Ha ha many of us old club dinosaurs did our PPLs without AI or DI including the cross country navs and diversions.
We didn’t even have starter motors and IMO swinging the prop is riskier by far than flying with a piece of wool stuck to the windscreen. On the Jodel you also knew how you were doing for fuel with a measuring stick stuck on top of a cork right smack in the middle of the engine cowling.🙂
But I agree it was a luxury when the club got a Robin 320 and 360 fitted with not only AI and DI but VOR and ADF too. Had to re learn things then.
Yes the VSV (vol sans visibility/IMC) flight did come about under JAR which IIRC was a couple of.decades ago.
IMO it’s always great fun to learn something new but it’s also great fun to just fly and if you plan well enough you can still fly a 1000km journey without any of the fancy instruments. Many of us old club dinosaurs do it every now and again just to enjoy flight and to look at the scenery.
When @Dan went in search of glaciers, that was for me motivational as opposed to just flying the North Atlantic Scotland, Iceland; Greenland, Canada most of which on autopilot. If I am just doing that I would prefer to sit back in first or business class comfort eating good food and having a nap whilst someone else does the work.
How lucky do you feel?
I don’t need to feel lucky, I just need to know how to read weather data. When I ferried my TB20 from Arcachon, I waited a couple of weeks for sure-fire VMC – even though the flight was IFR. I didn’t want to risk ice in February.
There’s not much point in taking your friends to see the glories of the Cote d’Azur – or Sussex – from the air, if you’re going to be in IMC. So you need good weather anyway. Most PPL flights are out-and-back or within a small enough radius that you can be 100% sure of the weather. Though I agree that even then you need to understand your local systems – Provence can turn into a convection-driven nightmare in summer even though the Cote d’Azur and Rhone Valley on either side are perfect VMC.
gallois wrote:
most of which on autopilot
not sure what you’re talking about 
People have circled the world with no “gyroscopic” instruments, many of them, many times…
The first airplane I bought and flew a few hundred hours on, was a French S.I.P.A. Ok, the panel sports a T&B, but I can assure you I had no clue about how to use it. Still, that art deco panel took me around Europe, a few times to the PFA rally at Kemble, and to the North Cape and back.
More problematic than the lack of instruments, was the low tolerance to Xwind on landings (or was it me?), and the rather limited tank capacity, 60 liters… flying thru Sweden/Norway, no GPS, no cell phone, and avoiding clouds. That was fun!
Peter wrote:
I am sure it can be done, if you stay local / do short legs
The Super Cub on the picture has a range of 3 hours at the impressive speed of 80kt, so you are going to do short legs no matter what ;-)
Well, I know paramotor won’t have one for sure! :)
Hi Dan, I looove that panel.
Can we see a piccy of the aircraft pls.
You gotta love the ‘melange’ button on that panel. Didn’t know the French used it in aircraft. It’s that French love of food I guess..
Can we see a piccy of the aircraft pls.
There ya go:
I’m sure if there was a category for ‘cute’ aircraft, that would definitely feature.
I bet that was a joy to fly.
Well that’s not the mini jet 🙂 so I’m guessing it is the S90 as the Coccinelle was a bit of a rare bird. I too love the panel it’s very modern for the 1950’s if that was original🙂Although SIPA used to be more known for making parts for other manufacturers and from the photo I can identify some of the parts but not the whole.
I wouldn’t mind a panel like that now it’s joyful.
My Jodel 120 Paris-Nice had a without reserves range of 1000km. Admittedly it would take 6hrs to do it but it had no AI or DI yet it had no problem getting from LFBH to Sywell anf back with a top up at Sywell.
