Europe with a Pilatus PC12
05Apr20 ...New Photos
10Nov19 ...New Photos and Videos
21Sep19 ...New Photos
18Jun19 ...60 New Photos
17Apr19 ...New Photos
11Apr19 ...New Photos
18Jan19 ...Best wishes for 2019 to all and apologies for the lack of updates.
Believable excuses include the burning smell which marked the passing of my laptop, the transfer of all data to a new laptop which then developed a fault, the delayed supply of another new laptop and the month needed to find and install the data which by then was stored in 20 different places.
Circumstances also combined to bring a lot of flying but this meant working almost all days each month with my regular contracts in Belgium and Poland plus some ad hoc flying for customers between times.
2019 started equally busy but great changes are afoot and life should settle down soon with new challenges and a more normal schedule.
09Nov18 ...New Photos Story to still to follow.
18Oct18 ...New Photos Story to follow.
24Sep18 ...on day 8 of a 12 day tour in Warsaw enjoying operating an old model PC12 for an airline Support Service. So far a few trips dropping off spare parts and positioning crew to France and around Poland (finally able to add a dot on the map for Wroclaw too).
01Aug18 ...incredible that my small adventures have been shared by more than 15,000 visitors to this blog and almost 24,000 views of the YouTube Channel.
I enjoyed some interesting flying during June but there were no photos or stories of note.
July was better while based in Poland and Belgium and going to Katowice, Rhodos, Son Bonet (Palma de Mallorca's General Aviation airport), Salerno and Mikonos - ending with dropping the aircraft off for scheduled maintenance in Gray St. Adrien in France.
I do have one story though ...on a car drive to the north of Scotland we spent a few nights at a Bed&Breakfast in Strontian.
The chaps who ran the B&B also kept ornamental chickens, including an intrepid one named 'Tina Turner' (it will make sense when you see her photo).
We departed the B&B and drove 45 minutes to the Corran Ferry.
Having joined the line for the ferry and shut down the engine we could hear scratching sounds from up front ...and found that Tina had joined us on our journey and sensibly found a space behind the bumper when the car started moving.
With the hood opened and me peering in at Tina peering out it was obvious she could not be removed past the hot engine without injuring and/or cooking her [and me]. Tina retreated back into the cavity behind the bumper.
We finally got her out by blocking off her route back into the engine and then removing the bumper. Tina was used to being handled and came out with only a token amount of clucking, flapping and pecking, and then sat happily in my arms.
A phone call to the B&B brought one of the chaps speeding down the road to collect Tina ...and all was well again.
26May18 ...back enjoying a tour on the support aircraft based in Warsaw. Woken up at 0445 and airborne within 60 minutes to take an urgent spare part keeping a Boeing 737 on the ground in Poznan ...and establishing a personal record for the smallest cargo I ever flew.
Sadly also here at the bloc of flats yesterday things did not end well for a Vietnamese illegal immigrant who jumped out of a 3rd floor window when authorities carried out a raid.
01May18 ...back home from a very busy short tour operating an airline's AOG support aircraft all over Europe - Berlin, Warsaw, Copenhagen, Poznan, Stavanger, Katowice, Marseille and Mykonos in the Greek Islands. Most days were hazy so the photos are not perfect, but the views of the Alps and Carpathians were superb.
28Mar18 ...enjoying an 11 day stint based in Warsaw again with a sweet old PC12/45 supporting the airline AOG (Aircraft On Ground) and crew service.
So far it has been a gastronomic tour with duck in Poland, meatballs in Sweden, bratwurst in Austria and schnitzel in Germany.
Heading home to Glasgow on Friday ...hopefully a better trip than last month when a computer failure at KLM and a collapse in Customer Service combined with snow in Scotland and I was stuck in Amsterdam for 5 days [without suitcase].
26Feb18 ...operating a PC12 in support of an airline technical and crewing service for 10 days. Temperature on the ground has dropped to -14°C and de-icing was required for a flight from Warsaw to Krakow and back to collect a crew.
It has also given me the opportunity to visit the flat where
my family lived when stationed in Warsaw in 1960.
30Jan18 ….back home in Glasgow after a very pleasant 3 day trip on behalf of Charleroi, Belgium based EAPC taking hunters to Castelo Branco in Portugal with a fuel stop in Pau Pyrénées Airport.
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Merry Christmas 2017 .... so far 12,000 visitors to this blog and 15,000 views of our videos on YouTube. Thank you very much for sharing these adventures with me !
01Sep17 ....as usual I start by apologising for the 5 month silence. To my great disappointment the job in Ireland did not work out and there were some months of stress and upheaval.
I am now based back at home in Glasgow and am blessed with a pleasant amount of freelance work, to date mostly around Europe on the PC12.
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01Sep17 ....as usual I start by apologising for the 5 month silence. To my great disappointment the job in Ireland did not work out and there were some months of stress and upheaval.
I am now based back at home in Glasgow and am blessed with a pleasant amount of freelance work, to date mostly around Europe on the PC12.
01Mar17 ….sorry it has been a while, but I am now settling into the new job operating our brand new Pilatus PC-12 around Europe.
Highlights so far include an 1100 NM trip to Faro in
Portugal and a 3 hour run across Europe at 30,000 ft on a crystal clear night :
sunset over the Alps, big cities below, stars above and surrounded by the flashing lights of other traffic ….and dealing with rapid ice accretion descending a -48°C cold soaked aircraft into a +8°C UK drizzle.
sunset over the Alps, big cities below, stars above and surrounded by the flashing lights of other traffic ….and dealing with rapid ice accretion descending a -48°C cold soaked aircraft into a +8°C UK drizzle.
Click on the icons below for the first Euro PC12 photos
and GoPro PC12 Test.
