Category Archives: Flight Training

Episode 48 – Mark Knowles – FISO at Barton Airport

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Nick Duriez and Mark Knowles, FISOs at Barton Airport

Nick Duriez and Mark Knowles, FISOs at Barton Airport

Today I’m visiting my old stomping ground of Barton Aerodrome to talk to one of the guys in the control tower. The chap that’s featuring on the podcast is Mark Knowles and if you’ve ever landed or taken off from Barton chances are you will have spoken to Mark at some point.

The first thing I asked Mark to do was to tell me about Barton, or City Airport, Manchester as it’s often called, and to tell me the type of air traffic control it has.

Mark started by describing the aerodrome. It’s a grass airfield near to Manchester with 8 runways and they operate a Flight Information Service under the title Barton Information.

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Episode 46 – Scott Beaver – Flying Around the World

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Scott Beaver

Scott Beaver

A listener, Scott Beaver, wrote to me recently to say how much he’s enjoying listening to the podcast and in his email he mentioned that he was planning to fly around the world at some time in the not too distant future. I’m always keen to hear about how people go about planning for great flying adventures so I invited Scott along to appear on the podcast.

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Episode 44 – Typhoon Display Team – Part 1

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RAF Eurofighter Typhoon at Coningsby

RAF Eurofighter Typhoon at Coningsby

At the invitation of RAF Coningsby, today I’m visiting the Typhoon Display Team to find out what it’s like to fly the Typhoon and to get a taste of what it takes to put together the superb Typhoon display.
The 2 members of the team that I’m talking to are: Flying Officer Gregor Ogston who is the display team manager and Sergeant Liam Whelan the Typhoon display engineer manager.
I first wanted to hear a little about the base, here in Lincolnshire, so I asked Liam what exactly was the mission of RAF Coningsby.

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Episode 41 – Malcolm Howland – Thruster Air Services and Fly365

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Thruster T600 Sprint

Thruster T600 Sprint

On a recent trip to Lincolnshire I found myself at Wickenby Airfield, home to Thruster Microlights and Fly365 flying school. The man I’m here to talk to is Malcolm Howland who heads up the flying school and also works for Thruster.

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Episode 40 – Brian Cattle, from PPL to FI via CPL

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Brian Cattle at controls of Cougar GA7

Brian Cattle at controls of Cougar GA7

Today I’m visiting Sherburn Airfield in Yorkshire to meet a fellow pilot, Brian Cattle. Brian is a very keen aviator and has been flying privately for quite a few years now. Dedicated and passionate flyers are always welcome on the podcast so I’m glad to say Brian’s agreed to come on the podcast to share the experiences of his flight training from PPL to CPL and on to Flying Instructor.

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Episode 35 – Flight Training in the USA – Angel City Flyers

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Flight Training in the USA

Flight Training in the USA

Oli went to LA to do his PPL training in late 2006. Like many of us that train in the UK he’d started and stopped due to the weather and lack of funds. So, when he’d saved up enough to get out to the USA to complete his training he took the plunge and went to California. The decision to go the Los Angeles was made easy by the fact that he had family out there so he could save on accommodation costs.

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Episode 33 – Flight Training in the USA – UK Flight Training

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Flight Training in the USA

Flight Training in the USA

I’ve been asked by a listener called Tom Boothby whether I could do an episode on flight training in the US. I’ve eventually got a few folks lined up to come on the podcast and chat about their experiences.
So, Episode 33 of Flying Podcast features a fellow Barton flyer called Dave Crozier who trained in the US some time back. My first question for Dave was `what was your experience of flight training in the USA?’ His response was that he’d been struggling to get his PPL completed over here in the UK. The weather in England was conspiring to prevent him getting his flying licence so he decided to go over to the US to complete his training.
After a great deal of research, Dave chose UK Flight Training of Long Beach in California. He chose California due to the predicted better weather and with 360 flying days a year who could argue.

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Episode 32 – Peter Davies, a Career in Aviation

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Peter Davies

Peter Davies

Episode 32 of Flying Podcast sees me back up to York to interview Peter Davies. Peter is an instructor on gyrocopters for the Gyrocopter Experience. He currently runs their Preston franchise. Quite by chance, when I was reading about gyrocopters I came across Peter’s name and I was fascinated to read about his experiences in the world of aviation. His flying pedigree goes way back to the early days of hang gliding and microlighting here in the UK and so I thought he’d make a good candidate to appear on the podcast.

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Episode 31 – Becoming a Flying Instructor with Martin Hatton

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Martin Hatton of Ravenair

Martin Hatton of Ravenair

For episode 31 of Flying Podcast I’m talking Martin Hatton. Martin spends much of his time training flying instructors for Ravenair, based at Liverpool Airport and City Airport, Manchester. I was interested to find out what it takes to become a flying instructor and what is involved in getting a flying instructor rating.

My first question was `Why do people become flying instructors?’.
Martin replied that it’s mainly to build hours for a commercial career but there are people who actually have other jobs and wish to instruct in their spare time, or, like Martin, they just want to be a flying instructor. There is the added advantage that you get to fly for free and get paid for it.

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Episode 30 – Craig Richardson – Choosing Providers for ATPL Theory and Flight Training

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Craig Richardson

Craig Richardson

Today’s podcast interviewee is Craig Richardson. Craig actually wrote in and suggested the subject for this podcast. He’s at the point in his flying career where he’s about to launch into training for the ATPL and he’s trying to decide where to do his ATPL groundschool studies and the CPL/IR flight training. He thought that the decision making process that he’s going through would make for an interesting podcast.

Craig has done a great deal of research: on-line via aviation forums, by visiting flight training exhibitions and by talking to the training suppliers themselves.

Today we discuss which training providers made it on to Craig’s short-list, get an idea for which companies he’s thinking of going with and, of course, why he chose them.

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