Little over 100 years ago two amateur pilots built a little wooden motorised aircraft on the sands of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in what was to become the first power flight. From that day aviators have long dreamed of far-off places to visit in search of adventure intrigue and fun. Well here in 2022 it’s still no different, recently out from the shadow of a global pandemic we aviators are itching to stretch our wings, throttle up our engines and take flight into the wild blue yonder.

Usually found on the flight deck of an airliner hurtling along at 500 knots and up in the bitterly cold upper atmosphere I would be flying passengers or freight to their destinations, with usually a 12hour stop over before heading back to England’s shores, well I’m about to change that, well at least for a little while at least. Putting this out there and whilst work is continuing on our new hanger and with personal circumstances on the verge of a radical change, I have opted to hanger up my jet engine steads for awhile in the hope of rediscovering myself and parts of the European Continent in which this island of Great Britain is amongst. Simply put it’s time for a “Grand Tour”.

Once again, I seem to typing this entry in the earl stages of planning in fact so early that I haven’t even worked out where I’m heading to in general, but this is a trip I am hoping to take you on with me and discover, if possible, more about myself as a person and pilot and more about the countries I will visit. There will be some obvious places which I will be aiming for like Bari on eastern coast of Italy or heading towards where the eastern trade route met the western in Turkey and the favourites of Menorca and Malta, but I’m hoping to visit some the winter destinations of The Baltics, Germany, Poland Switzerland and Austria. I’m not planning any time limits to this trip but focus instead on flying for discovery.

I’m in a fortunate position to have a number of aircraft in my procession that are ready for the trip, but I need an aircraft that is capable and strong which will provide me with minimal technical issues and also be able to transport me in comfort across all the land and water that Europe has too other. One thing I must consider for a trip of this size with multiple stops and landing and take offs is the hours on the airframe and engines and the cumulative stresses imposed throughout flight. And I’ve found my aircraft, more on that later.

I am planning on spending some weeks preparing the aircraft for my trip and making sure I have the equipment in case I need to make repairs anywhere. I have opted for a Piper PA42 Cheyanne III which has proved to be a capable and rugged aircraft as well as stable and reasonably fast and its twin engine design make it ideal for an extra margin of safety.

So how will this work? Well, the concept is pretty simple I pick a destination and I go, well that’s what I used to do but now I’m thinking slightly differently about this trip, you see I mentioned I said it was about self-discovery so I need to ask myself what do I want to achieve during my tour? Well I guess we should all start at the beginning, now coming from England there isn’t a lot of places I haven’t been to but I’ve always thought that I have been most happiest in Wales and Scotland so I think that is where I should start this trip. Initially I’m looking at heading towards South Wales before turning east bound and north back up to The Shetland Islands. The total trip promises to an experience and take in plenty of sights of Europe.