Ho Ho Ho!

Christmas is a time of Hibernation when it comes to Microlight Flying in Ireland, with good flying days few and far between, we really do have to pick our days carefully around the weather. So its an opportunity to so some aircraft maintenance, ground school with students, and a bit of maintenance on the runway!

We also do a fair bit of promotion regarding our Gift Vouchers around the Christmas period, and you should be seeing some adverts in the local press over the next few weeks. We have restructured our vouchers as 20, 40 and 60 minute lessons. This gives a bit more choice for everyone.

We also are doing a 2-hour Microlight Adventure voucher, where we take a morning or an afternoon and fly to the County Down coast, quick stop for coffee at Ards and then return. There are Free DVDs going out with this voucher for the remainder of 2008....until the stock runs out! And students remember our training rates are very different to the Gift Voucher rates.

That's the shameless marketing plug over, there is some flying stuff going on and we will update the blog very shortly with a bit of proper flying info...

Cheers, Victor
www.flyni.co.uk

Microlight Loop

Not sure if this guy went straight over the top, but not to be tried at home
Lots of reasons why you shouldnt do this in a trike, but hey...makes for a great clip to watch on a wet day

Test Successes

Hasn't the weather been fantastic? We have been busy with a few of our students in the month of May, getting them all up to test standard, pre-flying tests, solo hours, qualifying cross countries and of course their flying tests themselves.

In fact we've been so busy that we are almost glad to see the back of them...just kidding! Congratulations to Adrian Parry, John Horan and Liam Flannery. All three of these guys travelled from Galway and County Clare on lots of occasions over the past year, so well done for sticking at it. 

The picture below is of a delighted Liam Flannery, just after passing his flying test. And before you ask, yes we do cater for the over 50s at the flying club; but I have to say that Liam is the most senior member so far...

Our facilities team (thats me mostly with a bit of help from some others occasionally) have sorted out the front of the clubhouse with a bit of decking and some stones. Nothing special, but it makes a difference from what it was before. It almost makes the decommisioned British Army portacabin look like a proper office now. All we need now is a couple of half-decent flying instructors, two aircraft and we could (almost) call ourselves a flying school ;-)

More soon.... on a mad Latvian that wants to learn to fly, an even madder flying instructor that will have to teach him to fly and a Z-List daytime TV celebrity that got a pink flying suit to match his shirt

Cheers, Victor

www.flyni.co.uk

Looks like Spring has arrived?

well it was a long time coming, but it looks as if Spring has arrived. Two fantastic weeks of weather in early May kept our instructors busier flying, rather than doing the rounds picking the best weather forecast to go by! That said, even the 'best' weather forecast gets it wrong sometimes....thats where our well-honed experience comes in ;-)

Lots of students (old and new) got the hint that summer was here with frantic phone calls and migration North (for the southern guys) following shortly afterwards. So a busy time for all, with two first solo flights and a flying test completed. For those of you that have done some lessons and are thinking of coming back and finishing, get back at it. No excuses of 'we are skint cos of the credit crunch!' Payment can be made in a variety of ways, Euro, Sterling, Visa, Mastercard, Tesco vouchers, Chickens or a even downpayment on the Audi at the Prentice garage at the end of Tarsan Lane. Seriously though, if you have dropped out of the course for whatever reason, get back at it. Sitting on top of a layer of cloud at 4000ft in an open cockpit Microlight is absolutely priceless...the credit crunch wont matter then. 

A powered parachute has made an appearance at the club. Raymond ONeill has almost completed his hours required for his license, so that will be a first for the school when completed. For those of you that dont know what a powered parachute is, have a look here. They are great fun...but are very weather dependent. Excellent for a nice summers evening, but definitely no crosswind takeoffs.

lots and lots of other things going on, or about to happen...but hey, we have to save it for another post or I will have nothing else to write about. Last thing...I now have an examiner rating so you can do the whole kaboodle under one roof lessons, ground exams & flying test.Just something to make all our lives a bit easier when it comes to doing your test.

Cheers, Victor

www.flyni.co.uk