Sue's Diary—Keeping it in the Family

Last Tuesday was scheduled for Kate Thomson to take her PPL skill test. The day dawned with perfect weather, the wind less than three knots, no turbulence and  visibility of more than 50 kilometres.

What luck, we had  dream weather in November!.

As the DI on the Robin DR 400/140 was not working, we needed to shuffle the reservations around and  Kate eventually set off, at lunchtime, with Georges Thety who is our resident CAA examiner.

I was very confident that Kate would 'sail through' as she has been an excellent pupil throughout her training.

Returning with a worried look on her face, she explained that she had seen her husband and two sons in the DA40 at the holding point and realised that they were watching, with the result that she lost concentration and performed her poorest landing of the day.

Luckily, this did not alter the final result which was a pass!

Kate, her husband Elroy and their two children are from New Zealand, currently living in France for two years in order to experience a different culture and lifestyle.

Now that the PPL training is finished, they hope to enjoy the spectacular views and excellent cuisine which are available to those exploring France by light aircraft.

They intend to concentrate on flying to places like the Isle d’Yeu, Quiberon and Carcassonne which all have fine restaurants.

The two boys, 10 year-old Ariki and 8 year-old Tamati, are also passionate about aircraft and both want to fly when they are old enough—my youngest student started flying at the age of 14 though you need to be 16 to go solo and 17 to be awarded a PPL.

Tamati also has his heart set on being an Aircraft Controller.

Following this success, we had a party at the celebrated hotel and restauran,t La Chapelle Saint Martin (much favoured by President Chirac and Hilary Clinton).

The evening was a huge success with wonderful cuisine and superb company. It was a truly international mixture of people with students/pilots from France, England, Italy and, of course, New Zealand.

After the celebrations, it was back to the real world as life has been very hard at home since the birth of our unexpected foal, 'Miracle'.

His 23 year old mother has not been well enough to produce sufficient milk which has necessitated 3-hourly bottle feeding, day and night.

This is a major task and my heartfelt thanks goes to Lucia who has taken over this role of surrogate Mum and still manages to do her normal daily tasks without complaint.

Earlier this week, I arrived home to find the mother very ill and felt that she would not survive though, with excellent veterinary care, she has rallied and 'Miracle' still as a mum to keep him company.

 

Comments

[Lorraine]

Congratulations Kate,that is fantastic news,all the hard work has paid off,

Kind regards,

Lorraine

[Mavis Lancashire]

Congratulations Kate, well done.

You did have a good instructor.

Best wishes Mavis

[M.Galvin]

Congratulations Kate

Two pilots in the family and maybe two more to come!!!

Best Wishes

Matthew

[Steve & Magie]

Well done Kate. What a stunning acheivement despite the instruction! Seriously I thought you would be fine after our excursion down south. Next time you have a picnic give me a shout.
Congratulations to everyone.