FRONTEND
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GOLDEN CHANCE
OLYMPIC ADVICE PUT this date in your diary if you are interested in flying anywhere near London during the Olympics next summer: December 3rd. Stapleford Flight Centre in Essex is to host a special ‘Beer and Briefing’ session on the restrictions due to be imposed during the London Olympic and Paralympic Games next year. The briefing by CAA and NATs representatives will take place on Saturday 3 December at 13.00 in the Stapleford clubhouse. It is open to the GA community, especially those from neighbouring airfields. Landing fees are waived for pilots flying in to the event.
The briefing will be presented by Wing Commander Mike Tetlow, an RAF navigator seconded to the Met Police for the security aspects of 2012 and also a GA pilot; Squadron Leader Sian Ryan, who is responsible for setting up ATLAS control, the military organisation at Swanwick which will control the Restricted Zone and Dan Lewis, of NATS.
Pilots: Know your limits!
YOUR NEXT JOB?
BA’s TRAINING BOOST BRITISH Airways has teamed up with training gurus CTC with its Future Pilot Programme, with nearly 100 student pilots taking part in the first year. It’s reckoned half of 800 pilots who join BA over the next five years will be FPP graduates, brought in via CTC subsidiary Airline Placement Ltd (APL). Capt Rob Glover, BA’s
Head of Resourcing, said: “FPP is a fantastic opportunity for anyone, from any background, to realise their ambition of becoming a pilot and flying for BA.” One of its major benefits for successful applicants is that BA will help obtain trainign loans, and give conditional employment contract offers.
CTC/APL partnering with BA on FPP for next ATPL FC (FTW!) READY FOR OUR CLOSE UP
BAREFOOT BANDIT MOVIE ON THE WAY WE ALWAYS said it was more like a script than a true story: teenage boy with no pilot training steals/flies/crashes several aircraft and eludes police for years, before being apprehended after a boat chase. Now it is. Barefoot Bandit Colton Harris-Moore, 20, is on trial in Seattle for a string of 100+ burglaries during his teens.
Now, movie writers report, a $1.3m deal has been tied up for his life rights, with 20th Century-Fox optioning a film due to be penned by HarrisMoore and Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Black. The cash will go to victims. So who to play HarrisMoore? More importantly, who to play the intrepid LOOP hack tracking him down?
BOB
Davy
LO O P ' s m a n w i t h a tt i tu d e a s w e l l a s a l t i t u d e FOR a number of reasons The more usual problem it hasn’t been a very good with elf’n’safety is it seems year on the airshow scene. to end up with the tail The most obvious one is the wagging the dog, but in this weather – it’s been pants, case it seems the tail is too lets face it. scared of the dogs trying to July and August wag it. You work it out. particularly were terrible for The only light on the cancellations due to storms display horizon has been and so far September has in the Far East – China has been hit and miss. fallen in love with airshows The recession is more and is quite happy to pay evident this year than last for European aircraft to be and there just dismantled and hasn’t been the containerised to money to go around be shipped across, for the smaller even with the all acts. Many display A lot of people the Red Bullpilots and teams style logistical missed the are talking about nightmares that can fact that bookings of 50% or kick off as a result. Steve Jones worse compared It’s not for with 2010. me I must say was nearly And there has China is clobbered by (and been both tragedy hardly about to yet another and some lucky start importing escapes; the loss Nanchangs) but Skyraider of all our good luck favourite, to the guys Eggman, who are up from the for it. At least Reds, and the money’s Rob Davies good. successfully Oh, there performing was another the lowest bale out of a light... in the fusebox of piston fighter since the end ‘Chang 3’ when I went to WW2 (maybe even from the start it after one of those beginning of it). summer downpours. But a lot of people missed Luckily it went out in the the fact that Steve Jones time it took me to come back was nearly clobbered by from the shock and then hop yet another Skyraider as across (I’d done my leg in so he came in to land in his was just ground running) to Spitfire at the same show. deploy the fire extinguisher. Oh, and the Triplane I thought I’d seen enough getting blown over by trouble in the past to be someone running up on the able to cope instantly in ground? Not a good weekend the correct way when at Duxford, and there have something like that happens. been a few rapped knuckles. But fire puts the fear of God At least one warbird in pilots, and even on the owner has pulled the plug, ground I had what felt like complaining that it was a good couple of seconds unsafe to display there until before I burst into action they “got their act together.” (maybe it was shorter... but BTW, look on YouTube at certainly long enough for me the fire engines... blues and to shout a loud ‘OH SH*T!’) twos blazing, but parking Two weeks of rewiring up and waiting for a couple later and we were ready to of warbirds to taxi past go again, just as the display before then racing off again season came to a close. I’m to the ‘chopped’ Skyraider. really hoping that next year Because elf’n’ safety said is better - I can’t imagine it so, guv? being any worse.
MORE iPAD GUFF... I DID say I wouldn’t become an app bore with my iPad. But, more than a third of UK pilots have one – maybe more than half by Christmas. So, just a quicky if you are thinking of getting a GPS aviation app for your one (hope you remembered to get a 3G iPad because the wi-fionly version’s GPS won’t work in the air... without a telephone signal. And yes, that confuses the hell out of me too.) The best one I have found so far is Air Nav Pro. It’s less than £25 and comes with free maps, although I prefer the 1:250,000 UK charts to download with it. The best bit though is modifying a route – you can put your finger on the track line and just move it to avoid airspace, go around restricted zones etc. Another is touchscreen info for anything displayed on the map, e.g. touch an airfield and find out its runways and frequencies. It’s extremely intuitive, even for someone as avionically brain dead as me. I’m completely won over, and no I don’t get a commission.
www.loop.ae ro SEP TEMBER 2011 LOOP 13