31/03/2007 by Pudsey.

My final flight day with Uncle Richard for this visit. We flew on EI-CSG today… I’m surprised Uncle Richard doesn’t have his own private plane, he keeps swapping them around! We’ve got two places to go to again today… first flight was back to Knock, West Ireland… “Hey Uncle Richard, we’ve been here this week - please let me have a go at landing??”, “No”, says Uncle Richard, “Anyway, you’ve been to both these places as today is a repeat of Wednesday… and NO! You’re NOT landing!!”. Well, really - I’m going to listen to Dale really carefully on Debs next lessons so that I’ll be able to land next time I’m with Uncle Richard! After Ireland it was back to Stansted, and then after half an hour break we headed out to Salzburg again…  Ooohhh I do like it out here - the mountains are so peaceful. Again we only had half an hour break before heading back - and who says a pilots life is glamorous!! Stansted really looks familiar to me now after all the flights I’ve done… sure I cold land this thing!!

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30/03/2007 by Pudsey.

Another new country for me to visit today coz Uncle Richard is taking me to Brno in the Czech Republic.. ooohhh we’re getting close to JB’s home in Romania! Mattie would wish he was on this flight coz one of his favourite Arsenal players - Rosicki comes from the Czech Republic! We left Stansted at 12:55 touching down in Brno at 14:58 and again I couldn’t go and explore… but seeing as I was disappointment Uncle Richard took my photo at the doorway. In fact Uncle Richard is a budding photographer (almost as good as Debs and Andrea) and took lots of photos of me in the aircraft… ooohhh it’s great - I’m such a natural in front of the camera! I think Uncle Richard has sneaked a look at my web pages coz Bradley and Dale were the first to photo me in flight along with Simon from Eastern and Jon from easyJet… think we might have to have a competition here boys!! We left at 15:37 arriving back at Stansted at 17:31… Ohhh rush hour - great!! Another new plane EI-DAM.

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29/03/2007 by Pudsey.

Well we’ve only got one flight today and that’s to Brindisi in Italy on EI-DHM… hey they’re holders of the world cup - Oh well done Uncle Richard for taking me to Italy!! We left Stansted at 16:30, arriving in Italy at 19:10.. so that gave me one hour, two minutes of night flying… WOW these are building up too!! :-). This was a lovely flight and the vis was so good again that Uncle Richard completed a VFR approach over the sea to runway 14… ooohhhhh it was great - brought back memories of the Malaga flight, except this time we were VFR at night and it was amazing and so easy to spot the runway from the air. I begged Uncle Richard to let me land it, but he just told me to look after the seat belt signs! Again we had a quick turnaround… not even time for me to explore and ask where the world cup was! We left at 20:01, arriving back at Stansted at 22:59… so this is my longest flight so far at 2 hours 58 minutes. Even if I say so myself, Richard made a really good landing… almost as good as mine! But Nigel, you’d not make this standard!!

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28/03/2007 by Pudsey.

Here we go my first flight with Ryanair and we’re off to Knock in the west of Ireland - a nice short flight for me. Richard and his crew were really great on flight FR805. We flew in EI-DPE and left Stansted at 13:55 (GMT!), touching down in Knock West Ireland at 15:20. That was a lovely little flight for me and Uncle Richard. We then had a 25 minute break (yes, that’s all!) before leaving Knock at 15:45 to land back at Stansted at 17:09. But that wasn’t the end of our day coz then we left Stansted at 17:44 to go to Salzburg in Austria - wow what a lovely place - such beautiful mountains… Oi Uncle Richard quick, sell some tickets to people here coz I’d really like to live here! After a 50 minute break (wow - a whole 50 minutes!), we left Salzburg at 20:40 to arrive back at Stansted at 22:20… not as late as my Malaga flight Uncle Richard!! Then it was finally time to leave the aircraft (bye bye EI-DPE) and head home to bed… at last!!

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27/03/2007 by Pudsey.

Well, what a weird end to my holiday. Debs and Nigel took me on a secret sortie and dropped me off in a garage (I mean, a garage, of all places for me - a superstar!!) in the middle of the night. But then it turned out to be Richard Bradshaw’s garage - a RyanAir pilot I’m going to spend the week with - ooh well - can’t wait!! Richard and Katie are really lovely and they’ve made me feel so at home - as have their children Savannah and Harry. I had a lovely relaxing day to recover from the busy weekend and the flight home. I can’t believe that Richard is Nigel’s friend - I mean how did he manage to have such a cool friend as this?! I helped Richard pack his case today coz we’ve got flights to both Ireland and Austria tomorrow - wow! I then had to get an early night as we had to get up early for our flights. Katie made sure I had a comfy cosy bed to sleep in and Richard told me lots of funny stories he knows about Nigel… great!!

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26/03/2007 by Pudsey.

Hola from Spain… for the last time this holiday :-(. Oh well it was a rainy day today - well just a showery one… but we did manage to take some more photos of me! We had an uneventful trip to the aeroputo on the train… and then we got to the check-in - and guess what? They were both overweight (and I mean their cases not them :-))! So after paying the excess baggage charge it was off to the departure gates… where there was a half hour delay. So when we got onto the plane it was all rush rush rush and I couldn’t get into the cockpit for take off - ooh it was weird in the cabin - Oi! Let me in! Thankfully the lovely easyJet ladies took notice of me and I got to fly on the flight deck with Capt Nick Munns and SFO Alex Pasinisi (and not his wife who’s an FO too - see those lovely ladies kept me up to date with the gossip!). We made good time thanks to Nick and landed on time (think he was in a hurry!!). Thanks guys. Love flying with you and we’ll do it all again in April!

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25/03/2007 by Pudsey.

Well I opted not to join them today… who wants to go on a long walk to Benalmadena in the hot sunshine… not me!! So I had a really relaxing day by the pool eyeing up the senoritas!! They went for their walk and got suitably tanned - or in Nigels case - red… hee hee!! And they’d been shopping again - typical Debs - they’ve go themselves baseball caps with “yakdisplay.com” on them for the summer… Oi - where’s mine then?? - oops! Yes they’ve bought me one - great :-). We had another photo shoot… this time round the pool and I got to model my new hat! Our balcony is great coz we get to overlook the sea and the front of the hotel with views of Malaga as well. We had great fun at night spotting the planes in finals over the sea and glimpsing them as they came into land between the hotels. Also spent time doing the crossword - my word Debs and Nigel don’t half need me to help them with the answers - must be all the Sangaria they’ve had!! Ahh this is the life - hope they’ve been selling raffle tickets in Spain - wouldn’t mind living here

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24/03/2007 by Pudsey.

Oh yes. Must remember to say Happy Birthday to Nigel! Lets hope they take me out with them today to explore… coz they’re going up the cable car in Belamadena. Oh great. They didn’t take me… so I stayed behind and read Pilot Mag. Coz it was nice and sunny, I went and sat on the balcony to catch some sun… I’ll try to tan this fur! While out there I was able to spot the planes going into and out of Malaga. First of all they were landing in from the sea - same as us… and then the wind must have changed coz they were then taking off over the sea… and then they changed back again :-). Thought I’d get a chance to go out and celebrate the birthday with a meal… but oh no - they left me behind… AGAIN! But aha! Revenge is sweet… they have left behind a bottle of sparkling wine they bought today - now where’s the bottle opener - I’ll soon get this finished before they come home… that will teach them to leave me and the wine behind!!

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23/03/2007 by Pudsey.

Oh goodie - another easyJet flight today - I love them :-). We caught the 0700 from Stansted to Malaga - Flight 3111 on board G-EZBE, and Airbus A319. I flew on the jump seat with Capt Mike Orris and SFO Jon Edwards - lovely people. We had quite a queue of planes waiting to leave Stansted but didn’t get off until 0730. Weather was gray and overcast at Stansted but soon changed en-route - great! Jon soon recognised my fame and took some more photos of me in flight - hey this is becoming a regular thing! He’s going to email them to me for the website. We had a great flight - really smooth and the viz was absolutely fantastic in Spain. Jon was flying and we made a visual approach into Malaga - I kept telling Jon we should do what we do in the Yak and hack a sharp left turn and land… Jon says we can’t do that with a plane load of passengers.. so it was a very long fin al approach from the sea!! As the viz was the best ever we could see Gib from the air - shame Debs and Nigel were stuck in the cabin and missed it!

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22/03/2007 by Pudsey.

Weather was better today so went off to Earls Colne again. Debs left me at the flying club while she went to work. I flew with a new instructor today - Robin Rudderham (ooh he was the guy who had G-SHAY at Elmsett last Saturday, and then flew to Earls Colne). I flew to Southend with him and a student and after a short break and a cup of tea we headed back to Earls Colne. Then half an hour later we went out again to do circuits - all these were in G-HFCL - the same plane learnt to fly in - wow - is it really that old??! After that I went out with Roger and another student for a couple of flights in a HR20. Well, the first flight wa brilliant coz we went “weightless”. I loved it coz we do it in the Yak all the time… however, the student didn’t like it… it’s put him off going in the Yak now!! - Wimp :-). After that we done some circuits… oooh rather warm. Must go and pack now for my hols… lovely

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