Owning a dog and barking yourself!

It seems perverse – owning a share in an aircraft, then going out and renting another, but that is what I am trying to do - yep, I own a dog and I am barking myself (the plane certainly isn't a dog, but I probably am barking!!).

Since my last flight in the RV at the start of October, it has been ‘off the road’ in for its annual and for repairs to the canopy etc. We have the financial luxury of one of the members being an aircraft engineer, so he does most of the work (it is still of course signed off by external inspectors in accordance with LAA rules).

The downside of course is that he can hardly work full time on it and other members of the group help and do what they can with the time they have to spare. All of which means that annuals can become protracted, let alone when there is major repair work required (to a nasty crack in the canopy).

Bottom line is that the RV won’t be back in the air until mid-December earliest, more realistically, early next year. The according to group rules, we will all have to undergo checkrides (not a bad thing).

So in the meantime, I am biting the figurative carpet in desperation to go flying. So I am in the process of arranging checkrides on one of two types I haven’t flown before, both based at Cotswold Aero Club. I hope I can get up in the Eurostar, technically a ‘microlight’ but it looks and flies like a two seat group A aircraft. If that (or more likely the instructor) isn’t available, I will have a checkride in the newly ‘restored to service’ Cotswold Robin DR400. That way at least I am doing some flying and adding types to my log that I haven’t flown before.

Oh the joys of aircraft ownership.

Still, at least I am better off than the group I left two years ago – I heard a couple of days ago that three months ago, a new member of the group landed the Piper Arrow (yes – you guessed it) wheels up at Old Warden – nothing wrong with the undercarriage, except that he forgot to put it down. So at the very least, one shattered prop and a thow away shock loaded engine (having only recently replaced the engine. I feel so sorry for them, at least I don’t have it that bad.