Some photos at the end of this post.

Almost all the photos were taken on my iPhone 4, and I still maintain it’s an excellent compact camera replacement. Improved noise reduction would help – some of the modified photos with added borders have a particularly noisy effect added using SnapSeed, but straight iPhone images are still relatively grainy. However, the colours it captures from the sky are excellent under most conditions, and I’ve got more than enough Apps on board to tweak the photos as required, especially relevant given we spent ages on various ferries this time.

And finally, what holiday would be complete without our Freelander feeling the need for some attention too? The drivers window mechanism failed less than 18 hours after leaving home. Fortunately I was able to close the window with the application of some force and then found an independent specialist in Ballynahinch where they were able to replace the mechanism there and then.

Next holiday should be early September with a trip to Disneyland Paris (and F-WTSS, F-WTSA, F-BTSD and F-BVFF - ooops, er, “look over here Catherine – oooh, Chanel… Excusez-moi mademoiselle, je suis à la recherche des indications pour le Musée de l’aviation” :-)

However, even without the Northern Lights the night sky is fascinating. We’re lucky here as we have very limited amounts of street lighting, so that orange glow seen in the sky around towns and cities is never a problem.

The night sky is also more accessible than ever thanks to excellent software that means anybody can find out what they’re seeing. I’ve blogged about it before, but Stellarium is fantastic, and free. On the iPhone Distant Suns is also excellent, along with GoSkyWatch and Pocket Universe. They also use the iPhone GPS and Gyro so it’s a case of point the phone, identify the star!

At this time of year Orion is not as prominent as during mid-Winter, but Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is still readily observable. Directly south at around 8PM this week and 20 degrees above the horizon. The planets are also stunning with Venus and Jupiter in the south west between sunset and 8PM, Venus being the brighter object. Mars is a bit close to the full moon currently, but in another week it will be clear again. Have a look also for M45, the Pleiades Cluster (or Seven Sisters), between Orion and Venus but higher up.

The International Space Station also makes an appearance occasionally. It’s especially awesome as it sails brightly through the sky in silence. When the timings are right the station orbital plane runs over the southern part of Wales, and at 400Km altitude is visible from southern France and the Faroes at the same time. The station needs to be in sunlight whilst the observer is in darkness, so just before sunrise or after sunset. For the next month or so it will be on the dawn side at UK latitudes, but mid April and it should be visible again in the evening. The stunning, and free application Celestia can help visualise the mechanics of orbit, but doesn’t use real-time orbital elements. The website http://www.heavens-above.com is the easiest way to find the visible passes. On the iPhone there is also GoSatWatch.

Both Stellarium and Celestia are Windows/Mac/Linux compatible too, so no excuses!

Finally, tonight I saw Fedex 1, a Boeing 777 Freighter out of Stansted heading for Memphis. Not in the same league as the other stuff, but I still love watching jet contrails illuminated by moonlight. Again, there’s an app for that! http://www.FlightRadar24.com, also on iPhone!

A couple of other similar posts: Celestial Nav | ISS

I’ve virtually given up with Flickr and all my photo hosting for the website is with SmugMug, an excellent photo hosting service. Unfortunately, the SmugMug iPhone app is a bit poor, and I prefer to get all my photos into Aperture, tweak/crop/straighten as required then upload. This means uploading “live” is only a temporary action, where I remove the photos to be replaced with an improved selection later.  This does however leave a lack of capability for photoblogging.

Enter Instagram: An app that allows photos to be uploaded directly from the iPhone to their webservice. This site runs on WordPress and there are some plugins that allow the most recent Instagrams to be displayed in the sidebar, and also a collection of instagrams to be shown on a page or post. But that’s just be beginning.

Instagram is intended as a simple service, so pictures are 600 pixels square, no big problem there as it’s ideal for web display. But what Instagram adds are simple on/off filters to give photos a vintage, low-fidelity or saturated look. It’s really easy to use and creates some nice effects with virtually no effort. These photos are all iPhone/Instagram only:

Beyond Instagram I found a whole selection of apps to make photo editing on the iPhone and iPad fun and with good features. Free apps like Pixlromatic and iSplash Pro, as demonstrated by the aeroplane picture, and Phonto to add text and Squaready to create a square canvas for rectangular pictures as seen on the RX8 image. (These photos were not taken with the iPhone 4, only edited on it)

A very good value application called FX Photo Studio has much more comprehensive filtering and framing and when combined with Instagram for upload and display means it’s easy to while away a few hours playing at photo editing on the go. Of note is the fact FX Photo Studio is not limited to Instagram 600px images, but seems to be able to support up to 2500px images – it’s therefore one of the best value photo editing apps I’ve ever bought.

But pure Instagram is great too: A single photo taken last night by the iPhone 4 (the best camera in the world is the camera you always have with you) and uploaded immediately with Instagram. Taking and sharing pictures is what photography is all about.

Then we headed back up to the Tiede volcano to take some more pictures of the awesome landscape, and we figured the Polo had a day off from mountaineering yesterday so must be ready for some more today.

Every corner revealed yet another stunning vista, and once above the cloud and the treeline, it really is like another world. Hardly surpising that bits of Star Wars were filmed here.

Tomorrow morning it’s an early start to head back the the airport, then back to Prestwick by late afternoon.

All Photos

Later we went to Santa Cruz to have a look at the shopping centres and, most importantly, to get some Chips Ahoy.

Tenerife is really an island of contrasts. The volcanic scenery is really amazing, and that’s just the bits we’ve seen from the road. Some of the hiking tours into the back country must be really great. Then there’s the seaside resorts – All the restaurants have the same food, and the shops all have the same junk, I don’t think I’d be happy to spend more than a day or so “in town”.

Tomorrow we’re going to head back to the south coast and have a look around there.

All Photos

First we had to negotiate the mountain road TF-82. With lots of standing water, and steep twisty corners it proved an enjoyable drive, though again our poor Polo 1.4 found the hills hard going.

The TF-82 was nothing compared to the road between Santiago del Tiede and Masca, the TF-436. A narrow road with harpin after hairpin after hairpin and what seemed to be 1 in 5 gradients. It was well worth it though as the views of the valley were stunning, and our photos don’t do it justice.

Amazingly, even on the out-of-the-way roads the surface quality is excellent, we’ve not encountered any potholes at all.

When we got to Los Gigantes we booked out on the “Flipper Uno”, a three hour trip out to look for dolphins and whales. The trip didn’t disappoint with Pilot Whales coming right up to the boat. We then headed back into a cove where there was an opportunity to go swimming from the boat – we didn’t, but load of people enjoyed jumping into the water by swinging off the trapeze.

We headed down to Las Americas for dinner, just to see how it compared with our resort. I think we made the right choice! Finally back to the hotel via the Autopista and we completed a circumnavigation of the main roads on the island.

As an interesing side note, when ordering vodka and coke at the bar, they wait for you to say stop when pouring the vodka, then top up with coke. I didn’t know that, so am now drinking virtually neat vodka through a straw.

All Photos

In the afternoon we ventured up onto the high mountain road to see the Tiede volcano. The climb up was incredible, with villages appearing to hang on the edge of steep hillsides. We climbed through the cloud to emerge into clear blue sky just below the treeline. A few hundred more metres and we entered an incredible landscape at 2300m. Our poor VW Polo rental and its 1.4 litre engine worked hard to get there – The trip back down worked the brakes hard too!

This evening we walked down into the town for dinner, down being the operative word as the whole island seems to be clinging to the side of the mountain with the only flat bit being the walkway by the water.

All Photos

In the years after Vostok 1 we built ever more powerful spacecraft, travelled to the Moon with Apollo, and explored onwards to the planets and stars with Voyager.

Yet the vehicle that captured my generation’s imagination is the Space Shuttle.

Exactly Twenty years after Gagarin’s flight, and exactly thirty years ago today,  the Space Shuttle Columbia lifted from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Centre on STS-1, the first space shuttle spaceflight with astronauts Bob Crippen and John Young.

Columbia launches on STS-1 (Nasa : Public Domain)

Unfortunately after the first flights the shuttle only appeared in mainstream headlines in tragedy. Challenger was lost in January 1986 on STS-51-L and Columbia on STS-107 in February 2003.

I was 7 years old when Challenger was lost, and still remember watching TV when the show was interrupted with the news – I couldn’t believe what I was watching. President Reagan said later “Sometimes when we reach for the stars, we fall short. But we must pick ourselves up again and press on despite the pain.”

The shuttle program did continue after both disasters, with Discovery leading the return to flight in both cases. The continuation of the shuttle program has lead to significant achievements in space.

The shuttle facilitated the Hubble Telescope, and the uncomparable Hubble Ultra Deep Field image.

Hubble Ultra Deep Field (Nasa : Public Domain)

Every few days the unaided eye can now watch the International Space Station soar overhead just after dusk – and without the shuttle the space station would not have existed.

The ISS from Discovery on her final flight (Nasa : Public Domain)

Even the elevation data on my humble aviation GPS is provided thanks to Endeavour on STS-99 Shuttle Radar Topography Mission.

Discovery has already been retired, Endeavour and Atlantis will be following later this year, then we’ll be back to rockets and capsules for orbital spaceflight.

It took 32 years from the Wright Brothers to get to the DC3 and reliable, comfortable air travel, and 14 years later the de Havilland Comet made it’s contribution to jet transport and aerostructure materials science. In SpaceFlight the Shuttle was a massive leap ahead compared with Gagarin’s Vostok capsule, and was flown only twenty years later.

Yet in the thirty years since STS-1 have we moved forward significantly?

Would the Comet have been built if we were happy with the range and speed of the DC3?  Therein lies the problem – where do we go from here? Low Earth Orbit has become the desination rather than a waypoint. We’re going on holiday to the departure lounge.

Perhaps the Shuttle has reached the end of it’s useful life. Perhaps Low Earth Orbit is now solely the domain of commercial launch systems, but I for one long for the day when awesome sci-fi-esque spaceplanes once again convey humans to orbit, from where they can embark on journeys to the stars.

At the start of October we found an issue with the some of the bracing structure inside the Auster’s port wing. If it needed the wing fabric removed and recovered we’d be looking at costs of around £7k

The very next day I had my Class 1 aviation medical at Gatwick. My Class 2 (Private Flying) medical was due to expire anyway, and as I hope to do flight instruction at some point the Class 1 (Commercial) seemed a good course of action. There are issues with eyesight where there are limits on correction for initial Class 1 medical issue, but not renewal, so sooner rather than later seemed to make sense. However, I failed the Class 1 medical and had a two month limit on my Class 2 due to something called an ectopic heartbeat. These hadn’t shown up on my first ECG in 2006.

My heart was beating early approximately every 10 to 15 beats, and the beat was originating in the wrong place. Stress, alcohol and caffeine can cause these ectopic beats, but in my case only stress seemed likely. The people at the CAA Aeromedical division were great and went to great lengths to assure me these ectopics were the sort of thing that a GP wouldn’t even bat an eyelid at, had no life threatening or life shortening implications, but nevertheless needed investigation for flying.

I had to have a device called a holter monitor fitted for 24 hours that records heart patterns over a long period to ascertain exactly how big the issue was. It would take a further five weeks until this could be done. Cue careful eating, lots of extra exercise and sleep, and avoiding stress and caffeine full stop – not so easy working in IT! In the lead up to this test I was convinced I would probably end up with some serious restrictions on flying.

When the test results finally came though I had recorded 9 ectopic events out of 90’000 heartbeats. Most normal people have one or two every day, but my GP said even 9 was completely normal. A week later and the CAA had the results and verbally confirmed I was Class 1 fit. The same day I spoke with our Auster engineer who told me the repairs were nearly complete, and it shouldn’t be too expensive. (Relatively speaking). Finally at the end of November I had the Class 1 medical in my hand.

Though I had flown on my temporary medical once, I didn’t really enjoy it – at the back of my mind was the thought this could be my last ever powered flight as pilot in command. So today Catherine and I took the Tomahawk G-RVRL for a quick flight out of Ronaldsway to have a look at the snow on the hills, and it felt great to be airborne again without medical constraint. It was also great as this was the first flight where I probably wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t completed the IMC Rating (Instrument Meteorological Conditions – i.e. flying in cloud). Keeping an eye on the outside temperature as light aircraft don’t have de-icing gear, we avoided all the cloud, but it felt really reassuring to have an instrument capability should it be required.

Furthermore, with the Auster’s potential massive repair cost reduced to a slightly happier cost, we were also able to buy this:

She’s a 2008 Mazda RX-8, “Rotary Engine 40th Anniversary” Edition, number 31 of 400 in the UK. A rear wheel drive four door coupe with 231BHP that isn’t a dull and boring BMW or Mercedes eurobox. She handles beautifully and promises to be a lot of fun – provided we can live with the fuel economy. 20 – 22MPG. Still, better economy than the aeroplane! I feel a trip to Stelvio Pass coming on…

So December is starting off on a high – New car, new medical, excellent snow conditions in Scotland for Skiing, only two weeks of work left, all Christmas and New Year off work and off island, and a trip to Brussels on the Eurostar just before Christmas.