As we were strolling around the stands before the flying display, I spotted an ultralight  aeroplane next to the Light Aircraft Association’s caravan and thought I’d take a closer look. But I’ll come back to this in a minute.

Now, what I hadn’t mentioned in my previous post was that the events surrounding my inner ear problem had left me with an unexpected additional problem. Because the inner ear problem had manifested itself as a rapidly declining hearing ability in one ear, there was an initial suspicion of a tumour withing the ear’s nerve pathway. So I was subjected to a number of medical tests (some not very pleasant) which happily discounted the initial tumour diagnosis, but which resulted in an operation to repair a suspected perilymph leak. The operation went well, but had no effect on my hearing ability in the affected ear. However, I ended up with severe claustrophobia.

My own pet theory is that the massive magnetic fields that my head was subjected to during the MRI scans, combined with the enclosed space and an adverse reaction to the injected contrast medium, somehow rewired my brain. Whatever the cause, I became prone to panic attacks whenever I found myself in a confined space or if I had no immediate control of my location. As you can probably imaging, lifts (elevators) were a considerable problem and travelling on London’s underground transport system (the Tube) would make me feel close to vomiting. In fact, even travelling in the back of a 2 door car was very unpleasant. And sitting in a dentist’s chair having a tooth filled became an impossibility. Even flying in a light aircraft or as a passenger on a scheduled flight became something for me to dread rather than enjoy. So I stopped my club flying and let my PPL lapse.

But life continues and I had to do something about the claustrophobia and panic attacks. Now as I sit here and write this, I’m struck by how interconnected many things are in out lives. This is why this blog appears to contain more than one focussed theme. You see conventional medicine, for all of its wonders, had not cured my ear problem and in fact it had given me another. While I was struggling with this after-effect, one of my partner’s friends was undergoing treatment for arthritis. The person treating her was a practitioner of traditional chinese medicine and she suggested that it might be worth me talking to him about my problem.

Traditional chinese medicine doesn’t seem to have the same immediate impact as western medicine, but gradually the tai chi forms and breathing techniques I was taught helped me to restore equilibrium. A simple acupressure technique enabled me to sit in the dentist’s chair again and to undergo that much needed tooth filling. In fact, I was also able to handle a later 2-hour root canal filling – something that I regard as a considerable personal triumph.

But although I’d managed to conquer the claustrophobia and control problems, I still was aprehensive about resuming my flying activities. Eventually, I screwed up the courage and booked a dual session with my old flying club just to see how things would work out. And something quite unexpected happened.

We’d strapped in to my favourite aircraft in the club (the Cessna 152 Aerobat), started up and taxied out. The tension and anxiety continued to creep up as we did our checks and lined up. As we took off and climbed away from the runway I decided that I really couldn’t stand being trapped in the aeroplane for much longer. I told the instructor, who I’d made aware of my problem, that I just wanted to get around the circuit, land and get out as quickly as possible. He expressed sympathy and told me just to retain control of the aircraft and turn onto the cross-wind leg of the circuit while he made the necessary radio call. And that’s when the unexpected happened.

Even though I’d run consciencously through all of my pre-takeoff checks and made certain that all “harnesses and hatches were tight and secure” suddenly the door window on my side banged open. If you’ve flow a Cessna 150/152 you’ll be aware that the window is secured by a turn-catch at the bottom and hinged at the top. I’d made absolutely certain that the catch was secured properly under the gaze of my instructor. But the window still opened. And open it certainly did. Because of the airflow and the higher pressure underneath the wing, it opened with quite a loud and sudden bang. Air swirled around the cabin and I just managed to prevent my map from being sucked out of the now wide open window.

And that’s when something switched in my brain. Suddenly, all of the apprehension and anxiety was gone. I quite calmly handed over control to the instructor and closed the window, making trebly sure that it was secured. When I’d completed that task and resumed control, I realised that I no longer had those negative feelings. My instructor praised me for handling the incident calmly and effectively and I began to feel really good about myself and about flying. In fact we spent well over the hour just re-acquainting me with the local area and the feel of flying a light aircraft again. All-in-all an excellent result from what had been just an attemt to see whether I wanted to resume flying again.

If you’ve managed to read this far, thanks for listening and I will get to the bit about the Light Aircraft Association very soon.

Well, I’d like to say that the Cessna window incident was the start of my re-birth as a PPL holder, but unfortunately the demands of a freelance IT Business Analyst’s life got in the way. After a week’s worth of commuting and working I didn’t feel able to do justice to the flying experience. In any case, I was sure that because I was now deaf in one ear I would never be able to pass the PPL medical again. Finally, the local airport was closed and turned into a dense housing estate – something that sadly happens a lot here in England.

So any dreams I might have had of getting airborne again went very much on the back burner. Until, that sighting of the LAA caravan and ultra-light aeroplane at Farnborough. I just occurred to me that the medical requirements for flying an ultra-light might be a lot less than for the category of aircraft (Landplanes Group A) that I had been flying. So I got chatting about this with the LAA representative and he told me about the National Private Pilot’s Licence (NPPL). Strangely, I hadn’t known of this before, but it seemed that I only have to prove to my doctor (GP) that I am fit enough to drive a vehicle to professional driving standards and I will be granted a medical certificate entitling me (with a valid PPL) to fly solo and in-command within the UK.

That was last year and life was still getting in the way a bit, so I didn’t take things any further. Then two weeks ago a friend took me up again and I actually took control and flew some aerobatics again – and all of the elation came flooding back. My desire to return to the skies more regularly is getting stronger daily and as soon as I’ve gathered enough funds I’m going to set all of the necessary wheels in motion. All I can say now is “I’ll keep you posted”.

I attained my private pilots’ licence (PPL) way back in 1977. I’d actually started back in 1971, but money was tight and I had to spread things out.  So I actually didn’t manage to solo until March 1977.  Because my lessons were so spread out it took me over 15 hours to get to that stage when the average for a 6 week course was in the region of 10 hours.

This really taught me the value of doing things in a much shorter timeframe. So I scraped together all of the cash I could lay my hands on and managed to get that coveted little bit of card carrying the words “Private Pilot’s Licence-Aeroplanes” in September ’77. It cost me a lot less time and money to go from solo to qualified than it did to get to first solo.

I was then free to fly whenever I wanted and where I wanted (weather permitting) and the fun continued for 14 years until an inner ear problem put a stop to it. I thought that would be the full-stop to my aviating, but I’m happy to say that it looks like I can stand a good chance of “slipping the surly bonds of earth” once more. To be continued…