample it...
I was asked to take some aerial shots of the Devon cottage before proceding on course.
'Might as well take some pictures of Koko's Devon house in passing.
You might
remember my yellow MX-5 which I was required to sell to her and nobody else.
As my fortunes decline I have had to sell anything of value, my Hasselblad
camera, my MX-5 car, and on Tuesday I completed to sale of the Aircoupe.
The
Aircoupe sale is a sad result from the decline in flying for fun in England.
In 1982 I bought a Condor, and then had to buy another one due to the popularity
of flying in that decade.
I ended up operating seven aeroplanes and had 160
members flying them.
Not now, I'd hoped the Aircoupe would do 100 hours
flying before this Annual check, but no, only 80.
During the 1980's I worked
on 250 hours/aeroplane/year to break even. They usually did over 400!
The
Condors paid for themselves in two years, and I worked on five years for the
expensive Slingsby T67A (£
Progress is people with less
disposable income in a more serious and dangerous world where cultural
displacement is occuring with needy people migrating, higher taxes, and this
land being slowly over-run with new build housing that require airfield land.
The birth rate had gone down, and so we need cultures who produce children to
replace our declining populations.
Greedy governments see more population as
producing greater economies, but how many people are productive vs those that
need government hand-outs?
I have my troubles, £
It's not what I expected, but
entirely my fault, I should have paid more into my UK pension.
I applied for
Pension Credit, it took months for them to reply, and it seems I do not qualify.
I made a mistake flying back to England, I should have flown to France and
come across on a rubber dinghy. Migrants are far better treated than people
native to England, this Labour government is very bad for retired people here.
Yesterday I spent the day starting the Chilton.
I don't want this engine run
for too long on the ground, it needs to be flown.
Thanks to Asus UK, they put me on to MS Expression, I downloaded a copy, and
edited this page using it.
Let's see if it works.
If so I will write up my Canadian Report to follow... A lot of images to show for one month away.