I’ve been flying a Piper Arrow II for most of my 23 years of flying. It was owned by a flying club, Dublin Flyers. Unfortunately the club disbanded in 2022 and the aircraft was sold. So I had to look for another aircraft.

I first read about the Dyn Aero MCR4S in Flyer Magazine in 2001 and thought it was an amazing aircraft. I’d always had the intension to get one and with the loss of the Arrow, it was time to make that happen.

I joined ILAS (Irish Light Aviation Society) who look after homebuilt aircraft in Ireland in June 2023. As there had never been an MCR4S on the Irish register, I had to start a process to get the type accepted. With a lot of help from ILAS, the type was approved in January 2024. Then began the search for an aircraft.

After some back and forth, I agreed a deal in principle to purchase F-PTOZ, and aircraft was based at a private field near Dijon in France. The manufacturer SE-Aviation did a prebuy inspection for me at the end of October and I’d arranged to go over with my own engineer to look at the aircraft at the beginning of November. Unfortunately the prebuy identified some work that needed to be carried out that was significant enough to require some further negotiation.

On the 28 November we finally agreed a deal. I travelled to France a week later on 5 December to collect the aircraft. Getting to the airfield (near Dijon) was a bit of an adventure in itself! I got a flight from Dublin to Paris Beauvais, and with the help of Google Maps, I’d a plan on how to get there using public transport.

Of course that all went out the window when, on arrival in Beauvais, it turns out that the bus that I needed to get to the train station was booked out, and the next one would be too late to make the train connection. Some more Googling suggested I could get a bus to Disneyland Paris and start a series of train connections from there. So off I went.

On arrival in Disneyland, it turns out that the train was the highspeed TGV and the only ticket available was for first class and cost €230! A second class ticket was available on a train two hours later and cost €160 (and incidentally would get me there at the exact same time due to later connections). On further enquiry there was another option to get a train into Paris and some other trains from there which would get me to Dijon about an hour later. That was a better plan, but not without its own complications. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say with the help of some train cleaners who didn’t speak any English nor understand my French and later the help from some students keen to practice their English, I arrive at my hotel at 7pm, having got out of bed at 3am that morning.

I met with the owner that evening and we sorted some formalities and arranged to meet the following morning for the handover.

The owner took me on a short flight to another local airfield to introduce me to flying the aircraft, and I flew it back to its base.

We said our goodbyes, and I then flew the aircraft from its base to LFSP Pontarlier, about 30 minutes south east, near the Swiss border.

Here is the aircraft at its base as I get ready to depart.

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At Pontarlier I met with Eric from SE-Aviation who I’d arranged to look at something for me before I headed home.

Here is the aircraft at Pontarlier.

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Eric did his work and pounced himself happy with everything. So off I went.

There was some bad weather in Ireland (Storm Darragh) which meant that there was no possibility for me to get home that day. In any case, there was insufficient daylight left. It wasn’t at all clear when I would get home. The weather for the next few days was not forecasted to be good. But the closer I got to home, the smaller gap in the weather that I’d need. I needed to clear customs out of the Schengen zone, and I’d planned to do that at LFAT Le Touquet. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make it any further. So I’d planned for Le Touquet and see how things went.

A happy pilot on his way home

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I like to make the most of any flight and find things to see along the way. In this regard my navigation software, EasyVFR is brilliant for showing me things along my route that are worth taking a look at.

Here is one. This is Viaduc de Fin, a 19th century viaduct. There are actually three segments in close succession.

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A little later is Chateau de Bussy-Rabutin. It’s a chateau developed from a 12th century castle.

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Unfortunately I was facing some fairly strong headwinds from the approaching storm.

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If I didn’t make it to the UK today, I figured I’d be stuck in France for a few days of bad weather. I’d been in contact with a small field near Le Touquet who told me that they could offer some temporary hanger space and I was welcome to camp on the airfield. I’d brought my tent and camping gear and was prepared for that. But it would have been much better to make it to the UK. I checked the latest weather in flight, and the UK was still clear. But time was very tight. If I was to make it to my destination of EGKA Shoreham in the UK, I’d have just about 45 minutes from touch down to take off if I was to get to Shoreham before the end of VFR. I have a night rating, and Shoreham was open for plenty of time after the end of VFR, but the aircraft’s permit is restricted to day VFR.

In that time, I’d need to refuel, pay landing fees, clear French customs and get PPR for Shoreham. It was tight but I decided to try. If it didn’t work, I could go to the other French field and camp there for a few days.

Still a happy pilot, somewhere near LFAT Le Touquet.

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In the end, I managed to take off with about 10 minutes to spare and I set off out over the English Channel.

This is the south coast of the UK, just after sunset.

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An even happier pilot as things are working out.

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Final for Shoreham. Yes, I know there shouldn’t be three red PAPIs! They started off as four white, so I just over corrected a bit!

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With a glass canopy, reflections are something that I’m going to have to get used to. As the light drops, the GPS reflects quite a lot. Playing with my phone I noted it has an “AI” feature to remove reflections. I think it did a pretty decent job!

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When I called Shoreham for PPR I asked if they had any hangarage available for visitors and was told no. That was a real concern as I have no covers (yet) for the aircraft, and it has no proper tie down points (yet). Not great in a storm, but I had a backup method to tie down the aircraft. However as I taxied in, the tower advised that they were expecting strong winds that night and asked if I’d like to see if they could organise hanger space! Yes I did! And they did organise it! Thank you very much Shoreham ATC!

I was met by the police and they checked my passport, asked a few questions and decided there was nothing of interest to them. As they said, “A French aircraft, flown by an Irish pilot, on a journey from France to Ireland, two EU countries. Not much here for us.”

Here she is, parked up in the hanger, next to my friend Peter’s TB20. I don’t think this will be the last time these two aircraft meet up! Peter very kindly invited me to stay at his home.

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The next day was clearly not going to be a flying day, with storm Darragh rolling through the UK.

So I filed my GAR form for Border Force and the police. I was really surprised when it warned me that I was outside the permitted filing times, and while I could continue to file, I could potentially be prosecuted for filing outside the allowed time window! I was sure I was well within the time window allowed. On further examination the problem turned out to be that I’d entered the year as “24” instead of “2024” which it accepted as being the year 24! So instead of reminding me that I needed to enter the year as four digits, I get a silly warning that I can continue but I’m outside the allowed filing time window. No mention of the fact that it’s exactly two millennia outside the filing time window! That system, while a big improvement on what was there before (in that you get proof of filing) needs a lot of work to its user interface.

Anyway the weather looked good for Sunday, with good cloud base and visibility. Winds would be strong on the UK side, but light in Ireland when it came to landing. I decided to give it a go. Progress would be slow, but should be fine. METARs showed winds at Shoreham to be 25kts gusting 36. I wouldn’t have been too bothered about that in the Arrow, but I wasn’t sure how this new lighter aircraft would taxi in it. 25kts would be fine for the take off, and the odd gust wouldn’t be a problem. But on arrival at the airport it seems that it was far from a smooth airflow. It was very turbulent from the buildings (exactly where I’d need to taxi from) and I really didn’t know how my aircraft would handle taxiing in that sort of wind. It’s much lighter than I’m used to, it has very small ailerons (so not so well able to help itself) and big winglets which would give the cross winds something to catch onto.

After a bit of consideration and discussion with my friend Peter, I decided that it would be best to wait another day. So Peter kindly hosted me for another night.

The next day, Monday, the wind had calmed down considerably.

Preparing to leave the hanger

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Lined up ready to depart Shoreham.

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Shortly after departure, this is Nab Tower. A tower intended for anti-submarine protection in World War 1.

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St Catherine’s Point Lighthouse on the Isle of Wight. Sorry, I hadn’t intended to photograph it, so didn’t descend and get close to it. So this isn’t a great photo of it.

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The Needles at the western end of the Isle of Wight

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It was quite blustery for the early part of the flight, and I had to dodge a few low clouds, but all in all, it was easy enough going.

A happy pilot on the last leg home, with a new lifejacket for the sea crossing and a few days stubble.

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This is the famous Cerne Abbas Giant. It’s a scheduled monument dating back to at least the 17th century (earliest mention) but probably much older.

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This is a dam that I noticed. I didn’t know it was there in advance so it wasn’t an intended sight.

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This is Dunster Castle, in Somerset. It’s dated back to the 12th century with many additions since then.

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Crossing Cardiff Bay. The weather started to clear up from here, with the cloud base lifting and becoming more scattered.

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The winds were quite strong here, and mainly a headwind. My avionics told me they were 43kts, but I don’t think this is reading correctly. If I compare my IAS with my GPS groundspeed, I’d have thought 25-30kts would have been more accurate. I did wonder if the windspeed were perhaps shown in kph rather than kts, but a later examination of the Dynon setup menu didn’t reveal any option for setting a different unit for windspeed other than a general “speed” unit. So I’m assuming it’s knots. My OAT probe seems to be malfunctioning. It reads N/A on start-up and a few minutes later goes to 51C (top of scale). It needs an OAT to calculate the windspeed, so I’m assuming this is something to do with it. Not sure if it would make that much of a difference. OAT was probably close enough to freezing. (Maybe 8C on the ground). I’ll need to figure out how to fix this.

Anyway, at least the bumps had stopped and I was no longer banging my head on the canopy!

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Now a very happy pilot, somewhere over Wales, in improving weather.

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Sorry, I wasn’t really on my A game when it comes to photos on this flight. I didn’t commence my descent in time for this one, and when I realised that, I decided not to bother descending too much. So this one is Aberystwyth Castle from well above. It’s a grade 1 listed Edwardian fortress build in response to the first Welsh War in the late 13th century.

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I now turn to leave Wales and head home across the Irish Sea.

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This was the only bit of the journey that I wasn’t looking forward to. I’m never a great cross water flyer. I never feel really comfortable with it. And this time I’m doing it in an aircraft that I don’t really know and don’t really know much about how reliable it has been historically. It was also still quite windy and the sea surface was far from ideal for a ditching. So I would have liked to have climbed high. The clouds were scattered, but the latest METARs for Ireland showed an overcast. So I didn’t want to climb on top and fly across the see only to discover that after crossing the sea, I’d have to fly back out to sea to find a hole to go back down through! So instead I stayed beneath hugging the cloud base which was between 3000 & 3500ft.
The surface wasn’t ideal for a ditching.

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In the middle of the Irish Sea, you lose sight of land in all directions. So it’s a little relief when land starts to come back into sight.

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Here are some electrical turbines in the Irish Sea. They weren’t turning at all. I presume they are turned off to avoid damage in strong winds.

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Here are the green fields of Ireland to welcome me home.

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If you’ve read some of my previous trip reports, you may well recognise Ducket Grove, a 19th Century great house. The interior was destroyed in a great fire in the 1930s.

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Here is a rainbow to welcome my aircraft to its new home.

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Some random photos of Ireland.

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The aircraft parked up outside its new home in EIKH Kilrush.



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So that is my story of what is hopefully the first of many adventures in my first (and hopefully last) aircraft. There are many things that I’d like to improve in the aircraft, starting with a good wash inside and out. It will return to France early in the new year for some work with SE-Aviation, and then hopefully I’m ready for a busy year of flying in 2025.

The only alterations to the photos have been cropping and rotating, with the exception of the one noted above for final into Shoreham, where I allowed the phone to remove the reflection from the canopy. Other than that, all photos are as they were taken on my Samsung S22 phone.

A big thank you to those who helped me with my search for an aircraft and advised me on the type and individual aircraft and helped me through the process. Some here helped me look for an aircraft. Freddy from EuroGA, very kindly took a phone call to tell me about his ownership of the type and offer advice whenever I asked. Especially thanks to those at Aeroclub Andernos Les Bains who allowed me to fly their aircraft in December 2023 before I started my search and gave generously with their time each time I asked for advice.