Good day weatherwise at Land's End Airport. We did quite a lot of groundschool for students especially for the 'Communication' PPL written exam.

Congratulations are due to Les on passing his communication exam this afternoon after a lot of study; it is an excellent effort as it is not an easy exam to get through.

Pretty bad weather on the way for tomorrow - quite a deep low forecast which will mean strong winds and rain. Why does a 'Low' with lots of isobars mean bad weather? Come along on Thursday night to the groundschool in Penzance and we will be looking at Meteorology and will cover that and a lot more besides!

More information (including times and venue) is available on the calendar on the website!

It is a bright clear sunny day today at Land's End. Any clouds are quite high up and not affecting training. It is breezy; too windy first thing but it has lessened throughout the morning. Richard is flying now; congratulations are due to him after passing his Human Performance PPL exam today too!

Well the weather has closed in for today, though Barry had a great flight this morning doing circuit work. It had started off cloudy but had quite a high base, so we could go up to 2000ft and still be well below the clouds.

We are doing a few photographs on occasions when up in the air....this one quite clearly shows how localised the weather can be here in beautiful West Cornwall. Bright and sunny at Zennor in the aircraft, but don't be on St Michael's Mount without your rain gear!

Not expecting good weather for much of the day later on, but surprisingly it is fine now with no wind (unusual!) and clouds up quite high.

Don't forget the evening meeting at the Queen's hotel tonight. See the calendar for more details!

Glad to have sunshine again here at Land's End. The wind is from the South East: 150 at 13 knots with a QFE of 969mb currently. It is certainly flyable at the moment and we look forward to seeing you here if you are able to make it.

Met is not good this morning for flying training. Wet, low cloud base (200ft!) and wind at Land's End means classroom flying instead today!

Seriously, it is one of those days when it is worth consolidating knowledge on the ground to save time in the air. This means you are more comfortable remembering what you are doing when you are flying and will save you money (as well as giving you a confidence boost). A good example of this is "sofa circuits".

This is the idea of learning the procedures and the actions in the circuit on the ground (on a sofa) so that when you take to the air, your brain is 'freed up' to fly the aircraft. You can then concentrate without having trying to remember, for example, what the 'M' in your downwind checks means or what to say on the radio when ready for departure.

There are various ways to do sofa circuits, but often it involves sitting in a quiet room (with eyes closed) flying the circuit in your head from starting the aircraft until shutting down. It won't be easy to start with, but you will be surprised how quickly you improve and things come to mind without you having to really concentrate on it!

If you would like help with anything such as this, any aspect of flying or with any groundschool topics we are around and able to help today. Though the weather is poor, the welcome is warm and the coffee is hot!

Monday morning, another start to the week. Not too bad here at the moment; it is dry and the going is good but the cloud base is a little low for PPL training until that occluded front moves away to the South East. According to the Met Office F215, it should be over Bournemouth at 12.00 and nicely out of our way here. We won't be expecting any visitors today from the South coast of England though!

If you are a bit unsure of getting the on-line Met Office briefings don't be afraid to ask - we would be happy going through it with you and showing you the sites we tend to reference to get the best picture of the weather we can.

We know that parts of the county woke up to heavy snow falling and slippery roads. Not like that here though; currently sunny with few clouds at about 2000ft and the runways are open. There seems to be the odd shower around West Cornwall but none have visited us so far. We are flying today so come and join us at Land's End if you feel the calling to aviate!

Congratulations to Simon on passing his Communications PPL Ground Exam this morning with an impressive score. Well done!

For anyone else ready to do a Ground Exam we can organise a PPL written test at almost any time to suit you (give us a call first though please).

Great session last night on Communications. Not only good for students preparing for PPL, but also useful for the rest of us to keep up to date. Just as an example, a few people were not aware of the Safetycom frequency, 135.475MHz for landing at farm strips and airfields without a radio service.

Very nice day today so far in sunny West Cornwall and looking good for the rest of the day. Airport is open with departures on 34 or 30 and Ian has just taken to air in G-EOLX.

We are also glad to welcome G-OCPC to the fleet. The flaps have now been fixed, and she is available for training and for hire now. For those PPLs who learnt to fly and did their PPL skills test in her it may be a chance to re-live a few old memories.

Also, G-OCPC is an aerobat and therefore just the right aircraft to do some aerobatic flying in. If you would like to do some aerobatics give us a call!

PPL Groundschool

Don't forget tonight we are running our groundschool session at the Queen's Hotel in Penzance. Tonight's topic is Communications; it will be quite a detailed session but very worthwhile for preparing for the PPL Comms exam.

If you are already qualified it will be useful as a revision session too, especially if you have not been briefed on some of the changes - ATSOCAS, for example.

..also chance to take an exam if you are ready?

Weather is now quite bad and unlikely to clear up for the rest of the day. Hoping for better conditions tomorrow!

Oh dear! Today is more like February - low pressure over Cornwall and a nice occluded front mixed in with it has brought rain and cloud. It is actually flyable at the moment, but the airport is closed due to waterlogging. We are hoping it should be open later this morning.

A beautiful day...

No wind, (or variable at 3 knots) wonderful sunshine. Come and fly but don't forget your sunglasses! It is quite chilly for the beach but fantastic at 2000ft in heated Cessna!

There was heavy rain in the night with an occluded font moving through to the South, but now it is moving away the weather is clearing nicely here now. Hardly any wind; we can see blue sky starting to break through the cloud.

We had a radio problem with G-EOLX yesterday but it is in with maintenance now being checked. It is expected back on-line this morning.

Enjoy your flying!

A fresh start to a new week....

Thank you for your patience, all you who have been following our site and our blog. The calendar is now up and working from the website now as promised. If you are a flyer with the school and don't have the password to access it please call us and we will point you in the right direction.

We have been enjoying some excellent weather of late (especially for February!) and really have taken advantage of it with quite a bit of flying. The wind has been a reasonable North Easterly, well within limits for all and giving us a chance to work off runway 07. The runway condition has been great, possibly down to the weather, possibly down to new groundsman who has been rolling runways and getting stuck in his new role.

It has been cold, but the clear skies have made for exceptional flying. Though not as warm as the summer, it is much better visibility this time of year without the haze that you tend to get in June, July and August time.

Though the calendar should now be up to date, always call if you would like to fly as things sometimes change hour to hour - we may be able to fit you in after all.

Don't forget the Communications Groundschool on Thursday night; see you there!

This is a test we are doing Thursday 11th February. We have had a few challenges with getting this blog working with the site (and with Windows 7 on the server) but we have been told we should be up and working on Monday with the Blog.