Our European Adventure

Well our European adventure is over for this year. It has been a real mixed bag and we've learnt a lot on the way. Congratulations to the medal winners (and particularly the new European Champion and Vice-champion) and to the rest of the competitors! Thank you also to all those involved in organising and running the event, our sponsors (Total and Trig Avionics) for helping us get there, and to Chris Sills, our team manager, for all his help! Unfortunately the competition was somewhat overshadowed for us by Mike being taken ill so we didn't really get to enjoy it in the way that we had hoped. We thoroughly enjoyed meeting some great people who we sincerely hope we see again. For us this was a highlight. I was delighted to come in the top ten (8th) in programme one and even more delighted (and shocked) to have stayed there after programme two. I finished 19th overall and given how late in the season we got the Cap back (so how little training we had managed to do), I was really happy with that. I just wish Mike could have been able to compete with me as it is no fun training and preparing together for only one of us to get to finish the competition, and even worse given this was because he was unwell. The good news is that he has now recovered and even got to take a bit of enjoyment away from our trip as....on the way home we stopped here.

This is Pilsen airfield. It was directly on route and home to the Spitfire that kindly paid us a visit during the competition. It's owner was there, and another friend of ours was doing some training in a Texan (like a Harvard). We couldn't have planned getting us all together like this had we tried so it was nice to make the most of it. We spent an evening visiting a Czech town (home to the famous Pilsner beer). We got to see some beautiful Czech architecture (which we hadn't really seen any of during the rest of our stay) and some really stunning aircraft in the hangar in Pilsen (see the photos).

Our little aircraft spent the night with some of the historic greats! In the morning Mike even got to have a lesson in the Texan (apparently, for mere mortals like me, it's pretty much the same as a Harvard. That said I'm sure those in the know will be having kittens given the differences but I couldn't tell you what they are!). Thank you Eric!