Sambro Flying Super Hero Action Flyerz, Ironman

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General handling over, it’s time to head to Duxford for circuits. Andy is going to demonstrate the first three-pointer, and then it’ll be my turn. I learned to fly at an integrated school on DA-40s: simple, nosewheel aircraft with an engine control unit, so the journey to flying older, tailwheel aircraft has been full of learning curves. The Aviation Museum at Sandown is well worth a visit as building and flying aircraft on the Island has played a larger part in the UK’s aviation industry than you might imagine.

I then take a few photos of the unloading, marvel at the amount of oil under the engines and climb into the aeroplane. Ask any microlight pilot what the biggest event of the year in the flying calendar is and they will undoubtedly answer Spamfield. It’s the one fly-in of the year that no self-respecting microlight flyer wants to miss.

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It was time to see what that ‘turn’ was all about. The canyon feels tight, not much space to turn, is what I thought. We are flying on the updraught side of the canyon. “Are you ready?” asks CC, “Full power, full flaps, and turn. Minimum 45°, 60° is better, remain coordinated.” We’re at 60° bank angle in a perfectly coordinated turn, and CC removes his hands from the yoke showing me how effortless this manoeuvre is. Suddenly the canyon didn’t feel so tight anymore. We complete the turn ‘on a dime’, with plenty of space to spare. The whole country only has four bits of controlled airspace. If you want to land at the capital’s international airport, you simply submit a flight plan and go. Touch-and-goes are free, and a landing costs less than €10. Another aeroplane, a DC-6, bears the likeness of Howard Hughes, a pioneer aviator whose life was celebrated in the 2003 film The Aviator , starring Leonardo DiCaprio. It was time once again to put the theory into practice. We fly to a canyon area just five minutes from Kidwell. We discuss how to approach the canyon, evaluate the wind direction, and then discuss a possible VMC into an IMC scenario with an emergency 180° canyon turn. CC says, “If you ever find that that you are one day in this situation, the first thing you must do is to slow down, get into the white arc and apply first notch flaps – slow down, gear down, flaps down, that will buy you time, and you’ll be ready for a canyon turn.” This is a full-size replica of the UK’s sole entry into the ‘space race’ of the late 1960s. Quite large components were built at Cowes and the engines subsequently tested near the Needles.

And then, there’s Druskininkai, a bumpy strip in the spa town where half of Eastern Europe ‘takes the waters’. Druskininkai sits close to Belarus, and as you tune into Flight Information, you share the frequency with Belarusian MIG pilots on their training sorties. And so there I was, new to Vilnius and immediately on the lookout for an aeroplane we could share. Lithuania has an unexpectedly vibrant GA scene. It’s a tiny nation (population: a third of London’s, land area: three times the size of Wales), but it boasts something like 50 aerodromes. The ‘something like a Cub’ turned out to be an Auster Arrow, one of only six airworthy Arrows in the world. It had spent most of its life in Germany before moving to the Danish equivalent of Old Warden. The guy who was selling the aircraft – a retired factory director – swapped a pristine pre-war motorbike for it. The 145hp of the O-300 performed well in the cold morning temperatures. We initially remained in the pattern for an assessment flight before climbing to altitude for the stalls and slow-flying exercises.And yet, they are perfectly happy, because such is the magic of vintage aircraft ownership. The moment you take control of an aeroplane that’s older than the Spruce Goose, you realise that you’re now doing a vital job: not merely bimbling, but keeping history alive. We like to route inland on the return to Kent, following along the edge of the towering South Downs, while occasionally swooping a little lower over the steep-sided valleys. We are home in 1hr 25min, before most people are having their breakfast.