blasting away the cobwebs

Well, I went flying again yesterday, in my own aeroplane. Yes, after nearly 3 months of work and waiting she is back in the air and boy does it feel good.

My flying was terrible and the test yielded a couple of very minor issues, but I don't think I've felt such a huge relief and sheer joy in a very, very long time. There's definitely something comforting to the soul about seeing the vast expanse of blue sky rolled out below you!

Now I can look forward to really getting back in the saddle and preparing to start competing again (the first competition of the season is at the end of March and I need some serious practice). I've managed to build up a pretty reasonable base level of fitness and strength again over the past few months, and I will continue working hard on improving it further, but at least I'm in a very good position to gain as much as I possibly can from my flying and training.

Essentially I think that physical fitness, whilst on the face of it, not obviously all that essential for a competition flyer, makes a huge difference to performance. There are some huge forces involved when flying competition aeros - my body experiences forces that can vary very rapidly between +6g and -4g and this is hugely tiring. That coupled with the extreme levels of concentration and focus required for the entire flight duration really does make for a sport that takes a huge amount out of you. Last year I was climbing out of the aeroplane after a 10minute sortie feeling like I'd just run a marathon - no exaggeration. There may not be all that many calories burned, but the mental exertion is greater than anything else I've ever experienced.

Thus, the fitter I am, the better I can cope with the demands I place on myself during a flight, and the more quickly I recover afterwards - which in turn means I can manage to undertake more meaningful training in a day (of course at the moment the real show-stopper here is actually finance, but fingers crossed that's going to change soon). My gym obsession may well come into its own!

From this point on you'll most likely find me somewhere between praying for good weather, beasting myself in the gym, at the climbing wall or out on the trails, or back up in the sky with the biggest grin on my face :-)

outlet

It's been over a year since I visited this old blog of mine, let alone updated it. Basically my life has changed, dramatically.

I'm no longer living in the mountains, now my life is primarily confined to the flat-lands of Cambridgeshire. A big part of me misses Wales, the hills, my friends, my old climbing/biking/running/outdoors lifestyle, but there's an even bigger part of me that knows my current course in life is where I need to be. At least for now.

So what's happened? I wrote before about my getting into aerobatic flying, and, well, that's essentially what happened and where my life is now. I own my own aeroplane, I'm the current British Female Aerobatic champion and I'm also a newly qualified airshow and display pilot. I know, wow huh?

Flying it is then!

That said, I still have the mountain bike, I hit the climbing wall in Milton Keynes as often as I can and I head to the gym several times a week too (I may have spent several months doing nothing, got a bit fat and panicked - hence I'm back to being a fitness obsessive again and actually I do rather like it). Once I've gotten a work regime sorted out and some money again I'll be heading out to the hills for some therapy whenever I can too - I know my roots.

I guess I should mention where it is that I've been in online terms, because whilst I've not been posting here, I have been posting flying stuff on my aerobatic blog - The Aerobatic Project and I've built another website for myself in order to promote and try to sell my display flying - BiplaneDisplays.com. Please head over to either and/or both and take a look - let me know what you think!

So why am I back here, and why now? Basically I wanted to come back here to revisit something of my old way of life, and to rekindle my old style of writing. I basically want an outlet again, somewhere I can write about the every day, mundane and 'normal life' type things I think about. The Aerobatic Project is really all about being a new face in the competition flying world and what that's like, so there's no place there for me waffling on about the odd thoughts that strike me in the gym. Hence, I'm back!

Apologies right now if some of the things I write about are boring, or just downright weird. Hopefully I'll come out with a few things that may actually be of interest too.

To all of you that are still here, wow. Thank you for bearing with me!

a life of adventure

I’ve been extremely busy of late, working hard over on the Aerobatic Project website and Facebook page – it’s all going fantastically well, and I’d love to just link you guys all into two of the most exciting developments.

Firstly, I’m in the local newspaper talking about avalanches, mountain rescue and a little bit of flying:

And secondly, a rather wonderful blogger, Karlene Petitt, has just published a blog article on me and my project. It’s honestly one of the most amazing things I’ve read about what I’m trying to do – far better than anything I’ve written myself. Please head over and have a read, here.

neglect…

I apologise, I’ve been shockingly neglectful over here of late, but for good reason, I promise!

Bumblie is now returning to it’s routes as an outdoor/gear/adventure blog, with the occasional bit of aviation and aerobatic related nattering, but the vast majority of the flying writing will now be happening over on The Aerobatic Project site. I have a gear review coming up on here, and a few mountain biking and winter posts in the pipeline, so don’t you worry, things will soon start getting interesting again, I promise.

Meanwhile, please do head on over and have a look at the new site, a whole lot of work has gone into it and will continue going into it from now on.

In fact, I’ll post the latest piece of video goodness up here too – this is the kind of thing the Project is going to be featuring much more of in the future, not that I’m at all excited!