Wasnt too bad, few trees down and Costa in Witney lost its sign off the gable end.
Glad you boys are ok as well. Been a rough few weeks in blighty!
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Floods in our local village. Shop floors submerged like Russian warships. Wind has not done much damage locally. Cold and very wet.
How about life in the distant midlands? (Keeping my viewpoint of your location from Aberdeenshire point of view, despite now living in Lincolnshire.
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Glad you’re all okay. I just want the rain to stop at this point. Last week was nice, cold weather with a little snow mixed in but this afternoon it’s back to windy, rainy weather, it’s just miserable 
My last rear brake calipers didn’t last 1500km. Last year I rode 6000km on the same set of calipers before I had to replace them…
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I know what you mean, but i still find that incredibly impressive for such tiny pieces of equipment
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I live in a very flat area of Germany. I can ride 200km with less than 100m of elevation, so I usually don’t see a lot of wear and tear on my brakes but the last months were tough on the bike. A combination of too much rain and a lack of cleaning by the towns, municipalities and counties makes for a lot of wear and tear. My front calipers are still good, although much more worn out than normally after 1600km.
For the first time ever I have messaged one town’s road maintenance department last December because the mix of leaves and sand from a construction site made for dangerous riding conditions and nothing was done for months. It still took two weeks and four messages to get them off their arse…
Usually leaves on bike paths get cleaned up once a month around here but this year it didn’t happen at all in a lot of places… Combined with the horrible weather it’s deadly for the brakes and drivetrain…
I’ll take a picture before I clean my bike on Friday it’s already incredibly dirty after only 120km, most of it is from riding home today
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I’m still impressed your riding outside. 
I’ve done around a 1000km so far this year, all indoors.
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I got rid of the car years ago, it helps not having another option (public transport takes longer than riding the bike so not an option either) 
On the plus side, not having to pay for car insurance and fuel does save a lot of money. I can afford and do a lot of expensive fun stuff that I wouldn’t be able to if I had a car.
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Feels a bit strange at the moment. For the first time in over 35 years I do not have a Post Office box. Only had two in that 35 years. The first one for twenty years and the one I just returned since July of 2008.
I just could not justify spending $450.00 a year for the small amount of mail I receive these days.
Wheels
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That time of year again…the 6 month pilgrimage to Dallas for recurrent training on the PC-24. Going through limitations and memory items while half tuned to the Tour Down Under…(no spoilers please!)… If anyone else is out here at CAE or FSI…give me a shout. My sim session tonight sucks though…7PM to midnight… Though I have had worse once before…Midnight to 5AM at CAE… 
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I’m going to miss you by just a few weeks. I’m headed to CAE starting on the 8th of Feb. One of these days it’s going to work out. 
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Are you staying in a hotel that features diplomatic immunity? If so I hope your HVAC works better than the last two times for me.
Enjoy your stay in DFW!
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Yes…that one. Every door that closes in the building must be constructed like a vault door…because my room shakes about every few minutes…
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I’m sorry. I finally told our pilots not to pick that one after the last time. Great breakfast though.
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The best part is the shower head is so low that my nipples are clean.
So there’s that.
Breakfast is good.
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Interesting day in the simulator on Day 1. I was paired with a Part 91 guy since I didn’t bring a company pilot with me to train this year. Typically the Part 91 guys are very good…very often with single-pilot type ratings in the PC-24. My company (Part 135) requires two pilots, so we always have to train with a Captain/FO for training and checkrides.
The guy I was with flew first…so I’m just in the right seat twiddling my thumbs. He’s single-pilot rated…and is undergoing a 61.58 progressive checkride. Basically it means that he is accomplishing a rolling checkride where if he demonstrates proficiency on tasks…that gets marked off and he never has to repeat it. He doesn’t get a “checkride” per se…just continuous training and checking.
I’m not going to go into details…but he racked up four or five “unsats” (unsatisfactory) within about 30 minutes. For things that were…pretty amazing to witness. The instructor stopped the checkride…failed him…notified him that he was now unqualified as a PC-24 pilot until he went through a normal PC-24 recurrent with a required standalone checkride instead of a progressive one. The instructor dismissed the client and the instructor and I agreed that it was not in my best interest to have the other client in the sim for my training, so the entire block of sim for me was cancelled. We made it up yesterday with a 3 hour session instead of a 2 hour session…with a FlightSafety instructor in my right seat.
I’ve been coming to Dallas for maybe 27 years or more…never seen that in all that time. I’ve seen “unsats” before…but nothing like this. I was shocked silent. The instructor handled it as professionally as I could imagine. And was very candid in his assessment in the debrief.
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It is good to hear that the instructor handled it that way (as they should have). I have only experienced something like this a couple of times. One where the pilot in question had been flying the Challenger for many years, but he just fumbled at every step in the sim. The other was a very experienced A320 captain who had never flown the Challenger and was going through the type rating training.
The first guy was shocked that his performance was even being questioned…and the instructor point blank recommended that he needed to take the full type rating course again. That was not received well. I just wanted to shrink away into the corner because it was very awkward.
I felt very sorry for the ex - A320 captain. He was in training to become an instructor at the schoolhouse because he had lost his flight medical (every pilot’s nightmare). After so many years of flying the Airbus, he was having a very hard time with the antiquated Challenger… I have never experienced so many red screens after a V1 cut.
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