Mike Parsons and Tom Martin Fly To Palma, Majorca
Fundraising for St Catherine’s Hospice (Crawley)
Fundraising for St Catherine’s Hospice (Crawley)
Tom and I fly together occasionally around the South East of the UK in an aircraft similar to the pictured Piper PA28. We both have a passion for flying and are both at similar stages in our training where we are progressing from Private Pilot status to becoming a Commercial Pilot.
To gain some essential experience on route we have decided to dedicate a flight to two amazing ladies; Tom's Mum and a close friend of my family Julie Fay - who both passed away in St Catherines Hospice earlier this year. St Catherine's did an amazing job looking after them both. To thank them and help future people attending the hospice we have decided to raise money and awareness.
To make this trip special and worthy of your generous donations we have decided to fly somewhere further than the usual Private Pilot destinations. Below are some examples of these...
- We sometimes fly Shoreham to the Isle of Wight for a coffee = 30 Minutes
- We Last flew Shoreham to Lydd for Lunch = 45 Minutes
- This is a nice short trip; Shoreham to Fairoaks = 40 Minutes
- This is where we have decided to fly : Shoreham to Palma, Majorca = 541 Minutes OR 9 HOURS EACH WAY!
We'll be taking the shortest route as possible, but I've heard of issues transiting overhead Barcelona, so we may either detour over to Valencia to see some Spanish terrain, or over the sea and arrive Palma from the North.
We will be well equipped with Life Raft (hopefully), Personal Locator Beacon(s), along with a portable radio transceiver and a GPS tracker so you can track us online, that's the plan anyway.
We have booked in the first week in August to do this, so fingers crossed for the weather. Remember as we're both "fair weather pilots" - we either don't have our Instrument Rating which means we have to fly under the clouds and out of the rain! We are also used to trips around the local area so to hear an array of different accents, flying to airfields we have not been to before, dealing with the usual Southern UK and Northern French weather, the high pressure summer storms over the Mediterranean and anything else we come across - icing over mountain ranges? We also hope that the aircraft performs well and that we don't have any mechanical issues while we are in the air, or on the ground...remember we only have one engine!
See our blog at: http://mikeandtomflytomajorca.blogspot.com/
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