Sylvia, the blogger behind the Fear of Landing blog, has written a wonderful goodbye letter to her November 666 Echo X-ray – which she sold to a Dutch pilot who was looking for a cruiser and loves Pipers. Why did she sell her beloved aircraft? Simply put, for the same reason many other pilots end up selling their aircraft or give up flying:
This past year has not been good for flying, for either of us. If I’m honest, the past two years have been pretty grim. Keeping up-to-date and flying takes a lot of time and both Cliff and I have been so busy, it’s difficult to make time for you. And then when I’ve wanted to fly, you’ve invariably been in the wrong place: sunning yourself at Málaga airport when we had a weekend free in Scotland, passing the time at North Weald when we were sitting in Málaga and so on and so forth. I’m not trying to put the blame on you, but from a logistical point of view, it’s been a bit of a nightmare.
Sylvia then added that she actually has not flown at all during 2010 and that her aircraft “started to act starved for attention, insisting on regular maintenance even though we weren’t flying – or even wanting extra maintenance because we weren’t flying.” She ended her post by saying that she will explore different options that would allow her to spend more time flying and less time worrying about paperwork and maintenance.
We wish Sylvia the best of luck and we hope that (one way or the other) she gets back into the pilot seat soon.
