Aero Expo 2009

I have to say that I was a little disappointed this year with Aero Expo, held at Booker Aerodrome, High Wycombe.  As my preference is towards helicopters, and there weren’t many there, I guess my assessment is probably biased, so might therefore not be an inaccurate reflection of the whole thing.

In terms of heli’s there was an EC120 on the Emery Little insurance stand, an AS355 on the Cabair stand  and a couple of R22’s. Pretty rubbish really. The usual fixed wing suspects were there and I fell in love with a Cirrus SR20 with a fabulous Garmin G1000 glass cockpit. This machine is what all PPL (A) pilots should be flying. I promptly ordered one. (OK, not really).

I really am not a fan of old machines and can’t get excited about anything that looks like it should have been scrapped many years ago. I don’t mind old(ish) machines (I’ve got that in, before any of you comment that my machine is pushing 22!) but I do object if they haven’t had any money spent on bringing them up to a reasonable standard. One thing you can’t say about my machines is that it’s not well looked after and looking good for it’s age! (Just like me 🙂 )

Anyway, there was no shortage of exhibitors including the new distributors of the FlyMap GPS system, Garmin had their usual position and were making a big show of their 695 and there G600 retro fit glass cockpit

Also on display was their G3X Electronic Flight Display system for light sport and experimental aircraft.  All really tasty stuff.

Flightstore and AFE had stalls as well as Haywards Aviation and Lombard Aviation Finance.

Our penultimate stop was to check out some interesting Gyro Copters on display from www.chrisjonesgyroplanes.co.uk I’ve never been quite sure of these aircraft and I know plenty of people that wouldn’t give them the time of day. We spent half an hour on the stand and I have to say I’m quite impressed with the build quality of them. One of the machines costs £20 per hour to run including fuel and maintenance. £20 quid!!!! It has one timed component which is the main rotor head bearing and needs replacing every 1000 hours. This is quite a costly item and you will need to budget £35 to replace it.

Ha! I could replace it after every flight still not notice it compared to the JetBox. I really fancy a flight in one and might just venture across for a whizz round in one.

I think we might finally have found an aircraft that Dave H is capable of flying!!!

After two hours we called it a day and headed off into the distance!