After all the hideous weather we have been having in June recently, it seemed as though the sun made a special appearance for my flying lesson.
Arriving 5 mins early I had to wait another 10 mins to wait for my instructor to fly in. Upon his arrival, we had a quick brief and then headed out to AF to start up and make initial contact.
With clearances obtained I taxied up to holding point A1 for take-off on runway 24 - or so I hoped. Just as I get all excited about takeoff, 2 easyjets and some other Irish airline decides they want to land at once - 20 mins wasted on the tarmac waiting for airliners.
Finally after take-off clearance I get to squeeze 2 circuits in with my instructor with 2 reasonable landings. Then instructor hops out back at the clubhouse and then I continue solo.
Having got my clearance, I take off into first circuit and get quick clearance to land for a stop-and-go (that means landing, exit runway and loop back round to the holding point ready for takeoff again). However, this is where the real frustration starts...
Having landed beautifully (if I do say so myself) the controller asks me to come of the runway quickly, at a rarely used taxiway, to make way for one of the easyjets looking to depart - fine - if they are quick - and to be fair they were quite quick about it.
After 10 mins passing, another easyjet decides that it wants to take off. Instead of ensuring it has its clearances before lining up to take-off, it ends up sitting at the end of the runway waiting for these clearances which it wasn't likely to get for the next 25 mins - who knows why?? So that means nothing else can take off out of southend including me. Which means I'm left sitting at my holding point waiting to take off, sweating my tits off because the engine is starting to get hot just sitting on the tarmac.
Eventually the controller contacts me and asks 'What do you want to do?' To which I replied 'I'll just call it a day and head back to the clubhouse' - which I did to find my instructor looking just as pissed off as me at the situation. To add matters worse I end up paying a fortune for a lesson that I spent most of on the tarmac. Check the vid!
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