Greetings from blustery rainy storm Bert who is visiting Enstone today.  What a week of weather!  As you can see from the picture below, although thwarted by the slight sprinkling of snow it only stopped us for one day, then the runways were open and we were flying right up until this weekend! 

Arthur Wood's flying lesson this week with Gill heading toward the snow covered Malverns in search of Mr Blue Sky.

Christmas Sizzle

With the wintery weather truly here this weekend our thoughts turn to The Great Enstone Christmas Sizzle!  Saturday 14th December members can enjoy a log fire... mince pies and sausage rolls, we would love to say thank you for being an amazing member this year! It's on 14th December 10am to 1pmish or when the mulled wine runs out... Festive hot drinks / mince pies and Paul's never beaten sausage rolls... along with the usual yummy breakfast rolls etc. Christmas jumpers welcome.🎄 

All Members are welcome to share a bit of christmas cheer with us🎅🏽 🧑‍🎄

Christmas Hours:

There will be a member of the team here over the Christmas Period but Students should check with Instructors to see if they are available between Christmas and the New Year for lessons.  
 

Spitfire Stuff!

For stocking fillers or an unusual present this year CLICK THIS LINK

For Christmas experiences and activities, we have Family or Group, White Cliffs Spitfire Simulator Flights 

Define your group's ACEs in this simulator experience for up to 10 participants!

Have fun flying against each other in the ultimate test of skill: flying into combat. Join in the cheers, hoots and roars and crys of "he's behind you"

You and your Spitfire are flying at 11,000ft over the White Cliffs of Dover (present day) then out of nowhere Heinkel 111s appear heading for London supported by Me109s and FW190s, your job is to stop them at all costs. 

Your personal sector controller will guide you to your targets, the rest is up to you and you have 10,15 or 20 minutes to complete your task....no pressure!!

Sessions can be of 10, 15 or 20 minutes depending on numbers in the group. Only one person can person fly at a time... Make a day of it with our gourmet pie lunch or Dinners, fabulous locally made pies with mixed veg and mash from £12.00 per person

Age is no Barrier :
“Aircraft piloted by men and women over the age of 70 are not falling out of the sky with any great regularity.”

We have noticed a growing number of people around retirement age… (whatever number that is these days), telling us they have lost their reason to get up in the morning and want something to keep the grey matter regenerating.

This band of mature pilots and would be students would like to either get back to flying or even learn to fly, but they don’t think they will be able to retain the theory side of flying.  

The sentence made us want to research "older pilots" we can actually credit to the British Gliding Association: “Aircraft piloted by men and women over the age of 70 are not falling out of the sky with any great regularity.”

So we burnt the night oil, (well what else is there to do from 5pm!), reading what authoritative bodies are saying, including AAIB accidents and serious incidents.  It turns out that there is no proof ‘ol’ pilots are statistically more at risk in the sky than young pilots!  

It will be of no surprise that in the many studies that have been done, there are careful and, there are dangerous pilots of all ages.

The phrase we drum into our students of all ages is “If you don’t feel you should fly, then stay on the ground… better to be down here, wishing you were up there, than up there etc etc…”  One of the positive things to consider is that mature/retired pilots probably have more time to fly and so may be more current than their younger counterparts. 

What is evident is that the skill of a pilot whatever age, is down to their number of hours of experience, but as they get older: how often a pilot fly’s with or without an instructor ensures they stay current. Health is important, but even fitness is not such an issue for flying as it is for some sports

What we have seen is people of a certain age who do take the plunge and become pilots get their ‘reason for getting up’ and their young spirit back…  😊