Ah Steve, it brings back some distant memories, which by an unexpected following of coincidences in my life brought me back to flying… I explain.

My dad too took me flying when I was about the same age as your son. I loved it. He used to make me follow on the controls too. I was so scared to put us in a dive but at the same time so proud 🙂 In fact, I loved it so much that obviously I wanted to become a pilot. I had even started trying to read my Dad’s PPL syllabus books…

Unfortunately, for lots of reasons he let his license lapsed and I soon moved to different hobbies. But these unforgettable memories were to re-surface some 15 years later with no warning sign at all.

After graduation, I found a job in South Africa, near Capetown… I didn’t know anybody there but took on the challenge anyway.

As I’m not the type of person who likes to sit around feeling sorry for myself, I quickly prospected for activities where I could meet people: surfing, diving, climbing and… parachuting! Yes, I had always wanted to do a parachute jump and not a week after my arrival maybe I booked myself through an old brochure I found in the flat I was renting.

It turned out that, according to the brochure, the airfield was not 10 minutes drive away from my place. Great! The jump was on the Sunday, I had to be there at 7am. On Saturday, I decided to check out the place. And that’s when the unexpected was waiting for me.

When I arrived at the airfield, nobody knew about parachuting! I managed to find someone who explained that apparently the activity had moved to a different place two years ago.

Jeeze, where the hell had I booked myself?

It later turned out that the place was 2 hours drive away but the telephone number had not changed! That was going to be an early start on the Sunday.

BUT (I’m getting to my point Steve, don’t worry)

On this Saturday, as I was standing next to the club house of the Stellenbosch Airfield, watching the small aircrafts I could not recognise or name, it just all came back to me, all the memories of my dad taking me flying and how much I loved it.

I had not seen that coming but in a matter a 30 minutes, I had enquired about flight training, got the documentation, a briefing with an instructor… and a week later, after a medical, I was pre-flighting a C152 for my first lesson!

All that to say that sometimes dreams can come true just not necessary as you expect them or when you expect them to.

If I hope to do the same with my son one day (provided I have one), my next dream is to fly with my dad: this time I’ll be in control and he’ll be following through 🙂

Cheers,
Steph

Sort of…

Would have loved to fly “myself” somewhere (biggin hill for example) but will have to be only a passenger to Paris charles de Gaulle…

You know about the film “Meet the Fockers”, well the coming week-end is THAT week-end for us, scary as hell, as none of the two parties speak each other’s language 😮

Steph

Ah, I’m jaleous Melv! I have still to make this flight across the Channel.

But promise, when I go back home for good (October this year), I shall try to spread the message that oil should be readily available on our French airfields, especially for fellow aviators from the UK 😉

Cheers,
Steph

Some more information…

Browsing the Internet a bit, I have found quite a few articles that deal with the quantity of certain radiation that aircrew and especially airline aircrew are allowed to be exposed to. In particular this article from the PPrune forum (I am not advertising it):

PPrune article about radiation received by aircrew

Here is also an extract about the same subject from a government site:

“7. Control of Occupational Exposures of Pregnant Women

7.1 It should be noted that the provisions of Article 10 of the Directive apply to pregnant air crew and, once pregnancy is declared, the protection of the foetus should be comparable with that provided for members of the public. This means that, once the pregnancy is declared, the employer must plan future occupational exposures such that the equivalent dose to the foetus is unlikely to be greater than 1 mSv during the remainder of the pregnancy. The cosmic radiation exposure of the body is essentially uniform and the maternal abdomen provides no effective shielding to the foetus. As a result, the magnitude of equivalent dose to the foetus can be put equal to that of the effective dose received by the mother. Some operators have determined that pregnant aircraft crew should cease flying duties on declaration of pregnancy. This is with regard to the requirement of keeping doses low as reasonably achievable. It should also be noted that the practice of grounding crew from the moment they declare pregancy may be based on other aviation physiological risk factors to the mother and foetus, including circadian dysrhythmia, hypoxia, dehydration, noise, vibration and turbulence, mental fatigue and injury through manual handling and exertion. The HSE has produced a booklet INDG334 entitled “Working safely with ionising radiation: Guidelines for expectant or breastfeeding mothers”.

A very good article I have found on the subject, as it mentions circulation, g-force, etc…:

Pregnant Pilots

Never thought I’d be looking for that on the Internet today 🙂
Cheers,
Steph

Brilliant Pics Melvyn!
I was longing to take the sky this week-end but had others plans I could not change… but to make up for it, I worked on a flying story I am hoping to post on this forum soon. Thanks for the inspiring photos.
Steph

I love these first 3 shots of the yellow Cub! (if that’s a cub). Somehow it almost looks like they are drawings or paintings – could be a book cover.

This week-end was not so nice for flying down here, and it’s good to see what you guys have been up to.

Steph

I have some too 😉

1. Cornwall
2. Heathrow before leaving on a trip to Prague
3. From a typical Egyptian boat in Louxor

Sorry for the confusion about R.Weaver and well done Moggy, you really got me! And yes, smileys can be useful sometimes 🙂 🙂