Particular mention must go to Dion Robertson, who rounded off the month with a successful Skill Test.  We extend our warm congratulations to Dion, who arrived at the School last Christmas with the intention of completing his PPL within a year and has done so.

Very many congratulations too, to Tony Waghorn for completing his First Solo flight.  That he enjoyed it (to say the least) can be seen clearly from the picture!

Staverton Flying School features heavily in an article on Gloucestershire Airport in this month’s Pilot magazine; still available in all good newsagents’!

On the ground, the following exams were passed this month:

Francis Sanderson – Air Law; Human Performance & Limitation

Kirk Daly – Meteorology

The School will be closing for Christmas on 22^nd December, and will re-open on Wednesday 2^nd January 2013.

May we take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New
Year.  We look forward to seeing you soon in 2013!

G-BEZO at White Waltham

Finally some fine weather! After what has seemed like months of grey and rain, we all enjoyed some fantastic flying opportunities in May.

The month started with Adam Knights finally getting the weather he’s been waiting for, meaning he successfully completed his Qualifying Cross Country. Adam visited Halfpenny Green and Sywell and reported that he thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

The month was then brought to a great end by Judith Wordsworth who passed her Skills Test. Everyone at SFS extends warm congratulations to her on this success.

Jamie Turner completed his trip to White Waltham and Craig Parker his to Coventry. Other members have jumped at the chance to take up lesson availability and self-fly hire opportunities during the sunny spell, meaning that the SFS aircraft (and instructors!) have been kept very busy this month.

On the ground, members have been just as busy, notching up the following exam successes:
Kirk Daly – Communications (written)
Alan Tague – The Aeroplane Technical
Jamie Turner – Radiotelephony (practical)
Gareth Fyles – Human Performance and Limitations
Ed Gait-Carr – Air Law

A reminder to everyone that Staverton Flying School will have a stand at the Airport Open Day on Sunday June 24th. We’ll be offering 15 minute trial lessons on the day, costing £45.00 per lesson, so please do bring along your friends and family.

Whilst our new students got off to a solid start in April, those approaching the end of the PPL course were hampered by variable weather conditions. We had hoped that Adam Knights would achieve his Qualifying Cross-Country flight this month, and that Jamie Turner would complete his trip to White Waltham, but luck with the weather has not been on their side. However, on the theory side, students have yet again achieved excellent results. Exams passed in April were:

Rowland Slatter – Air Law
Jamie Turner – Flight Performance and Planning
Tim Van der Hooft – Meteorology
Bob Pearce – Meteorology
Ian Hollingsworth – IMC written exam
Kirk Daly – Navigation

The diary is filling up fast for May (Saturdays are now fully-booked, meaning we can take reserve bookings only), so please book early to avoid disappointment!

Race week passed by smoothly as the restrictions to flying were minimal and, in any case, persistent fog and haze during the month meant that many lessons were ground-based. The seemingly glorious sunshine at the end of the month brought poor visibility and haze with it, which presented an ideal opportunity for ground school and exams. Five exams were successfully completed, namely:

Dion Robertson – Navigation; Meteorology
Craig Parker – Navigation
Kirk Daly – Human Performance & Limitations
Jamie Turner – The Aircraft General & Principles of Flight

Our students had success in the air, too, in March. Paul Jones completed his Qualifying Cross Country at the start of the month, and Dion Robertson successfully completed his First Solo at the end of the month. Adam Knights has been trying to get his Qualifying Cross Country done, but has been consistently thwarted by the weather. Here’s hoping he is successful in April!

The silver lining of these particular clouds was, however, that no fewer than 7 written exams were passed this month (including a 100% pass for Dion Robertson in his Human Factors and Performance exam).  Additionally, Paul Jones and Judith Wordsworth each passed their RTF practical exam.

Special congratulations go to Benedict Newman who rounded off the month by successfully completing his First Solo flight.

With the arrival of BST on 25th March, the opportunity for night flying has, realistically, passed.  We are still able to offer IMC training, though, so do get in touch if you’d like to add this to your existing PPL.

On the subject of PPL holders, did you know that the SFS aircraft are available to members to hire for self-fly hire on a Sunday?  Just ‘phone or drop in to make a booking.

However, once the weather calmed down, we had some really productive days of flying. Jamie Turner had a busy January as he not only completed landaways to Shobdon and Coventry, but also passed his Navigation exam.

On the same day as Jamie’s landaway at Coventry, Adam Knights completed his landaway at White Waltham. These landaways were achieved using the same aircraft on a busy Saturday, so SFS really has been making the most of the flying opportunities!

We were also represented at the Gloucestershire Airport Leisure Event held in the Terminal Building on 21st and 22nd January. Kathryn was pleased to see that there is a high level of interest in learning to fly, so we hope to be welcoming more students in the near future.

Welcome back after the festive break; hopefully everyone is feeling refreshed and full of vigour for a great year’s flying.

December already seems a long time ago but even though it was a short month in terms of flying days, students and PPLs made the most of the available days. We were pleased to welcome back some ‘old’ faces who returned to flying in December 2011, and we were delighted to welcome new students too.

Successes during the month included the excellent results achieved by Alan Tague in his Met exam and Judith Wordsworth in her Technical exam. Particular mention and congratulations must go to Kirk Daly who completed his First Solo on 9th December.

Jonathan Maddocks received some fantastic news in December 2011 with the offer of a place in the British Airways Future Pilot Programme; selection for such a sought-after place is a tremendous achievement and will no doubt be an inspiration to many of our students. We extend our warm congratulations to him.

The flying programme for January is already filling up fast, so please don’t hesitate to call to book your lessons if you’d like to fly this month. It’s not too early to book for February, either.

We look forward to seeing you in 2012.

Steve Williams and flying instructor Kim Hampshire were in charge of the cooking, there was talk of a cook-off but that would have been just too close to call. So, instead they teamed up to prepare some tasty food and ensured all our guests were well fed. Kathryn was chief host for the evening, which involved a lot of talking and not much working but she did a great job!

We were delighted to have the latest aircraft addition to the school on show, the Vintage Steerman Biplane. It got lots of attention and we pleased to announce that we’re now offering the chance for our customers to experience trial lesson flights in this fantastic plane – more details can be found here on our website.

Thanks to everyone who came along and helped to make it such a great event. A selection of photos can found on our Flickr page, so check them out!