Quite a modest year , mostly due to myself being busy with the construction of summerhouse.. only 45h PIC ,still managed to collect a lot of memorable moments.
(including a nice flight in Portugal with Yeager :)
2024 – hope to have time for at least one longer trip ..
ivark wrote:
(including a nice flight in Portugal with Yeager :)
Not too bad! Welcome anytime – Happy New Year.
Thinking about 2023, I lost perhaps 20% of my flying hours (posted above) due to downtime related to the landing gear gas struts. Very rare for me to have any downtime, normally.
Married my second wife in 2023, so flying hours went down to an all time low of about 100h – but will rise again, as #1b is keen on flying ;-).
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Yep. In theory, my primary destination is Bulgaria and the way there leads over Serbia with a possible landing in Belgrade. Non-Easa territory therefore not accessible for people with a LAPL or LAPL medical. Same goes for the UK I reckon.
Serbia is following EASA with regulation. They have signed a agreement to follow all the rulses, and basically their licences and certificates are issued according to the easa rules. Same goes to all non-EASA balkan countries + Turkey I think.
i.e. this is how serbian licence front page looks like:
This means, they sure know what LAPL is :)
About 70h for me in 2023, so about the same as last year – during which the plane was grounded for 6 months waiting for the engine overhaul. I think that reflects well the lower interest I’ve had in flying this year, one of the reasons why I’m selling the Mirage, after more than 1000h. It’s the only plane in my logbook since 2013, and I’ve got extraordinary memories with it. I tried (not very hard) to put a group together. It’s now waiting for the ferry flight back to the US… Not sure what 2024 will be made off. Maybe get my PA46-500 (turbine) rating, or join a Cirrus group.
Had high hopes for 2023, aimed for 50-70h but only reached ~30h.
I managed to by myself and PA28 Arrow III, and have some nice time with it.
Also managed to sell it and into market again for something else.
Got my better half to like flying in GA.
2024:
I hope I’ll soon find myself another aircraft PA28 Turbo Arrow or Turbo Mooney.
50-70h is my goal next year…
Did 131 hours in 2023, mainly in PA28 (all variants) and DA42.
Wanted to get aerobatics rating and CRI, but due to time constraints, weather and quite some personal stuff in the past months I have not completed them yet. But I managed to do a couple of overdue things on my list: fly the Simplon pass route, and fly from Amsterdam to Milan and back in a DA42.
For the rest, I did nothing really special this year… Mainly IFR trips around the Netherlands (Germany, Belgium, France) and some nice flying in Italy some weekends I was there.
For next year, I hope my personal stuff will be solved quickly, then I’d like to finally enjoy my Arrow, that should hopefully get off the ground end of Jan after long overhauls and avionics works.
And, a bit more ambitious, find a way to fit in my crazy agenda one of the African safari’s that Aeroplus arranges every year.
Only 953 for me this year which is down from 996 of 2022 having made more effort to take more days off.
More of the same expected in 2024 but I’m actively looking for another touring aircraft with a few SEP on the shortlist.
A few small upgrades in 2023: led nav lights; Knots2U fairing and hubcaps; Narco DME replaced with a KN64; KR87 ADF swapped for a better unit. The big setback was losing almost 3 months for the annual, due to the mechanics’ Christmas shutdown and backlog of work.
I was planning to do the IR(R), which has been painfully slow. It took months to find a local freelance instructor, then scheduling around 2 sets of work and holidays meant a total of only 4 flights.
Only 40 hours this year, including a few at night. We did 6 or 7 day trips with the children, which at 40-80nm away weren’t challenging from a piloting perspective, but were all great successes as a family. These were the highpoint of the flying year.
2024 goals are to find more child-friendly destinations, complete the IR(R), and join the gps age with a GTN650.
