About 120 hours. Down from 223 last year.
Main things:
Competing for the first time in advanced class aerobatics (and not finishing last, which was the target).
ATPL theory course. Preparing for exams next year.
Next year: pass ATPL, fly some acro again, a trip to Africa would be nice.
This year:
- About 100 flight hours
- 2 Longer trips:
- 1 new type in my logbook Piper Super Cub.
I only did a very limited amount of aerobatic flights on the Extra this year, next year, I hope to do a lot more and do some competitions.
I hope to do again 2 longer trips, still looking for nice destinations :)
In my first full year of ownership I managed about 20 hours, 15 of which were IR training. My plane is in mx since February.
Plan for next year is to get back in my own machine, finish the IR (30 hours to go) by early summer, and use it a bit for the rest of the summer. Fingers crossed I’ll get about 70 hours in!
The total amount will be nearly the same as last year: around 200 hours. Itszopped suddenly 4 weeks ago when a serious problem with the magnetos and the GTN on the same time occured. But with a long trip down to Malta a long trip to the north, a trip to portugal and several short trips inbetween it was a perfect season for our Bonanza.
Next year we will install the Lynx 9000+ with active traffic in january and I‘m making up my mind to go to Greece or/and some of the eastern countries like Romania or Ukraine. But we will see, there are many places to visit and many reasons to keep the hours on the same level as this year.
Only 70 unfortunately. This year was supposed to be my best year with my firsr cross atlantic trip to Oshkosh All planned for with permits and Visas sorted etc…
unfortunately this all got cancelled due to a failed sales process at the company which pretty much lasted All year…
These reports for 2018 are impressive – not counting work related, I only flew around 60 hours in the Super Cub, with a mini long trip, by EuroGA standards, to the Lake District. Also approaching ten hours in the Pitts, only 990 hours to go on type before feeling proficient:)
2019 I do hope I can attend a fly in, but work or weather have conspired against in 2018. Flying at Sports level with precision would be reasonable progress.
Here is what I wrote on last year’s thread:
Flew 25hrs 36min in 2017. Got the PPL as desired. Last flight was before moving to Hannover in August though, so I am getting rusty.Aspirations for 2018 find a new homebase. Get checked out in a four seater. Remain current despite massive time constraints. Do that Bornholm trip we talked about. Take all those people flying who asked me about it since I finished the PPL.
And, carried over from last year: visit my friend in EDKB by plane.
If I manage all that and fly say 30hrs I’d be quite happy. Bonus goal would be the Night Rating.
In 2018 so far I flew 8 hrs 2 min, down from 25 hrs 36 min as stated above. As for my other goals:
Generally a highly disappointing flying year, although probably much more typical for the average PPL pilot than what many others posted here. I haven’t given up hope yet to get another one or two flights in this year, but expect no more than 10 hours total. All my trips have been local (no more than 50 nm away) due to needing to be back home by afternoon when the kids get back from kindergarten.
After this disappointing year I am cautios to formulate elaborate goals for next year. If I make it past July 2019 with my SEP rating intact (it expires in July) then I have achieved the main goal, anything above that is a bonus. I’d love to join the Venice fly in but with the very low currency I have this seems unlikely at this point.
This year 124 hours with 6 weeks of down-time due to engines replacement. Next year I guess similar or maybe a bit more. Nothing spectacular in flying career is expected.
Only about 20hrs, I am embarrassed to say.
2018 has been a fairly good year so far.
2013: 145 hrs
2014: 187
2015: 179
2016: 160
2017: 120
2018: 138
The summer was frustrating. The south east UK had about 10 weeks of solid blue skies, almost every day. Never seen anything like it… But a huge swathe of central Europe was covered in thunderstorms during this time, almost every day after mid-day, resulting in several 10-hr trips getting cancelled.
The best trip was the big one to Elba and then to Greece. That one is going to be very hard to improve on in terms of reaching a really amazing destination, and the challenges of getting there.
At the short end of the scale, Justine and I had a super 3 day holiday on the Scilly Isles in July. That is one of many examples of where GA travel really scores – 2hrs versus a day or two.
Best flying photo is probably this one of Kastelorizo
Best video, or best bit of one, was the amazing sunrise departure, 0400 UTC, from Kastelorizo, which is near the start here
For 2019, I am hoping to do a fly+ski trip, probably to Bolzano (Madonna). These trips are difficult to do especially if you aren’t a great skier and have to be picky about the locations. And I hope to meet up a lot of you at Aero Friedrichshafen in April, and then in Venice-Lido in May.
As regards the aircraft, the big achievement of 2018 was the TKS installation. That was a downtime of 6 weeks. Also I now have a B&C standby alternator. No avionics upgrades currently planned; I am enjoying the 100% uptime 
The biggest challenge for the future remains same as before: how to keep flying interesting. I am not going to get into aerobatics, gliding, competitions, STOL flying, altiports… I need my currency on type and I enjoy what I am doing, which is flying to scenic places and meeting up with nice people. And flying with nice passengers, although that one is hard as ever to organise.
