We start the journey south. A relatively short hop down to Edinburgh. Just over an hour in the Cessna as the crow flies and as it happens, that's how we're gonna do it; straight line down over the Cairngorms, which are about as isolated as you get in the UK with just the A9 snaking around beneath the flight path.
Turning south from Inverness, the ground rises in front of the plane and I pick 6k feet as a good height to avoid crashing into mountains but still appreciate the sight of them rising up towards me.
There's a lot of distilleries and places where you can catch a hearty pub meal. The road rolls round to the west at Aviemore, and I carry straight on over the peaks, re-joining its path at Pitlochry where a year ago I had a cheese & ham toastie and debated leftist politics & Scottish independence with dad.
The Firth of Fourth rolls into view in front, and then I pick out Arthur's Mount, a hill within easy walking distance of Edinburgh city centre. 15 years ago I climbed to the top on a whim after going shopping, Tesco bag of groceries and all.
I commit to a ludicrous entry to the landing path to go over the royal mile and see Edinburgh castle, perched atop an old volcanic plug. I was there in March with my wife, but we didn't go in because the pandemic was just starting to bite.
There are some passenger jets coming in on the same approach path as me - based on real life flights taken from Flightradar24, I believe. Usually on approach you get your speed down for landing nice and early and then make a steady advance towards your landing point, but I keep the throttle full on to keep my speed up until the last possible moment as I slide in between two Airbusses to touch down at what's actually a relatively busy airport.
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