It’s only a tiny glimpse of the beautiful Bae de Somme from 2000 ft flying what can best be described as the bastard offspring between a tent and a lawnmower, but mon dieu, what a view!

My camera was one of those with a flip out viewfinder, and keeping it open in the wind at 100 knots was virtually impossible, but I think the footage does capture some of the excitement and splendor.

I’ve always wanted to fly in a double engined prop plane, and today I did. A friend of ours, Roy Arrowsmith, happens to own a 1977 Piper Aztec. I jokingly said to him last month “If you ever have to take it up on your own, y’know, just to keep the hours up, I’m always available…”

Well, today I made myself available and drove down to the (vastly developed since I last went there) airfield at Hawarden in North Wales. The weather was a bit shitty, but Roy had a route planned for Caernarfon Airfield where we could land, indulge in a bacon butty and then fly back to Hawarden along the craggy North Wales coastline.

The aircraft itself was something to behold. A perfect cruiser, Roy uses it regularly to fly to his other home in France. I was surprised but deligted by it’s age, because it has a kind of retro “classic” feel to it. I mean, check the logo out on the stick:

Cassic Piper Aztec Cockpit, with a few digital optional extras

It took a while for the oil pressure to calm down on the left engine – I’d never actually ever seen any Ts and Ps in the red before. Roy assured me it was because he’d just changed the oil and it needed warming up. He was, of course, right. It’s his bird.

We rolled onto the runway and took off before reaching the piano keys, with the full force of two Lycoming 250bhp beauties either side of us. Roy passed control to me graciously as we passed by the mountains towards the Great Orme. I had not flown in such bad weather for very long time, but we ploughed on with the automatic pilot weirdly taking control for a bit. As we passed the Great Orme, the weather took a turn for the worse and we quickly lost visibility depsite dropping down below 1500 ft.

Fortunately the AP took over again (first time I’d seen one of these in action) and we were heading back to Hawarden at 180 knots. A wise decision if only to avoid the possibility of being stuck overnight in Caenarfon. I had celebrating to get back home to! (For what? I’ll tell you later).

The decision to turn back actually made me think of internet marketing because if you’ve got a campaign going that isn’t working, it’s much better to take it down instead of ploughing on regardless. I often take PPC campaigns down and put them in the “hospital” to give them some TLC before relaunching them.

So – thank you Roy. I really enjoyed our little adventure today. Now, here’s a pic I snapped with my iPhone after we got back down on terra firma:

To read more, check out my flying blog by clicking on this link: Mark Attwood Flying

Long before internet marketing, long before I stumbled across the skip hire industry…just basically a long time ago, I achieved my childhood dream of becoming an RAF pilot. I am sporadically learning to fly helicopters (hence the picture in the blog header of the Schweizer 300DCi, but this is me back in 1987:

Mark Attwood the young RAF pilot

I actually resigned from the RAF because I woke up and realised that I simply didn’t want to kill another human being, whatever the circumstances. The mindless slaughter of millions of innocent people I have seen in the 20 years since I left in bullshit wars like Iraq and Afganistan has proven me right.