Today work wise was fairly dull, lots of changing thread priorities and analysing profiles. It’s all looking quite tight though which is good.

Had a sandwich and then vanished off to Staverton late afternoon. No traffic problems so got there a bit before my time slot. There were the usual assortment of old pilot type people, didn’t really chat to anyone to start off with. James was there, so we put the wheels on G-OJAN and did all the checks. Opened the hanger door and dragged her out. James booked out, I went through the check list and fired her up. Did the checks, then I took her off into the hover. As it was only us operating at the airport we had clearance straight-away, so I took off to the north. It was a magnificent sight, we flew around in a big circle over Gloucester and Cheltenham. It’s really nice seeing it all lit-up. It’s quite eerie over pitch black bits, you have no idea where the ground is, it’s disorientating. We got to the east of Gloucester and got a direct landing path to the west runway R27. This is unusual as it’s normally occupied by aircraft. But I got to do a glideslope landing on the main run-way and flew right over GCHQ. I then taxied back and parked it badly back at Heliflight. Was a good flight. I then went back and had a couple of burgers and chatted to some people. I ended up having a long chat with a grandma, who brought her 17 year old grandson in for the night flight, he already has his PPL(H) but is still learning to drive a car. She was a lovely lady ‘Irene’. Also while I was there, this blond bean-pole boy of about 18 (yes I would) turned up with his parents and block booked ten lessons, good to see he had a spare four grand. Anyway, fun evening.

Came back and did some more work. Bath time.