Andy Hardy's Photo Blog!

Flying to Duxford

2006-10-08T08:50:00.000+01:00

Andy, Adrian Andy 1
Originally uploaded by Andy Hardy.

We had a great day yesterday - in near perfect weather we flew from Wycombe to Duxford where the Imperial War Museum has its aircraft collection.

They were rehearsing for an airshow the following day, so we got to see lots of formation displays -- see the rest of the photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andyhardy/sets/72157594316915561/

But the best thing was that our mate Andy F. got to have his first experience of flying -- welcome to the brotherhood Andy!

Here are some of the flying displays we got to see:

Patrouille fe France (French "Red Arrows"):

"Sally B" - B17 Flying Fortress (with new paint job):

A pair of P51 Mustangs flying in formation:

A ballistic F-16!:

Flying over the Freezing Fog on Sunday!

2005-11-21T11:30:00.000Z

Waddesdon Manor
Originally uploaded by Andy Hardy.

Beautiful flight from Wycombe to Kemble - had to divert because the widespread freezing fog prevented us landing at Kemble, so went into Enstone initially for a cuppa coffee, then up to Turweston for lunch and back to Wycombe. Some beautiful pics over the fog - looks like a white ocean!

This particular photo was taken as we flew over this lovely country house which looks a bit like a castle from the air, sitting on slightly higher ground above the layer of freezing fog just as we passed Westcott NDB. It's Waddesdon Manor (http://www.waddesdon.org.uk/).

The whole photo set is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andyhardy/sets/1405427/

Andy

Voyage of N36665

2005-11-01T14:26:00.000Z

Voyage of N36665 My dream is oneday to fly an aircraft of my own from the UK home to Australia. I therefore love reading of long-distance over-water trips in small single-engined aircraft, and this blog re- N36665 is great!

Andy

Australia should become nuclear dump site for the world...

2005-10-17T16:17:00.000+01:00

I never thought I would believe this but listening to the podcast of Geoff Hudson, a nuclear physicist from Melbourne, arguing in favour of this following Bob Hawke's recent comments, I find I am won over.

The original article is here: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1476910.htm. If Mr Hudson is to be believed, it is considerably safer than we think, for instance did you know that nuclear waste:

"becomes much less dangerous over time. To quote the US nuclear regulatory
commission: ‘In three months, for example, the spent fuel will have lost 50% of
its radiation, in one year it will have lost about 80%, and in 10 years it will
have lost 90%.’ "

Australia might be in a good position, with it's vast remote spaces, stable ecology and low rainfall, to solve one of the world's great problems and get richer at the same time! And nuclear energy may be our only hope for reducing the impact of global warming!

Andy

ThinkFree Online

2005-10-17T12:39:00.000+01:00

They say that the internet as a platform will become the biggest threat to Microsoft in years. I was a bit sceptical about this, but am fast becoming won over to the idea. There plenty of emerging "AJAX" style applications (such as http://www.writely.com, with which I am writing this Blog entry, http://maps.google.co.uk, and the excellent http://gTraffic.info), and most recently I have come across a Java-based online application called ThinkFree.

ThinkFree Online is at http://online.thinkfree.com - it is a fully featured and highly compatible version of MS-Office Excel, Word and Powerpoint applications that run as Java applets hosted by Thinkfree. It works great on Windows, Linux and Mac. While not entirely bug-free, it's far lighter and simpler and seemingly more compatible with MS Office than Star Office.

With hosted products like ThinkFree Online, combined with now widely available enabling technologies such as broadband and high-performance processors which together make large-scale hosted Java applet based applications feasible for the masses, I think MS is going to have a real challenge on it's hands. The challenge for the desktop is not now coming from the OS, but from the applications. I realise none of this is entirely new, but I sense that we may be reaching a turning point here...

Andy

Writely

2005-10-17T11:59:00.000+01:00

"Writely" (http://www.writely.com) is one of the wonderful new breed of "AJAX" type browser-based applications which are starting to revolutionise the use of the web as an application platform. Writely is essentially an MS-Word like editor. Not as fully featured as MS-Word, but very easy to use.

As you can see, it's easy to add photos etc, and you can post directly to your Blog from Writely.

Andy

Final Approach, Guernsey Rwy 27

2005-10-15T14:10:00.000+01:00

Final Approach, Guernsey Rwy 27
Originally uploaded by Andy Hardy.

We flew from Wycombe via RAF Benson to Guernsey in the Channel Islands to meet with Derek, Tammy, Mark and others for a lovely lunch at Da Nello's restaurant in St. Peter Port. What a great day for crossing the channel! This photo was taken on final approach for Runway 27, last Sunday.

Palm Beach photo

2005-09-10T18:42:00.000+01:00

Mum, Ken, Nam at Palm Beach

Mum, Ken and Nam at Lavender Bay

2005-09-04T11:26:00.000+01:00

Mum, Ken and Nam at Lavender Bay
Originally uploaded by Andy Hardy.

We arrived back from on Monday - it was great to see everyone, and I already miss them all. Here is Mum, Ken and Nam pictured in Lavender Bay last Friday just before we left. The Harbour Bridge is such a unique backdrop!

Why do we use flaps when landing?

2005-07-28T11:56:00.000+01:00

The internet is a wonderful thing, enabling communication and dialogue with people you wouldn't otherwise get to know. Through this blog, a gentleman called Ramapriya who is working in Khartoum in the Sudan has contacted me to ask a question about why flaps are used when landing.

Ramapriya's question is perfectly natural: if flaps increase "lift" then why use them when you are trying to land - surely this is when you want less lift to "stick" to the runway! And what is the difference between spoilers and flaps? Here is Ramapriya's original question:

I've always seen spoilers and flaps deployed fully upon landing. While the reason for spoilers is straightforward, I haven't yet figured why flaps are deployed too. Isn't the landing roll the time when you'd be wanting all the load of the craft to be on the main wheels, which is where the brakes are, instead of creating lift (which is what I presume flaps do) whereby the load gets transferred onto the wings and possibly lessening the braking effect? I know the plane would be decelerating all the time with the engines throttled back fully and even the forward thrust probably depolyed, yet why create any lift possibility at all? Wouldn't braking be more effective with no flaps deployed? Or does the drag produced by the flaps compensate for the lift?

Now I'm not an expert on airliners, but I am happy to expose my ignorance (best way to learn!) and so here, for those interested, is my answer:

The purpose of flaps is to enable the aircraft to fly more slowly without
stalling. Deploying flaps increases both lift and drag. Use of flaps when landing thus enables a steeper approach path, better visibility over the nose and a slower touch-down speed. The slower the touch-down speed (perhaps 120~160kts for an airliner, or around 60~70kts for the smaller aircraft I fly), then the less braking and runway length are required to complete the landing roll before safely exiting the runway at taxi speed. Generally speaking, full-flap will be used for landing as this provides maximum benefit in terms of reduced landing speed and extra drag during the landing roll. (Flaps are also commonly used for take-off in order to decrease the speed at which the wing starts to provide lift - but only partial flap is used for take-off to avoid having too much drag whilst trying to accelerate to take-off speed). A simple definition of aircraft flaps is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flap_(aircraft)
The purpose of spoilers is to decrease lift, while the purpose of air-brakes is to increase drag without altering lift. Sometimes the two effects are combined. One of the most difficult things to do in an aircraft is to "go down and slow down" at the same time - spoilers and air-brakes help with this. In flight, air-brakes are used in the approach phase to slow the aircraft down (it is common for example to have speed restrictions in busy terminal control areas e.g. below 250kts when 30 miles out say, or max holding speed of 180kts below 10,000 feet perhaps). The second use of air-brakes/spoilers is provide additional drag and dump any residual lift during the landing roll, as you have noticed. See simple definition here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_brake_(aircraft).
When landing an airliner, they need to combine the effects of flap (primarily to reduce touch-down speed, secondarily to add some drag) with the effects of spoilers/air-brakes (primarily to add drag, secondarily to dump lift once safely on the ground) as well as reverse thrust, and wheel braking. The shorter the runway / heavier the aircraft / faster the touchdown then the more of these forces will be required at once.
Confusion here seems to stem from the idea that flaps add lift, but during the landing roll we don't want any more lift: the answer to this is that once the aircraft has touched down, it is quickly decelerated (by combined effects of drag, reverse thrust and wheel brakes) to less than the the stall-speed of the fully-flapped wing; therefore the wing (by definition) is no longer producing enough lift to be able to fly. Airline pilots have to calculate in advance a target touch-down speed to be just above the stall speed as they reach the landing threshold - for a given aircraft, this speed will vary considerably depending on the weight (load, fuel, etc), runway length, surface type (e.g. grass has less friction than tarmac) and external conditions (headwind, crosswind, gusts, windshear, runway condition e.g. wet/dry etc).
Landing small aircraft is far simpler of course, but we still have to make take-off and landing performance calculations - see GASCO (General Aviation Safety Council) article here on this: http://www.gasco.org.uk/upload/docs/2005_1_Flight%20Safety16-18.pdf.
Regarding landing without flaps: this is something that we practice because we have to be prepared for situations where e.g. the flaps malfunction for some reason. When landing without flaps, you have to make a flatter approach, you have less forward visibility over the nose therefore, and you touchdown say 10kts faster - which significantly increases the landing run (i.e. runway length required); which is as you would expect given the explanatiom above perhaps!

I hope this is as interesting to others as it is to Ramapriya and me!

Andy

G-ODAK snapped by photographer at Shoreham, 22 June 2005

2005-07-19T14:19:00.000+01:00

G-ODAK snapped by photographer at Shoreham, 22 June 2005
Originally uploaded by Andy Hardy.

I spotted this photo on http://airliners.net - apparently it was taken by Andrew Scott, an avid aviation photographer based on the south coast who apparently snapped us as we arrived (we had been enroute to Le Touquet but the weather at the eastern end of the Channel wasn't with us that day so we diverted).

I often notice people taking photos of G-ODAK when we land, more so than in other aircraft I use; I think it's because of the distinctive BA livery (the aircraft is rented from the BA Flying Club). Nice to be noticed :-)

Andy

Hardy Clan BBQ!

2005-07-17T13:37:00.000+01:00

The whole clan!
Originally uploaded by jOn Hardy.

Our lovely cousin Ashley had the whole clan around to her place in Sutton, south London, for a brilliant BBQ yesterday afternoon.

This was a great chance not only to enjoy the superb weather we are having here in southern England at the
moment, but also to introduce John to those members of the family (2nd cousins, 3rd cousins, 4th cousins neighbours best friends, etc!) that he hadn't yet had a chance to meet!

It was great to see everyone on such good form: Aunty Pat; Ashley, Tommy and Darren (and his mate); Lorraine, Christian and Billy (hope to introduce John to Nathan next time); Cheryl & Barry; Natalie and her Irish friend Carol; Shelley, Kyle, Olivia and the mischievous young Charlie; Francesca, Alex & little Siena; and of course Janet, Lucy, Sophie and me! Gary
and his family were missed - hope they can make it next time.

We entertained ourselves with loads of (meat and vege) sausages, burgers, salads, drinks and water fights! These family gatherings are brilliant, and I can't wait for next time :-)

To see the rest of the photos from the BBQ, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonhardy/sets/602254/ then click on one of the photos, then click on NEXT to see them all...

Andy :-)

A beautiful Summers Evening for Flying!

2005-07-15T14:37:00.000+01:00

Flight to Old Sarum.
Originally uploaded by jOn Hardy.

Yesterday I enjoyed a rare day off and spent the afternoon and evening flying with my brother John around some lovely small airfields in our part of southern England including White Waltham, Wycombe and the lovel Old Sarum near Salisbury in Wiltshire.

Conditions yesterday evening were absolutely perfect! The forecast conventive weather (thunderstoms) didn't materialise, and we could see for 50 miles plus in perfect blue skies!

Evening flights in the British Summer are truly lovely - the air is calm as the heat of the day and thermals diminish, and especially on weekday evenings there is very little traffic around.

And the views! As you can see, England truly is a "green and pleasant land" at this time of year. When we have a good summer (as it seems we have this year) July and August here are brilliant!

As we departed Old Sarum, we were treated to gorgeous views of the eponymous Iron Age Hill Fort and the lovely Salisbury Cathedral. We returned back to RAF Benson, where the aircraft we were fling yesterday (a Piper Warrior G-BEFA) is based, at around 8pm with nearly 2 hrs of daylight still remaining, and retired home for tea and medals :-)

You can see the rest of the photos from yesterday evenings flight here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonhardy/tags/flying/

Andy

Sam's Solo at 16!

2005-07-13T08:03:00.000+01:00

Sam flying us at FL070 above the clouds!
Originally uploaded by Andy Hardy.

My good friend Sam flew his first solo yesterday in a Cessna 152 at Wycombe.

Sam has joined me on a number of flights from time-to-time over the last few years and is a very keen and natural young pilot.

This photo was taken above the clouds as Sam helped fly us home from Cardiff last Sunday.

Your fist solo is a fantastic achievement Sam - welcome to the special club of people who can fly!

Andy :-)

I love my GPS!

2005-07-12T10:25:00.000+01:00

Wales GPS track 100705
Originally uploaded by Andy Hardy.

Can you imagine life before the telephone, or the internet? Well what about before GPS..!?

GPS is a fabulous improvement for small aircraft pilots: while I still believe it is important, and right, that we are trained to navigate visually (just map and stop-watch using "ded-reckoning"), in order to pass our private pilot's license. We are also trained to use ground-based radion navigation aids such as VOR, NDB etc.

But small handheld GPS units (my brother gave me mine as a birthday gift!) can be so easily used and make navigation infinitely easier, and safer. The old methods (ded-reckoning and ground-based radio navaids) are used as backups in case of GPS failure.

Oddly, no training is provided for use of GPS during the private pilot's license training... this starting to become a bit controversial in some quarters, but on the other hand modern cheap handheld GPS units are SO easy to use that very little training is needed to use them. However, the temptation for very recently qualified pilot's to rely solely on GPS is very great and so some training in what's the sensible balance between new and old techniques is probably a good idea.

Anyway, one of my favourite things about my GPS is the ability to upload my actual flight track into my PC when I get home - partly to see if I navigated accurately, and partlty so I can relive the flight :-) Sad, eh!?

Sharing the joys of the sky!

2005-07-12T00:32:00.000+01:00

Pete, Justin and Phil Saunders
Originally uploaded by Andy Hardy.

It's never too early or too late to get involved with flying! On Sunday evening, around 5:30pm, I had the pleasure of taking my friend Pete on his first flight in a light aircraft, together with his 10yr old twin boys Phil & Justin who had only been in an Airbus once before and never in a light aircraft!

All agreed it was great fun - we flew over our houses and the boys school in Chesham, then out to the "Dreaming Spires" of Oxford, and back to Wycombe in time for tea and medals! Hurrah!

A Flying Visit to Cardiff!

2005-07-12T00:19:00.000+01:00

Departure from Cardiff
Originally uploaded by Andy Hardy.

On Sunday, John, Sam and Andy flew in the fabulous G-ODAK (P28B Dakota) from Wycombe down to meet our friends John & Clare at Cardiff flying club, which is located on the south side of the runway opposite the main international terminal at Cardiff airport, South Wales.

When we arrived at Cardiff flying club, John later told us, the nerdy contingent of "spotters" were apparently quite excited at the arrival of G-ODAK as it is painted in British Airways livery (I rent it from the British Airways Flying Club, you see)!

After landing, Sam waited with the plane-spotters while Clare, Big John, Little John and I flew for an hour around the lovely Gower Peninsular (we will have to wait until Clare figures out how to upload her photos to the web before I can show you this as I left my camera with Sam so he could join his nerdy mates taking snaps of all the jets at Cardiff..!)...

Then Sam, John and I flew back to Wycombe via Gloucestershire at 7,500 feet above sea level, which put us just slightly above the fluffy white cloud tops and above the haze in lovely clear blue skies: we could see for miles and miles and miles and miles...

It was a lovely day! Please take a look at the rest of the photos from our Sunday adventure, including some more of John in the Tiger Moth which he flew in before we left for Cardiff.

You can see the set of photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andyhardy/tags/gowerpeninsular/

Andy :-)

Dancing with the Cranes on Dublin rooftop

2005-07-11T23:20:00.000+01:00

Dancing with the Cranes on Dublin rooftop
Originally uploaded by Andy Hardy.

This was back in April when we went to Dublin at Easter time. Janet, the girls, Mum and I stayed in a city-centre apartment which the girls loved (I thought it was a bit small...!).

Anyway, the girls rehearsed a special performance for us and presented it on the rooftop. Dublin is boom-town for building sites (still - when will that bubble burst!?) as you can see from the backdrop to this photo. It'll all end in tears I think...

jOn in Tiger Moth

2005-07-11T15:27:00.000+01:00

My brother John in a tiger moth - about to go off and do aerobatics for half an hour!

And here is John standing in front of the lovely Tiger Moth the day before the flight:

Business As Usual

2005-07-08T09:58:00.000+01:00

I have had literally dozens of friends & family get in touch in the last 24hrs to check that we're all OK over here, which is lovely of course. Things must seem terrible from a distance - so I want to give some perspective on things from here in London where life is already almost back to normal.

Walking from the office to Marylebone (took about an hour) to get the mainline train home last night together with literally millions of people out on the streets, it was striking how relaxed and unfazed everyone was. London will absolutely take this in it's stride.

People are not about to let terrorism deflect us from normal business or our daily routine; much less from our beliefs or values. Besides, there is safety in numbers - the safety of the herd: while savage animals might pick off one or two individuals, they cannot threaten the herd as a whole.

As I explained to my kids this morning to provide them with some perspective and alleviate their fears, if there are say about 4 million commuters in London every day and around 40 people tragically killed then - as terrible as that is for the individual families affected - the risk to anyone of us as individuals remains very very small: 40/4,000,000 = 0.001% - and that's on the risk on one particularly unfortunate day; taken over time of course the risk is far less. (Clearly I'm no statistician, but I hopefully you'll get my point!)...

The trouble of course is perception: the risks seem far higher than they are due to graphic media coverage (which I am not knocking it by the way, and I wouldn't be without it). Some of our family and friends back home in Australia have said we should get the hell out of London, come home, get away from the trouble etc as it must seem terrible, risky and treacherous to remain here when confronted by the images.

I remember thinking and feeling exactly the same way about Northern Ireland in the early '90s and was in quite a state of fear myself by the time I visited there for the first time for a mate's sister's wedding - people back home then said to me "you must be nuts" for going to such a place. But of course reality on the ground as perceived by people as they see it personally, not as focussed through the lens of television.

Ultimately the terrorists will inevitably lose. They will achieve nothing.

Andy

Just a bad morning commute in London... or something worse?

2005-07-07T10:48:00.000+01:00

Like thousands of other commuters, I was resigned to "the usual tube problems" when around 9:20am this morning the tube I was on came to a halt at Oxford Circus and the driver announced that "due to a power failure" the train would be going no further.

This has happened before of course, so along with everyone else I traipsed up onto Oxford Street and decided to walk to my office in the square mile, near St. Paul's. In these situations there's usually no chance of getting on a bus - but a number 25 pulled up where I was so I crammed on. It was so crowded that the driver said the rules prevented him from continuing, but sensing that he might have a revolt on his hands if he didn't move, off we went.

As we drove along by Holborn, I could see lots of police, ambulances and helicopters. This was my first inkling that something might be amiss. By the time I got to St. Paul's the streets were crowded with people trying to walk to work. Mobile phones not working now because of congestion - I guess everyone is trying to call the office to say they are late.

Safely in the office around 10am, I settled down to work: but almost immediately we could see TV news reports which initially said that there had been a power surge which had caused some explosions - but could this really be credible as explosions were by now being reported at several widely dispersed stations, as well as on busses. Concern increased as a corporate comms email arrived asking us to count heads and report any missing staff to our line managers.

The picture seems to be emerging of a coordinated attack. Given the timing following yesterday's Olympics announcement, and I suppose the G8 conference up in Scotland, someone is clearly trying to make a point. Misguided Cowardly Bastards.

I hope that there have not been too many injuries or deaths. My heart goes out to anyone affected, and their families.

Andy

Happy Birthday John!

2005-07-06T09:31:00.000+01:00

We presented John with his cake as he woke up this morning!

My brother's Blog

2005-07-04T11:48:00.000+01:00

John has started a blog for his photos and stories too - suddenly everyone's doing it!

Andy

An evening in the pub with my brother

2005-07-03T21:15:00.000+01:00

We went to the Cock & Rabbit in Lee Common. We ate pasta and spat beer...

Yummy Pasta!Good beer?

Big Picture

2005-06-30T10:55:00.000+01:00

This whole "Blog with Pictures" thing is new to me - I am not sure whether it is possible to upload very large pictures to this site, or whether it's better to save big pictures in a separate Gallery such as Flickr for example...

So, here is an experiment with a couple of reasonably big (1280x960) pics from our holiday in California last summer (2004) to see whether their full size is saved on the Blog site:

This is Lucy at Caspar Beach RV park, near Mendocino:

And the next one is Sophie in a lovely River, somewhere between Mendocino and Lake Shasta:

Bloglines

2005-06-29T17:31:00.000+01:00

I have been looking for a way to track my favourite Blogs, such as http://www.polestaraviation.com and http://bealers.com for example. I didn't know how to do this, then came across Bloglines which seems to do this for me.

I wonder if there are better ways to get alerts when stuff changes on friends Blogs?

Warrior Panel

2005-06-29T15:10:00.000+01:00

Warrior Panel
Originally uploaded by Andy Hardy.

Well by now you probably know how much I like flying! One of my favourite views is this - the control panel of a Piper Warrior. During my recent instrument training, I've seen an awful lot of it!

When I took this, I was flying between Wycombe and Chesham, just below 2,500 feet (above this is the London TMA controlled airspace for Heathrow), heading north east and doing about 108 knots (just over 120MPH) airspeed.

What fun!

Andy

Glastonbury Festival - from 4,000 feet!

2005-06-26T23:00:00.000+01:00

On Sunday, my excellent brother John (visting from Australia via Thailand and Laos) and I went flying on the weekend, in a rented aircraft from British Airways Flying Club at Wycombe. I have written up a detailed description of the flight on a well-known Pilot's bulletin board PPRuNe.

We set off for a lovely little airfield in Devon called Dunkeswell. On the way there, one of the highlights of the trip was circling over the Glastonbury Festival in Wiltshire - it's the world's largest greenfield music festival, over 90 acres and more than 100,000 people attended - looked excellent from the air. After Dunkeswell, we headed home via another airfield, in Dorset, called Compton Abbas, which is situated on a lovel hilltop site.

These pics shows Glastonbury from the air - we circled at about 4,000 feet because there was a restriction of flying below 3,100 feet over the site:

Here is John and me on the ground at Dunkeswell... our excellent aircraft for the day, G-ODAK, is in the background:

This is me, happily landed at the lovely hilltop Compton Abbas grass airstrip in Dorset.

On the way home, we saw a bloke (presumably!) in a little red bi-plane, having fun with an aerobatic display about 1,000' below us!

It was a great day out - perfect flying conditions - a day to be remembered for a long time!

You can see more pics here: http://community.webshots.com/user/andyhardyuk/

Andy

p.s. for those interested, here is the GPS track showing our path around southern England.

My Family!

2005-05-15T09:34:00.000+01:00

My Family!
Originally uploaded by Andy Hardy.

This is me, my wife Janet and our girls Sophie and Lucy, taken in Greenwhich Park in London on a lovely day in May 2005.Andy