My wife and I (both PPLs with IFR ratings) are planning on visiting relatives, for a couple of days, sometime in late August. We will be staying in Croydon.
We would love to fly around a bit with a safety pilot. Can you recommend a flight school where we could fly in a C182 or C172 for a couple of hours sightseeing.
We just came back recently from San Juan Puerto Rico and did the same there. What a way to see the place and the nearby islands too from 500′ AGL ,over the water, in a C172. Thanks in advance.
By: 182man - 14th June 2005 at 13:26
Thank you all so much. I will let you know how things turn out for us. Thanks a bunch.
By: Chipmunk Carol - 14th June 2005 at 13:22
And when you are done with the flying, you should have a go on the British Airways London Eye on the southbank of the River Thames in central London. That is a good way of seeing London from the air without the expense of flying.
By: BlueRobin - 14th June 2005 at 10:20
Other options could include Biggin, Fairoaks, Rochester and Blackbushe.
By: Melvyn Hiscock - 14th June 2005 at 09:37
The thing to be prepared for is that flying here is gong to cost you WAY more than in the US and flying within twenty miles of London is going to cost more than in the rest of the country. It is worth checking out White Waltham too but a 182 with an instructor as safety pilot from there is going to cost you £185 (that is over 300 bucks) an hour. You are also in an area where the airspace is very congested. At Redhill you are very close to the Gatwick zone and what you can do is limited by this.
Remember also that the UK is not that big so you only need to go about 50 miles and you are away. My aeroplane is based at Popham which is a nice grass airfield about 35 miles SW of London. There is no flight school there but there are a couple of aeroplanes to rent. A friend has a nice 172 (G-TASH) that is on a pull public category C of A and that goes out for about £100 an hour. There is also a local instructor who can help. Irv Lee is a decent guy and his home page is http://www.higherplane.flyer.co.uk/. It may well be worth getting in touch with him and touching base.
Other than that, various forum members have, over the past year or so, dropped in to Popham to sample the coffee and chat (generally about other forum members) as it is a nice place to visit. Russ Williams, who has an excellent vintage aviation site and who was over from Seattle, came down and we were unable to fly my aeroplane but he was happy just to soak up the atmosphere at Popham.
By: Arabella-Cox - 14th June 2005 at 07:44
Various flying clubs and schools operate out of Redhill Aerodrome, which I imagine would be easy to get to from Croydon. This link – http://www.redhillaerodrome.com/pages/business.html – gives the contact details.
Have a good trip! 🙂
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June 13, 2005 at 10:23 pm