After 12 hours I soloed the MT0 last summer. The next day a licenced pilot wrote the gyro off, and for the next six months or so we waited for the instructor to get another aircraft. Plus, he had a medical emergency which grounded him for a while and he needed to convince the CAA that he was well. I had the option not to wait, but to go to a different instructor, but I really like the guy and he has a good teaching style, so he is worth the wait.
Then we had all that rain, which pretty much grounded all of us. When the rain stopped we had to wait for airfields to dry out, so that even though I started lessons again this January, we could only do it on the short runway, the hard one.
Several hours on, now getting familiar with a more complex, closed cockpit Calidus...and frustrated that I was having to fly dual all over again...added expense and delay...I finally soloed the Calidus and was ready to do the qualifying cross country flights and consolidating hours.
Then Covid and lock-down.
So, a year and a half after starting I still have only about 20 hrs, and will have to do some more dual post-lockdown to get current and confident yet again!
I had meant to write about everything as it happened. Mind you, it was always going to be in a knocked-down form, as I have also been asked to write something for the LAA magazine about converting to gyro from flexwing.
There is now something else exciting in the wings, about which, more later.
