Master of Understatement, our illustrious Chairman continues to outdo himself in his March 2022 Newsletter (check your Spam folder - mine always get mis-filed) where he tells us of his entry into last year's Dawn to Dusk Challenge. What he doesn't tell us is that he actually WON IT!! And if you think 11.5 hours in the saddle and 783.7nm is "not too arduous" your Duracells are obviously sourced from a different place to mine. from memory, it was breezy that day, too! Congratulations, Mr. Barnett, on a very well-deserved award.

I was flying in an MTO yesterday which has no sidetone when you press the PTT button, so the pilot cannot hear through the headset what he's actually saying to ATC. And if he turns his helmet volume to max, he gets feedback through the headset. FlyCom helmet, ATR833 radio, MTO If you have the same equipment and it works well, could you possibly share your settings/configuration?

Steve, the App won't let me send you a message at the moment... G-CIRH arrived at Old Warden with Andy Thompson, P1; Graham Parry, self loading ballast. G-CKWR arrived with Mark Dinning (Knobby No-mates) onboard.

If you've read my Going Around post you'll be familiar with our gyro pilot, distracted by a couple of aeroplanes ahead of him, making a poor decision - to land on an occupied runway. He's still DISTRACTED! He vacated onto the grass and stopped while the last aeroplane, now clear of the runway and taxiing back to the parking area, passed in front of him. Toujours la politesse, don'cha know! Having landed the gyro, I teach my customers to bring the stick all the way back and to use the rotor's residual lift/drag to stop the aircraft. When the aircraft stops, ease the stick forward, squeeze the wheel brake and breathe. This routine takes no more than a couple of seconds, relaxes the pilot and ensures they have headspace to think about wind direction and stick position as they turn to vacate. I'm sure your instructor will have instilled a similar process in you. Alas, with the multiple distractions of orbiting, backtracking, late-vacating aeroplanes, the gyro pilot had vacated the runway and was now stationary with the stick fully back and his slowing rotors losing their rigidity and getting perilously close to hitting his empennage. Before I had a chance to ask the radio controller to say something, in the interest of safety, our pilot realised his stick should no longer be nuzzling his nadgers, eased it forward and averted an expensive tail-strike. We're still flying the aircraft until rotor, propellor and airframe are stationary so, no matter what's going on around us, it's our responsibility to continue to aviate until all the nose stops. I know of numerous other incidents which didn't end so happily.

I've anonimised this as much as possible - no names, no location - but here's a horror story of poor airmanship by two aeroplanes and one of our own. While I was waiting for a customer's arrival I sat in the tower observing arriving traffic and listening to their radio calls.  My customer (in a gyro) called for joining instructions and, shortly after, announced he was joining left base, visual with two fixed wing aircraft ahead. To my horror, the first aeroplane initiated an orbit on final approach. His propellor was still turning and he hadn't announced a fuel emergency so I don't know why he didn't go around to avoid the occupied runway. As I looked between runway and orbiting aeroplane, I noticed the second aeroplane had also started to orbit, at the point he would have been turning final. Luckily there was sufficient horizontal and vertical separation between these aircraft otherwise debris might have been strewn over a wide area. The first "orbiter" landed and promptly vacated. The second "orbiter" landed and, ignoring the radio controller's request to vacate, did a 180 on the runway and started backtracking from 500m along the runway. The gyro was now on short final, facing a backtracking aeroplane. The radio controller again requested the backtracking aeroplane vacate onto the grass and he turned 90-degrees to comply. The gyro landed before the aeroplane had vacated - plenty of horizontal separation but the runway was still occupied. The two aeroplanes, above, were both radio-equipped and knew of other traffic behind them but endangered themselves and those on the ground by orbiting rather than going around. The gyro was also radio-equipped but was confident he'd land well short of the vacating aeroplane and wouldn't be endangering himself or the other aircraft on the occupied runway. Orbits are an excellent method of distancing yourself from other traffic, performing a 360-lookout, re-orientating yourself or generally having a nose-around. But they must not be used in the circuit. We use ears, eyes and brain to form a mental picture of circuit traffic ahead of- and behind us. Based on this situational awareness, we plan ahead to ensure separation. If any distancing is required it's achieved by extending downwind or going around. And, of course, every approach is a go-around, unless all the stars align allowing us to land.