Airfield Collecting - Denham

Had the plane booked and as chance would have it, the weather at Gloucester was great - a few, high clouds with lots of blue sky. Great - maybe today is the day I can try for Haverfordwest and Pembrey. Yes, the 215 looks good so I call them for an update.

'It's overcast at 2000' and the cloud is on the hills to the east. It's OK for circuits but if you really want to get here today, I'd drive!'

OK - so not west, how about east? Never been to Denham, being on the edge of the London zone and all that so lets try there. Oh yes, much more encouraging. I check the NOTAM's - better and better! Brize is closed, give three calls then if no response you are free to zone transit giving calls on the frequency. Denham it is.

I turn up at the airfield and my regular passenger is a bit late, so prep the plane. By this time he turns up and off we go. Winds are about 230/07 on the ground, so we have a fair old tailwind pushing us east. The turbulence well past the ridge of the Cotswolds is quite choppy and surprised me, but it smooths out soon enough. I start to descend to stay below London airspace and contact Denham. OK, call at Maple Cross, then follow the lake in on base to 24. We spot the VRP, lakes and airfield easily and make a nice approach.

The landing is OK and commendably short, but there are no marked taxiways, so off the runway and park up in front of the tower. The jolly chap on frequency admires the paint job on the Arrow as we shut down.


I pay the fee of £15 but oh no! No airfield cafe, just vending machines in Cabair! But look - just outside, there is a posh restaurant so we try there.

It is virtually empty and staffed by Spaniards. We both feel seriously under-dressed, but they are fine and happy to seat us in the posh restaurant despite the fact we only wany soup and rolls. Dan of course splashes out on whitebait and clownsaround with the christmas crackers.


Back to the plane. Checked the noise abatement and special departure routines, started up and took off. Holding it below 1000' on the QNH, straight ahead, the NNW along the train line. Didn't spot the train line until I had passed it so ooops! hard turn to the right to regain track. We cleared to zone to the NNW the set course direct to Gloucester. Got some good height eventuually up to 3000' as the weather was much better to the west. Heard traffic giving blind calls in Brize Zone - so people do read NOTAM's after all!

Back to Gloucester for one touch and go then a landing - probably a mistake as the circuit was very active. Had to orbit on my landing circuit. Got down and shut off. Dan had to shoot back to work, so I tidied up.

Actually, seemed a very busy day, certainly at Gloucester, although Denham was a lot quieter. Oh well, another airfield visited and now up to 52. It gives you a focus to these short hops which is about all I can manage with this iffy weather and low freezing levels. Maybe Fairoaks for January - never been there before and again a bit of a trickier approach sitting as it does on the edge of the London Zone (and a free landing voucher - bonus).

Next flight, weather permitting, is Enstone on the 27th to discuss dates and routes for the round Europe trip planned in 2006.

Air Combat USA - Reprise

Just managed to upload and convert the 'in-cockpit' video tapes that were taken on my recent trip to Air Combat in the USA.

It was hard work struggling with firewire, different bit rates, different format etc., but I now have them in good old PAL and burned into two DVD ready for playback at my mates house over several beers with lots of swagger on my part :-)

AND!!! Took some stills off the film which I thought I would post here. Had a fantastic time and these brought it back to me.


Formation flying there and back was a great bonus!


Inverted over the Pacific between Long Beach and Catalina Island


I see him!! I'm coming around!


Die! Imperialist running dog!


Home for tea and medals! (actually, copious amounts of beer!)

Tatenhill

OK - Had the plane booked for a landaway on Saturday and really wanted to go to Caernarfon, but only if the weather was top notch - no point in risking anything in icing conditions over Welsh hills.

So of course the weather was forecast to have an occluded front coming into precisely that part of Wales in the afternoon, so despite a hopeful looking sky in the early morning, I decided to switch to the alternate - Tatenhill.

Only reason I wanted to go there was simply because I haven't been yet, so a bit of 'airfield collecting' to keep my hand in over the winter months is pretty much what I try to do.

The weather wasn't great with some low, thin and scattered cloud at anywhere between 2200' at Gloucester, to 1500' at Wolverhampton. Then a big clear gap up to the next layer at 6000'. Tempting to go between the layers, but that would have been in sub-zero temperatures, and if the lower layer decided to close up and go solid, I could be in a bit of a pickle trying to take a sub-zero airframe through visible moisture - so I decided against that and in favour of 'scud running' (that, plus the actuals at Tatenhill were excellent, so the clag was west and it was much better east).

Uneventful trip up there. Routed almost due north and turned west of Wolverhapton, 2 miles outside their ATZ and went between them and Cosford to Tatenhill. Sure enough, with about 25 miles to run the lower cloud and most of the upper layer disappears and there is streaky, high cloud and sunshine!

Spotted Tatenhill easily enough and did a direct left downwind join for their runway 26, with a crosswind of something like a quoted 330 at 13 kts. Approach was fine, but again allowed it to get a little too slow and didn't managed much of a flare before landing. This aircraft is clearly very draggy with everything down - learning point for next time.

A paltry landing fee of £8 was all we paid. Tatenhill is a nice little airfield and the canteen lady was very cheerful and helful indeed and made us feel very welcome.


Going back to the plane, we spotted a nice yellow T6 Harvard WW2 trainer in authentic RCAF Canadian markings - so of course, I had to have some photos. I am very much looking forward to my birthday treat flight in the T6 at Shoreham in the spring - the size of the aircraft is amazing - its huge!


Got back to G-GYMM, started up and away in reasonably short order. Weather was fine again until we got close to Wolverhampton and we were down to around 1300' to stay out of the low stuff. Fumbled my way between Wolverhampton and Cosford, then set course straight to Gloucester. By about Kidderminster, the cloud started to lift and we could climb to a heady 2500' AND have something like a horizon - bliss!

Given a standard overhead join for 36 right hand circuits. We got into a busy circuit and were forced fairly far out on base to hold distance from a Cessna. I did my best to keep my distance and pulled everything vaguely draggy on pretty early. We were given a late clearance to land when it was clear the Cessna had just vacated the runway. A much better landing with the extra few knots and a nice flare this time.

The aircraft behaved fine, except that the anti-collision light seems to have gone (again) and the plane was still covered in bird poo from being in the hangar - there are birds in the front roof beam. We need to get Gloucester to sort this out before I bring an air rifle in myself - you really dont expect to pay what we pay for hangarage only to have your paint attacked by acid bird droppings!

Anyway, another fun flight to keep my hand in. More of the same over winter, then probably some IMC refresher instruction in the spring.

First landaway in G-GYMM

Now that we have bought the Arrow 2 from Leland at Cranfield, the group have a new aircraft to fly. All of this went through while I was on holiday in the USA, so one of my first tasks was to take it up for a local last week to get used to the handling and especially the panel. An uneventful ‘maiden flight’ around the local area at 130 kts IAS was enough to convince me to book the aircraft for a landaway.

Where to go? Not too far given the short days and winter weather, but a long enough trip to get really settled in and see what the plane can do and somewhere with a bit of tarmac (not grass in this weather). So I decided on Peterborough / Conington. It then occurred to me that there might be a free landing voucher somewhere – sure enough, one for November in ‘Pilot’ magazine, so I bought the mag specifically for the voucher!

I went to the airport on Sunday midday with my usual ‘self-loading baggage’ - Dan. In the terminal of ‘Gloucestershire International’ I spotted a work colleague. He was showing his brother-in-law around who plans to move to the UK and maybe bring his aircraft with him. He flies a Rockwell Commander 112 around Joburg and might fly this up to the UK and base it here. We chatted about flying in the UK and basing in the local area in particular and I have since sent him a few useful UK web links.

I check the aircraft out while Dan cleans the bird poo off the aircraft. Although it is hangared, it turns out that the birds are too! We must speak to the airfield about that. As always, it is low on fuel. So we hauled it over to the pumps to re-fuel. During the checks, I had a bit of a problem with the intercom and the squelch level. A bit of fiddling with some unfamiliar and very modern panel instruments soon revealed separate pilot and passenger squelch and volume controls.

That done, it is the shortish taxy out to 36 for power checks and take-off. Clear to take-off so I line up and apply full power. A healthy boot of right rudder (well – more that I am used to) keeps her straight on the roll and we rotate at 65 kts. She climbs very well once the dangly bits are raised and we set course NE to DTY then to Conington.

The weather is great, a few ‘fair weather cumulus’ at 2500’ and lovely blue sky above. So I elect to climb above the clouds as the gaps between are huge and I can easily get down again without an instrument let-down. Up at FL45, I call Brize Radar who give my FIS to DTY where I change to Sywell. What a great day for flying and very good visibility heading east. The plane handles well and is easy to trim. I add a bit of rudder trim to correct a slight left drift of the aircraft. Well, it really is 130 kts IAS at 24/24 – although the GPS show groundspeed as 115 kts, so some kind of headwind component.

Before I realise it, we are over Sywell and I switch to Conington and have to start thinking about losing some height and slowing the plane down. Conington are giving 28 left hand and they are pretty busy by the sounds of it. I do a standard overhead join and slot into circuit traffic for a not terribly good crosswind landing.


Anyway, we are down as I backtrack for parking – but where? The place is very busy, but fortunately an aircraft is taxying out, so I take their space.

I used to live in this part of the country, so the flat landscape does not come as a surprise. But it is a very nice looking airfield and we get a good welcome in the clubhouse. Unfortunately, with the landing voucher and the excellent weather, the place had been all but cleaned out on Saturday and much of the menu is off – including bacon sandwiches!!

We down our food and coffee and I go on a wander of the apron. Nice and varied selection of parked aircraft, including an RV4 dressed up like a Mustang and complete with three (yes, three!) GPS’s – two in the back and one in the front – someone is keen not to get lost! The hangar has some lovely aircraft (looks like it might be a paint shop) with a nice Commander and a Maule on floats.


Back to my own recently acquired aircraft for start-up. I did know the 200 hp injected engines could be tricky to start – quite different from the standard Lycoming 0-360. Anyway, a couple of ‘warm engine’ start routines has it running. We line up and take off holding the extended centreline to clear the local villages before turning en-route.

This time, I climb to FL40 and squint my way back to DTY – flying west into the low sun and the now ‘dusty’ horizon make for poor visibility. My passenger has the hang of the aircraft, so I try the auto-pilot again. It does very well too, but as Dan points out ‘It can’t hold the height like me!’ – Dan has competition! Our airspeed again is exactly 130 kts IAS at 24/24, but this time with 145 kts groundspeed. We are fairly whipping along compared to what I am used to.

Brize throw me away with 25 mile to run so I contact Gloucester and start to descend to slow the plane down. They are now on 04 with left hand circuits and I am given direct downwind join not below 1500’. I report downwind and am cleared to descend to 1000’ QFE circuit height and number 2 to land. The Cessna in front is pulling quite a wide circuit and is some way further out on base than I would be, so I am forced to go further out than I would like. I do my ‘Red / Green / Blue’ finals check and the aircraft is nice and slow at 80 kts with all flaps. I am cleared to ‘land after’ and do so with a much better landing than at Conington.

Taxy clear and shut down and write up the log (noting the anti-collision light failure). Just as I have finished, Garry, one of the other group members rocks up. As it is now 16:00, he can only be wanting a night flight, so I give him the bad news – no anti-coll, no night flight! We swap experiences with the intercom which he was struggling with last flight.

All in all an excellent and very smooth flight. I think I am getting used to this aircraft very quickly, hardly surprising as I trained on PA28’s. With an aircraft flying 130 kts IAS at 38 litres and hour fuel burn, I am very much looking forward to some multi-leg trips around Europe and Scandanavia!

Air Combat USA!

Went on a special birthday holiday to the USA at the end of October with the wife, so minimal flying content, except that as a special treat, I had booked the all day ‘Fighter Lead In Program’ at the famous ‘Air Combat’ outfit in Los Angeles. Fighter pilot for a day – yep, that got my attention – not cheap, but I would get to throw a high performance plane around the sky and shoot the bad guys! I had this booked on the second last day of my holiday on Tuesday 1st November.

I turned up at Fullerton airfield in Buena Park, near Anaheim in LA at 0930 and saw on the board that I was (as expected) slated for two flights. I was welcomed by the instructors for the day, ‘Nails’ and ‘Party’. Both are ex-Navy pilots of different generations. Nails flew F8’s and Party (Marty Stowe) flew F14’s and now flies for American Airlines. One of Marty’s claims to fame is that he is in a scene from the film ‘Top Gun’ as he was in the navy at the time.

I was partnered with Marty and he helped me suit up with a natty USAF flight suit, helmet with integrated headphones, parachute and lifejacket. We went through the safety drills then sat down to the pre-flight briefing.

Flight 1

First flight was for both me and my ‘enemy’ to practice manoeuvres that would place us in a position bring guns to bear. These included high and low yo-yo’s, loops, high speed turns and barrel rolls etc. The principles and importance of ‘lead and lag’ were explained as were the rules of engagement (hard deck at 2500’, no forward quarter engagements, lose sight, lose the fight etc).


Following the briefing, we went out to the aircraft, me to the Extra 300 (yippee) and my foe to the Marchetti 260. The company dictates that the instructor must do both the take off and landing, but apart from that and demonstrations of manoeuvres, I flew for the rest of the time.

As I am 6’ 2” and 210lbs, you don’t so much get into the Extra 300 as put it on! I flew from the front seat and had only two dials to worry about, airspeed and altitude. The visibility in the bubble canopy was fantastic. It was a warm and sunny day and I fully expected to get roasted the minute we buttoned up, but it wasn’t too bad as it was not at all humid – not something I am used to from the UK.

I have not done any formation work before so was pleased that we were going to fly formation out to the aerobatic area off the coast south of Long Beach and east of Catalina Island. I found the formation work not as difficult as I expected (possibly because the leader was holding a very stable course), but it certainly does take concentration and fine adjustments, it must be easy to get it wrong and attempt to ‘over-control’ and end up chasing too many things at once.

After checking the alignment of the gunsights and tracking on each other in turn, he then played the part of the ‘dumb bogie’ and maintained a steady 30 degree turn while I carried out low and high yo yo’s. All good fun, but reasonably tame, pulling no more than 3G or so. We practiced one loop (which was brilliant fun) and I was invited to do a few aileron rolls (aka victory rolls) which I duly did. The first was a bit ropey, but the rest felt much better.

After this, back to base, again with me holding the rear formation slot. I handed over close to the airfield where Marty carried out a sort of formation ‘run and break’ join using a military style ‘racetrack’ circuit and sideslipping final approach (as the Extra 300 has no flaps, is a taildragger and has a huge nose which you can’t really see over). I have to say, he really greased it on with a perfect 3 pointer nice and gentle with no hint of a bounce.

The debrief was carried out on two video screens, showing one of the three camera views from each aircraft so that we could see what both aircraft were seeing and doing at the same time. What a good learning tool that was.

Following the debrief, we re-hydrated, drained the lizards and relaxed for an hour or so while the planes were refuelled.

Flight 2

Full briefing again with a reprise on the basic combat manoeuvres, then out to the planes and airborne. Again, my chance to get some formation flying in as we flew out to the area.


On arrival at the area, we gained height up to about 6000’, then positioned so that we crossed in opposite directions flying ‘left to left’ level at about 160kts. At this point the instructors announce ‘fights on!’ and we manoeuvre as previously practiced to try to get on the opponents tail. It is fair to say that the instructors are advising you a fair bit and keeping a good lookout for the opponent, but the certainly expect you to watch the opponent yourself and have your own intercept ideas.

I try a low yo yo, but overdo it by pulling waaaayyy too hard in turn and induce a high speed stall. Started with wing buffet then quickly ‘snap rolled’ me out of the turn as it dropped a wing. I realised my opponent was gaining in the turn, so promptly did the same thing again, and again and again! This was not helped by my opponent’s instructor cheating on the radio by saying ‘pull harder Steve!’, which I obligingly did! My opponent put me out of my misery and shot me down as the Extra 300 obligingly belched smoke to indicate the kill.

After a few words of advice from Marty, we start the second engagement. I won’t bore anyone by describing each engagement in details (6 in total) and will jumble them up and generalise. Bottom line is that I won the next 5 engagements (although I think my opponent, who was an Air Combat pilot-in-training, was being kind to me). My opponent’s instructor tried the same ‘radio dis-information’ thing on the last fight, but I had by this time I had learned!

Highlights were at least two loops with half rolls on the way down, a couple of successful yo yo’s and other manoeuvres that clocked up nearly 1G negative and 5.3G positive on the ‘G-metre’. It is absolutely amazing to pull hard loops and rolls and see the sea and the sky change places and at crazy angles – just like a simulator except that you don’t have the radio chatter, not to mention the G to worry about.


I have to say that although I felt the G I didn’t seem to notice it too much as I was fixated on getting behind my opponent. On a few occasions, my instructor asked if I was OK as I suspect he didn’t want the inside of his Extra 300 pebble-dashed with vomit. I was having far too much fun to feel sick and felt absolutely fine throughout. I think it is easier if it is you flying the manoeuvres rather than being a passenger.

After a couple of victory rolls, I rejoined the Marchetti in formation and returned to Fullerton.

After the landing, I had just got out and into the flight centre when my wife turned up after a heavy day’s shopping to join us for the debrief. I have to say (and my wife commented) that Marty looked drenched in sweat while I was fine – perhaps it is a lot harder having a green student throw you around the sky in unexpected moves from the back seat – of course it could just be that it was a hot day!

The mistakes of the first flight were highlighted and potential opportunities that I could have taken in other flights suggested. All useful learning points.

Conclusion

As part of the program, I got a ‘free’ A2 leather flight jacket with the appropriate badges to sew onto them. I mentioned to my new American friends that I would get laughed / sniggered at back in the UK for having badges on the jacket. They looked confused and asked why – I just couldn’t explain and frankly don’t care anyway – the badges are going on, so smirk all you like! I really do find the American view of things so much more like my own, perhaps it is my Canadian background?

Oh, and the handle they bestowed one me was agreed to be ‘Grimace’ after they saw the determined facial contortions I was using on the videocam trying for the kill – total concentration is my excuse!

Did I have fun and was it worth £1000 odd? ABSOLUTELY!

What a FANTASTIC day and what a nice bunch of people. I got to:

• Throw an Extra 300 around the sky,
• Try formation flying for the first time,
• Perform many of the basic aerobatics unaided,
• Log a total of 2.5 hours as P U/T,
• Shoot the bad guys down 5 times (he was being kind),
• Have an A2 flying jacket that I can cover with badges,
• Shot full of enough adrenaline to last for a month,
• Full videos of both sessions that I can bore people with for hours,

IT REALLY DOES NOT GET MUCH BETTER THAN THIS!

Now, if the ‘Ultimate High’ in the UK can equip their aircraft with gunsights, cameras and smoke and whistle up LA style predictable weather, I would be over to Kemble like a shot.

PS - To my wife's friends (you know who you are) - Yes - I am a spoiled brat!

Buying an Arrow 2

Sunday 9th is also the day that Leland from Flyer Forum has agreed to bring his Arrow 2 over to Gloucester for the group to take a look at. This is less than one week from our decision to go forward as a group with an Arrow 2 or 3 at the top of the list and indeed less that one week from Leland putting his plane up for sale through Flyer Forum. Synchronicity eh?

We got the Cotswold CFI, Phil Mathews to take it up for a test flight. He is a man of few words at the best of time and was succinct in his judgement – ‘It’s an Arrow 2 and flies just as I would expect’ – I am told that if you know Phil, this is probably high praise!



We crawl all over (and under) the aircraft. It really is beautifully presented with a great recent paint job and top notch avionics. Leland has clearly spent a small fortune on it in the last two years. I mentioned the lovely ‘retro’ interior until he pointed out that these were the original seats – dating from 1971, I was impressed at the condition. But I guess it does make sense given the very modest 2600 hours that the aircraft has done since 1971.



The only potential ‘gotcha’s’ we can see is that we will need a good ‘panels off’ structural inspection (but would not expect to find anything) and the engine is past TBO and therefore being run ‘on condition’ and could therefore need replacing / zero timing at any time. This appears to be reflected in the asking price.

It turns out that Leland is fluent in French, so he and my French Canadian neighbour wander off gabbling away and waving their arms while we as a group form a circle and look at our shoes.



The upshot is that we won’t try to muck about on the price and offer him the full asking price with a deposit now and the balance payable on the conclusion of a full engineering report with satisfactory results and view of logs if we can get the aircraft back to Gloucester for Aeros to take a look.

Leland is happy with this and now we need to come up with a few dates and make arrangements to drive the logs separately or something. Hopefully this can happen in a week or two at the outside.

So with luck, I will soon be back into group flying at a far more reasonable £70 an hour zipping around at 130 – 135 knots!

Bimble to Cranfield

Decided to take the Arrow I am hiring from Cotswold on a short landaway just to keep my hand in. This club rental thing has reduced my flying to about once every three or four weeks.

Decided on either Cranfield or Tatenhill, both being fairly local airfields that I have not yet visited. Tossed a coin, and Cranfield won.

I had arranged to take my neighbour with me (my regular flying colleague), and the previous evening, he was ‘yes – tell me when and i’ll be ready’. So we settled on a 08:00 Sunday morning start. I was knocking on his door at said time, then at four minute intervals until 08:20 and out a note through the door on the off chance he woke up.

Got to the airfield just as it was opening, pulled G-OMNI out and gave her the A Check. Waited around until 09:30, still no show from the neighbour, so climbed in and took off.

The Arrow climbs very well indeed with one on board and full tanks and I was soon at 4000’ on a clear, crisp day in the early light. Gloucester were not busy and they handed me on (no freecall – wow!) to Brize as I navigated the VOR from Gloucester to Daventry. I have to say I had my head in the cockpit a lot trying to find my way around the avionics – could I find the DME? Could I buffalo!

At Daventry, gave Cranfield a call. They seemed busy and I was a bit phased by their seemingly brusque question ‘state your business’ – ‘….errrr – just a brief landaway for a £100 bacon sandwich!’.

Told to report at Woburn. I had expected to be routed by their VRP’s as that is what it says in the AIS. So took some speed off and bumbled around the west of Milton Keynes until I was at about the right bearing and distance from the airfield. Not sure I know what Woburn looks like, but I had to be over it, so called my position. Routed for a direct downwind join to 21 with left hand circuits with four in the circuit.

Descended to 800’ QFE, called downwind. Circuit was uneventful and made a nice landing if I say it myself. Yes, these PA28’s are nice to land. Instructed to take the first right exit as someone was pretty close behind. Parked up near the tower beside an HS125 (?) jet.



It was a lovely day until I had to pay the landing fee - £31 odd – OUCH!!! I knew it would be around this and I had put off going to Cranfield until now because of it. Well, I don’t plan to be back here again – not that they will care as Cabair seem to keep them very busy.

Checked out the bacon baps in the Café Pacific. Yep – pretty good. Had a brief wander around the airfield in lovely sunny and clear weather. What a busy place, with more flying schools than you can shake a stick at.

Started up and took off at about 11:15. Same route back. This time I found the DME. I know this sounds silly – how can he not see a DME? Well, when it is combined as a small digital window with a second VOR that is switched on with what looks like a heading bug knob on the VOR itself – that’s how! Phew – big sigh or relief. Now I have both VOR radials and DME readings – EEEH - LUXURY LAD!

Straightforward standard overhead join into Gloucester for 22 right hand circuits. Good approach and, well, if not a greaser like at Cranfield, still a reasonably gentle ‘arrival’.

I spot my neighbour while taxiing in – hard not to see him in his Montreal Canadians hockey shirt! I shut down and tot up the cost – a mere £305 for 0.8 there and 0.9 back (excluding the Cranfield landing fee)! This club hire stuff is killing me.

Oh – apparently its my fault that the neighbour was not up for not ringing to doorbell, shouting, throwing gravel at the window, waiting longer, coming in through the back door etc.!? I did ask if they had this great new invention in Canada yet – we call it the alarm clock! Maybe he just waits for the sound of timber crashing to the ground as beavers get going in the morning!

I am bored writing about such mundane bimbles, but at this price, it's all I can afford for now until the share gets going again.

OK - Now let's get used to this thing!

I was signed off on the club Piper Arrow 2 a couple of weeks ago. Since I trained on PA28’s, most of the handling and instrument placement came back to me quite quickly, but it still felt strange after flying the TB10 for two years.

You don’t realise how quickly the workload drops off when you have your ‘own’ (err group) aircraft and become totally familiar with it – you know where everything is and everything falls automatically to hand – leaving you to focus on flying. Conversely, you certainly do realise how the workload increases when you have to think then search for specific instruments and controls etc.

That’s how it is with the Arrow, well, that and the fact that it is about 25kts faster!

Anyway, decided to give myself a solo general handling. Since it is so much faster, I decided on a longer route for a one hour local. First down the Severn to the bridges, then up the Wye valley to Hereford, over the top of the Malverns, around Bredon hill, a couple of orbits of my village, then set up for an approach to Gloucester.

The weather was forecast to be wonderful sunshine and clear skies. So of course it was overcast with SCT at between 1800’ – 2500’ and OVC at 4000’! You know, the typical ‘high pressure gloom’ that you can get. QNH was 1027.

So set off and settled down. Moments of ‘head in cockpit’ checking and setting various bits, only to look up and realise that the ground had disappeared – oops! Nose down for a bit and ground reappears! If worse came to worse of course, I would have to have climbed on instruments then requested an instrument approach to Gloucester, but didn’t fancy that being both rusty and in an unfamiliar aircraft.



Found myself constantly ‘bumping my head’ on the cloudbase until closer to Evesham, when I could just manage 2500’.

Headed towards my village and slowed the aircraft down to do a few orbits around the outside at 1400’. Spotted that my neighbour (my regular flying companion) had literally just returned from holiday and was waving, so waggled the wings, gave it another orbit, then wandered away to gain height prior to rejoin at Gloucester. Could see a balloon in the distance launching from the racecourse – that’s the balloon festival I was expecting.

Wandered back to Bredon Hill, set myself up, listened to the ATIS and gave Gloucester a call. Would I like a direct approach? Yes, why not. Given direct to 27 report at 3 miles.

Started to slow the aircraft down at 5 miles. At 3 miles, given number 1. With the doughnut nicely in view, completed my pre-landing checks and lowered the gear. Got it nicely set up with some flap, but still pretty high – four whites on the PAPI’s – hmmm. Now about two miles. Pull on all the flap, set to fully fine and throttle back. There goes the doughnut. Its coming in now, three white and one pink, no - make that a red. Now a second pink – nice, power up a bit and hold this. Sometimes I swear I find it easier to land without PAPI’s, it’s too easy to get fixated by what they are telling you.

Can I put it on the number? No forget that, concentrate on giving it the full hold-off treatment and try to touch on the buzzer. Manage a good hold-off with a nice, light touchdown, but no stall horn – oh well! With minimal wind, I just miss the runway intersection (might have made it if I had stomped on the brakes, but why do that?). So I have to trundle to the end and make the long taxi back to stand.

Park up and shut down. Into the club to complete their tech log and charge envelope. OK, got all that. And the bad news is….. total for 1 hour 5 minutes plus one landing is £175 odd! Ouch – this club stuff is going to kill me! The sooner I am back in a share the better!

So what did I learn?

Well, weather pretty murky and didn’t get much of a horizon, but I did get it trimmed nicely and managed to hold the level most of the time (until I put my head in the cockpit that is).

I have definitely got the hang of the ‘Red / Green / Blue’ check on finals and of course how vital it is on a retractable gear aircraft – especially when you are given a ‘direct to final’ join. It would be easy to forget to do the downwind checks – and we all know how missing both checks would end up!

The big difference is the speed. Going from the training PA28’s at 95kts to the TB10 at 105 – 110kts wasn’t too tough speed wise (handling and landing were another matter). But going from 105kts to 130-135kts is a fair old step. It is gratifying how soon your waypoints come up, but it is also alarming how quickly you can be on top of the destination airfield.

All in all, a good flight and feeling on top of the aircraft by the end of it. Yes, I do really like the Arrow 2 as a tourer – a bit agricultural, but nice. All the familiarity of the PA28 with a nice turn of speed and the same fuel burn as the TB10. Of course it is not my ‘dream plane’ (hmmm…. Cirrus SR22, Beech Bonanza….), but as an affordable tourer – yes please!

The next door neighbour is complaining that with one thing and another, he has not been flying with me for nearly six months. So I had better schedule the next local to include him. At these sorts of prices, I think my flying will be in a holding pattern until the insurance is sorted out and I can get into another share.

Back to the skies!

Well, the AAIB and insurance stuff is still going through on poor old G-OFLG. But in the meantime, there is great weather and flying to be done, so it is back to the 'full club rental' route.

This time I decided to switch allegiances from Aeros at Gloucester to Cotswold Aero Club next door. Most of the other part owners of G-OFLG trained at Cotswold, plus I liked their Arrow 2 (rather than Aero's Arrow 4 with the dreaded 'T-tail'), so I put myself down for some training and retractable gear sign off just in time for Cotswold to put the Arrow 2 in for the annual! Well, I managed a low level bad weather trip for half an hour at the end of July just before the annual, with this being my next trip.



Anyway, finally back from the annual this week and I had some time on Sunday, so got the two together and had a check ride with the CFI, Phil Mathews.

At 10:30 on Sunday, it was hot and clear skies, but very murky with lateral visibility given as 4000m. After flapping about learning the intracacies of starting an injected engine both hot and cold and in between etc. got airborne and headed north for some general handling. I am still mentally attuned to hearing my old callsign of G-OFLG so I missed the call to G-OMNI and was just wondering who the idiot was in that aircraft that was not replying when Phil asked if I was going to answer the call! DOH!

Got above the murk at 3000', did a few turns, trimming and various power settings etc. Played with gear extension and the pitch changes to be prepared for, then good old Phil decides what I really need is a touch and go at Croft Farm (Defford) with its 570m grass runway - thanks Phil! - no pressure then!!

Managed the T&G - a lot of fun in the murk. The Arrow shows good short strip capability.

After a bit more fun, we head back to Gloucester with me trying to slow the plane up so it doesn't get ahead of me - this is quick compared to the TB10! Of course on the way in I get mixed up again with callsigns and I start calling myself G-OFLG - I think the tower were cutting me some slack. I join the circuit for 09 Left hand circuits with a standard overhead join. Did one touch and go and got a demo about holding it off in the flare for longer for my pains - the TB10 didn't have anywhere near as much 'float' as this - when the TB wanted to land, it landed! So mentally switched back into PA28 mode (as I trained on them) and vowed to do better next time.

Second circuit was to land. Turned in close on base as another aircraft was close behind and left myself high, but I was impressed how quickly the height can bleed off with the gear down, full flaps and the engine on idle! Re-established the glideslope and came in for a much better hold off landing - ah yes, I remember those from the PA28's!

Back to the hangar and another chat about gear emergencies and starting the engine in various states of warm / cold / flood etc.

Back to the clubhouse and £200 lighter (incl. 6 months membership - ah the joys of club flying!) and I am now signed off for G-OMNI and retractable gear.

What do I think about the Arrow 2? Well, it feels and looks more agricultural than the TB but then it would as it is an earlier generation. I still don't like one door, but at least the wing is on the right way around.

BUT - on the plus side. It is a lot faster with the retractable gear and 200hp engine - giving 130 kts against the TB10's 105 / 110 kts for pretty much the same fuel burn per hour (about 40 litres). The Arrow climbs much better, can lift 100 lbs more load on full fuel and is an easily maintained 'mainstream' aircraft. I have to say while it does not look as pretty as a TB10, I prefer it, as it is a far more capable tourer and would cost about the same to run in a group.

So for now I am stuck with 'clubbing it' until the insurance is sorted out and if the group agrees, to go again as a group and hopefully buy a nice Arrow 2 or 3.

G-OFLG down and out!

Very bad news! Our much cherished TB10, G-OFLG crashed last saturday afternoon and is assessed as being beyond economic repair.

The good news is that the pilot (not me) and passenger are OK, although the pilot got a nasty broken leg and probably needs a bone graft operation. I don't want to write too much about the pilot on an open forum like this I will write about the aircraft instead.

Don't know too much about the accident and not right to speculate, but my colleagues in the group report that the aircraft failed to develop full power on the take off run and crashed on take off.



This is a bitter blow as she was a lovely aircraft with a nice avionics fit and seemed to be running nicely. I flew her the Monday before as recorded in this diary.



One of the group is off to visit the pilot this weekend and of course there is the AAIB and insurance stuff to go through. I just hope that the pilot make a full recovery and we can think where we go from here.

For myself, well accidents happen. There are car accidents every day but people still drive. I will certainly continue to fly. In fact I went up in one of the local club Piper Arrows on Friday and want to get signed off in that. Then I will consider what happen in the group, whether we buy another plane or I see what other groups there are out there.

Austrian Visitor

My sister lives in Vienna and visits the UK from time to time for work / family / friends. This year she is visiting again and specifically asked for another flight in the plane saying “I won’t be as frightened this time because I’ll know what to expect!”.

She has been up before and was gripping the seat at take-off and every time we turned. She was coaxed to hold the yoke only to go into a death grip and pull back causing a sudden climb. After that on a previous flight, it was good that she wanted to try again.

The weather on Monday was not so good cloud in layers, some of it low and occasional spits of rain. Not so bad by late afternoon so I thought we would give it a go. Turned up at the airport to find the new ‘square section’ nosewheel tyre had been fitted (should help to overcome our nosewheel shimmy) and the faulty plug had been replaced (always a bonus).

So gave her a thorough passenger safety brief again and noted that the clouds were starting to break up revealing nice blue bits in between.

Off we went from runway 27 to do some ‘that’s where mum lives – that’s where I live’ type flying, so reasonably low and tight turns. She was so fixed on trying to spot the houses that she didn’t seem to notice the steep turn. Things are looking up!
After the house spotting, climbed over Woolstone Hill to 2900’ initially, trimmed the aircraft and got her nice and settled, then let Linda hold the controls for straight and level pointed at the Malverns. She was better this time, still over controlling and had to get her to relax her ‘death grip’ several times and feel the aircraft and the trim. After prompting, she was holding it within + / - 100’ and generally heading towards the Malverns – not bad at all.



By now the clouds had well and truly broken up into quite scattered at about 5500’ so decided to go up and have a play. Climbed to 5500’ where we were pretty much level with the base and had a nice ‘map like’ view of the ground as relief disappears and the Malverns looked flat.



Well, we had a BBQ waiting and all good things must come to an end, so set course for Gloucester and put the plane into a cruise descent for a rejoin. Gloucester was fairly quiet with only one in the circuit and was given a downwind join for 27 right hand circuits. Decided to make the most of the block landing fee and do one touch and go. The touch and go was very smooth though I say it myself. My next circuit was fine, but with a more ‘normal’ landing – anyway, I managed to stop before the first intersection on 27 and vacate quickly as there was another aircraft not far behind landing off an NDB / DME approach, and the last thing he wanted was to have to do a go around because I was still trundling up the runway to the end!

Anyway, the plane flew very nicely, no trouble with the plugs and no nose wheel shimmy. My sister certainly enjoyed it as well and I think has a far better understanding of the primary and secondary effect of the controls.

Now looking forward to giving the plane a good wash and shammy at the start of August and my trip to Hannover in mid-August.

Flyer Forum Golf Day

As a regular user of a virtual flying club called Flyer Forum, a fly in was proposed to North Weald for Sad Forumites to indulge two passions at one - flying and golf! Why not I thought. I haven't played a single round since 2002 and before that no regular play since 1990! I was assured that they were all fellow 100+ hackers so I should fit right in!

The date was Friday 8th July. Oh! I was down to run in a five mile road race against a fellow shareholder in the plane with a serious meal out riding on the outcome the previous evening - so was flying the next morning to play 18 holes of golf with a flight back such a good idea? No - but lets do it anyway!

Of course you dread taking a days holiday since you will be asked at work 'Are you doing anything nice?' to which you reply 'Yes - I am flying to North London to play golf' - just watch to look on their face as they hastily change the subject and figure you must be being paid waaaayyyyy too much!

The weather in the morning at Gloucester was scattered cloud but lots of warm, sunny bits and what low cloud there was seemed likely to lift into nice puffy 'fair weather cumulus'. My early start was disrupted by the AVGAS tanks being refilled and having to wait 20 minutes for it to settle and the firecrew to test each pump before I could fuel. So I set out later than planned at 09:35 for the hours run to North Weald.

As I passed Bovingdon VOR now at 2300', I could see 'clag' ahead. This didn't worry me as I had to descend to 1400' anyway to dip under the Stansted zoen to get into North Weald. Joined left base for 02 at North Weald and parked up outside 'The Squadron' at 10:40ish.



Of course, no golfers there! After asking about a bit and trying to ring Johnny - still no joy. Wondering what to do next, a taxi appeared, so I collared him and drove around to North Weald Golf Club. Got there about 11:15 and asked at the bar about a group of flyers and was directed to the third tee. Charged over there, spotted 'Johnny' who I recognised and introduced myself and made the foursome up to a fivesome!



As this is a flying diary, I won't overdo the golf bit, but suffice to say we were all hackers, me somewhat more so - but not too awful - a couple of bogeys and no hole more than 10 shotted! My drive of the day saw the ball trickle two feet to come to rest between my feet!

The weather at North Weald was in marked contrast to Gloucester with low clag and rain. But if did improve a bit towards the end of the day and as I had to make a low level scuttle out at 1400' anyway, it didn't bother me.



Scuttled off at about 17:00 keeping below Stansted and London and the further west I got, the more the cloud lifted abnd broke. By Oxford way I was up at 3000' and a happy bunny! Brize Radar were very good this time and gave me a zone transit so I could stay clear of Oxford Kidlington. Back to Gloucester to land on my least favourite runway 36.

A good day out nearly ruined by the great British weather. Oh - and what a nice but under-utilised airfield North Weald is. Hope it survives the current planning discussions going on.

Swedish Guest

I noticed a new member on flyer forum recently, with the catchy handle of ‘Akg1486’, posting a question about flying from Popham as he normally flies from Gothenburg in Sweden.

Well what a coincidence I thought! I had just been mulling around my ‘big trip’ for next year and deciding on a Nordic trip, including trips from Copenhagen to Gothenburg and Gothenburg to Oslo!

So in the spirit of friendship and the prospect of picking a locals brains, I offered this chap a ride around my local area if he could find his way to Gloucester. Well bless him, Peter PM’d me and said he could fly up on Sunday 3rd July, weather permitting.

Peter arrived on a very nice day with at least 3500’ ceiling and scattered puffy cumulus in a rental and very beige Cessna 172. I knew it had to be him from the colour (which he did warn me about) and from his hesitation at taxi around to the parking spaces (the toughest part of a flight to a new airfield for me is always where to go once you get there, how to get fuel etc.!).

We had a pleasant chat sitting at the outside tables at the Aviator café and Peter pointed out on my maps the typical route I should follow, the reporting points, restricted areas, likely joins and best of all, where I would probably have to taxi and park! He made the useful observation that AVGAS is virtually tax free in Sweden (but heavily taxed in Norway and Denmark) so I should make a point of stopping in Sweden going both ways and filling up.

Chat over, I took Peter up in my TB10. I think he found it very tidy indeed compared to the ‘seen better days’ club hacks he normally flew.

Peter finds the UK quite different from flying in his native Sweden. In Sweden, they have lots of lake as reference points (looks like too many to me) and not many towns so the town you are looking for is likely to be the one you see – in the UK of course, especially England, there are towns and villages all over the place and it is easy to talk yourself into confusing Broadway with Evesham with Stratford if you are of a mind!

Flew the local ‘racecourse route’ from Gloucester to Chepstow (taking in the Severn bridges), then up the Wye valley to Hereford, across to Ledbury and around the Malverns then back to Gloucester. Lovely day and great visibility. Pointed out all of the local sights and landmarks and as I now know the area so well from the sky, didn’t need to refer to my map.



On requesting rejoin at Gloucester was told to ‘standby – dealing with priority traffic’. An unusual comment so I stayed schtum! I heard nothing on the normal frequency until they called me back and advised that runway 22 was no longer in use (!) and I was cleared for a standard overhead join for 27 etc. This gave me the opportunity to turn final over GCHQ and point it out to Peter – he thought it was a sports centre at first!

On landing and taxi back, saw the smallest single engine tail-dragger I have ever seen on 22 with the fire crew towing it away – apparently this was on its way from Kemble to ‘ooop north’ when he called for a priority landing with what turned out to be vapour-lock – the engine stopped on the landing roll! All in all, I heard that Gloucester had an exciting time of it on Sunday!

Peter seemed to have enjoyed himself and offered a return of the favour next year when I get to Gothenburg. Careful Peter, I will take you up on that.

All in all, a good excuse to get up for a local bimble and talk to someone about flying. I do find it really useful talking to locals about trips you are planning, it all helps to make the trip so much easier and more enjoyable – to rephrase an old army adage:

Plan and prepare hard – fly easy!

Project Propeller - Kemble

Project Propeller is a very worthy cause where once a year, private pilots volunteer to fly ex-RAF veterans to an airfield location for a get together and back. This was my first year of volunteering.

Unfortunately, the location for the get together was Kemble, barely 15 miles as the crow flies from my homne base at Gloucester and yes, I was allocated two vets to fly them from Gloucester to Kemble.

All the previous week the weather had been glorious, sunny, warm and very little wind - ideakl flying weather (being churlish - perhaps a bit too warm when buttoned up). Of course it couldn't last. A weak cold front followed by an occluded front threated for Friday and Saturday. In the UK you can never be certain of the weather until the actual day (and even then not sure!).

Saturday dawned with horrible visibility and virtually nil cloud ceiling. Anyway, turned up at the airfield as the weather was predicted to slowly improve. Met Darren (the Gloucester ATCO) who was also flying and agreed to do a swap with his vet who was disabled and could not make it into Darren's plane, but could get into mine.

Met the vets and chatted and waited for the weather to improve. One of them was an ex-jet jockey with 4000 hours, many of which were on the Gloster Javelin (an example of which is gate gaurd at Gloucester), another chap told us how he was the only survivor of a crashed Anson).



Lots of calls to Kemble with dire tales of 400' cloud base and 2k visibility. I was pretty sure the weather would gradually improve enough for us to do a short 'scud run' into Kemble later on and offered to drive the vets there, then drive myself back and fly there later to pick them up. They decided to call it a day at around 12:30. A couple of chaps had meanwhile made it in from Turweston and one chap diverted in from Liverpool. At Gloucester it was 1200' ceiling and 9k visibility. Kemble finally gave 600' and 5k and we decided to get airborne and 'have a sniff at the ridge' - if it was no go, could do a low level local then land back at Gloucester.

By now without any vets to fly, but still keen to go along, I set off at about 13:00. Climbed to about 1400' on the QNH and wandered over the the ridge. Found a bit where I could maintain 1400' and crossed the ridge (est 900' QNH). Vis was OK and I was 'bumping into' the base of the cluds, but the ground progressively fell away as I approached Kemble. Got joining information and the QFE and I was 1000' AGL - just perfect for the circuit. Did a left base join for 08 and was marshalled to the Project Propeller tent.

Quite a few vets seemed to have made it and it was a reasonable crowd. I was told 120 aircraft were due, but only 35 made it - hardly suprising given the weather. There was an An2 (Huge single engined Russian biplane) giving the vets rides.



As I didn't have any vets to take back, had a bite to eat and decided to head for home at about 15:15.



Same in reverse really, low cloud, scud running, made it over the ridge at 1500' QNH, then given a crosswind join for 04 back at Gloucester.

The UK can be so frustrating weather-wise! I feel so sorry for the vets and other pilots who had much further to come and for whom the decision would have been much harder. It is a comfort to have the IMC rating since if it came to it, I would have headed into the clouds and run an instrument approach back to Gloucester (no instrument approaches at Kemble). Actually, it looked like a wonderful IMC training day to me!

I will volunteer again next year and pray for the weather!

RAF Cosford Air Show

Decided to fly in to this one some time ago. As the wife doesn't like airshows (she only flies with me if we are ‘going somewhere nice’), I offered a place to the other members of the group. Ed took me up on it, probably on the basis that he served at Cosford when he was in the RAF.

The morning dawned misty, claggy and horrible, but the forecast was not too bad and by the time I got to the airfield and checked the plane out, there were large blue patches between the clouds and they were getting larger!

So took off for the short flight from Gloucester to Cosford, but by the time I was near Worcester, I was flying into the weather and the cloud went solid with me bumping my head on it at 2000’.

Tuned in to Cosford Approach and heard a passing PA28 say he was in IMC at 1400’ just north of Cosford and heading for Shoreham (not a good height to be in IMC I would have thought) – so the cloudbase was obviously worse the further north we went. None of this was a major issue because if push came to shove, I could go ‘on top’ and scoot back to Gloucester and either find a hole in the cloud or do an NDB / DME let down - but it would put paid to the airshow idea.

Anyway, pressed on. We went around Wolverhampton Pan-galactic Spaceport zone to the west and called Cosford for instructions. They were up and about and had just had their first GA arrival of the day, a Beagle, with us second in line. I was given a left base join for 24 with minimal crosswind component. Approaching Cosford and we were forced down to 1400’ by the lowering misty cloudbase, but saw the field easily and slipped in to land.



As I was rolling out to the end of the runway to park, had a strange RT conversation with the tower along the lines of:

TWR: G-LG can you see the helicopter on the NW of the airfield?
G-LG: Affirm (… what’s that got to do with the price of eggs?)
TWR: You are number two behind him
G-LG: Errr - I’m already on the runway and about to be marshalled (… shurly shome mishtake?)
TWR: G-LG disregard…..G-RX….. (… Oooops – wrong callsign!)

Marshalled to park beside the Beagle as the second GA aircraft to arrive, unloaded and paid the crazy fee of £55 odd which included an additional £20 charge (no – not the £7.5m crown indemnity which I already had and faxed them proof of – something else - they vaguely muttered about the EU and new rules!). Oh well.



The airshow was far larger than I expected with god knows how many cars. So we pitched up at the flightline, set up camp and watched the proceedings.

The weather changed as the weak cold front went through and the cloudbase lifted to probably 3 – 4,000’ with excellent visibility – but it did get cold – I mean people wrapping themselves in blankets cold!



I have to say, the highlights of the show for me were the Red Arrows (of course), the Extra 300, the Chinook and the new Typhoon – what an incredible turning circle!





There were about 10 GA aircraft that made it to the flyin, including one very distinctive black and orange Dakota owned by Polly Vacher! Was that you in the red chippie Vince?

Allowed back to our aircraft while the final aircraft was displaying and started the long taxi along the grass past some incredible aircraft to 24. I think I was about the third aircraft away.

Climbed to 3000’ and gave Wolverhampton another wide berth to the west, then set course for Gloucester. Spotted a lovely yellow Beech staggerwing (it too part in the display) south of Wolverhampton at the same height, in my 9 o’clock position on a converging course, probably 1k or so away. We had obviously both seen each other and he pulled gradually ahead then veered right to cross ahead and well in front of me – I would guess heading for Shobdon or Cardiff or whatever. Shame I couldn’t get the camera on it with enough zoom!

Headed back to Gloucester and landed on 27 after a standard overhead join. The good news is that the nosewheel shimmy seems to have been fixed at Enstone and the repaired nosewheel spat is fitted and looks good and the plane seems in really good shape all round.

PS – I must remember that airshows give me a splitting headache and take paracetamol to RIAT Fairford (and you own lunch to avoid ‘captive audience’ prices)!

PPS – Filling in my logbook afterwards, I note that it was on the outbound leg that I clocked up 250 hours TT!

France / Spain Flying Trip

Decided on my 'big trip' for 2005 (well, until the bank balance recovers anyway) to fly down to Spain with a couple of friends on a 'guy trip'. Went with Dan (Canadian next-door neighbour) and Dave (American friend of Dan's) and of course myself (Canadian / British dual national) - there is a joke in there somewhere.

Decided to make a week or so of it, but because I am only IMC rated, had to fly VFR in France and Spain, so very much weather dependant. However, by and large, the weather gods were with us and I did not have to cancel any of the planned flights.

Gloucester to Rouen
As this was a weekday, and it was April, I opted for the 'short sea crossing' and the 'top of London' route. It took a total of 2.7 hours from start up to shut down. This route is of course via the 'altitude and width constrained' route under London TMA and sandwiched between Heathrow, Luton and Stansted - AKA 'Mig Alley'!

Weather was foggy at Gloucester at first, but was clearly going to 'burn off'. Set off in 'low cloud' caused by the lifting fog and got 'on top' by 1000' but all of this cleared once outside of the 'Cheltenham Bowl' anyway. Held 2300' for the London bit and had fun spotting the traffic (I would not be happy doing this route at a weekend when it must be manic!). I had to disengage the 'human auto-pilot' when we spotted opposite direction traffic and had no choice but to fit between a helicopter on one side and a low wing aircraft on the other at a similar altitude - such fun(?). Weather improved and got nice views of Canterbury cathedral and the white cliffs of Dover coasting out.

Rouen is a huge airfield and by the looks of it, massively under-utilised - can't be long before it is discovered by the low cost carriers. Landed on runway 04 after a left hand approach. Cleared customs (by prior notice) and paid the exorbitant landing fee of €10 J. Fuelled both the plane and ourselves (steak avec frites in the airport restaurant). Dan asked for the 'Cheval Steak' assuming it was horse steak (well - they DO eat horses!) and got a pained look from the waiter who explained to this strange chap that spoke some form of French that they do NOT eat horse and that it was a fried egg on top of the steak (‘lahhke aee jock-eeee’ - accompanied by suitable miming gestures). Landing fee a minimal €10.00.



Rouen to Bordeaux
Cracked straight on as planned. Weather good with scattered 'fair weather' CU's at 3500'. Very quiet and few aircraft seen. Crossed the Gironde avoiding the nuclear power station and cleared to approach via reporting points N then NA in turn at Bordeaux at 1500'. I was then cleared for a left downwind join for runway 05 as number 2 to an A320 on 5 mile final.

Bordeaux is a very impressive and busy regional airport, a bit like Birmingham, with lots of 'big boys' and mandatory handling from Air Assistance. Cleared to taxi to Lima (the GA apron) where I joined one other business turbine - I don't think they handle much GA at all at Bordeaux.



Great couple of days with fondue meals, a vineyard trip to Chateau Franc Mayne and lunch in St Emilion etc. Had fun at Dave's expense after we encouraged him to find the way to the town of 'Cedez le Passage' - every signpost referred to it, but we never did find it!



On return, total bill for landing, two nights parking and handling (excellent service by the way from Air Assistance) was €51.00 - crazy money by French standards, but pretty reasonable by UK standards.

Bordeaux to San Sebastian
I was keen to make it to Spain on this trip and set out to good weather. I had planned an inland route, but tried for the coast route through the dreaded R31A1 military area on a weekday on the advice of Flyer Forumites. Headed out to Arcachon at a modest 1500' and contacted Cazaux Military for clearance. He was VERY French and after three 'say agains' it dawned on me that we were cleared only if we could maintain 500' maximum along the coast! However, it was VERY active as we saw jets a few times and I was happy to accept - 500' along the French coast with wide open beaches and sand dunes was too much fun to miss. Needless to say, my height-keeping has improved dramatically as a result!



Cleared through Biarritz along the coast and flew past San Sebastian airport (20 km east of the town) to orbit the actual town a couple of times to get a good look at it. Then returned along the coast and cleared to approach left downwind below the height of the surrounding hills for runway 04. The airport was quite busy with regional commuter turbo-props and a couple of ugly crop sprayers. Landing fee a silly €7!







What a lovely town San Sebastian is. It is clearly still very proud of its Basque heritage. Discovered a potent local beer (Keler) and the very nice local 'green wine'.



San Sebastian to Saumur
Got a good weather forecast from an internet cafe in San Sebastian, and true to prediction, a cold front swept through the night before we were due to go to Saumur. The morning looked OK and was clearing.

The forecast did say PROB 30 TCU and TSRA etc. and got as far as Biarritz when low cloud and rain forced us down to 1500' or so. Couldn't raise Cazaux for clearance for R31A1, so backtracked and cut inland to SAU. Flew through some persistent rain when it started to ease and brighten a bit. Eventually we broke out onto CU's at 2400' with the odd visible small TCU with showers, which we could easily dodge. Routed east around Bordeaux then direct to Saumur.



Again, following advice from Flyer Forumites, I was not surprised to find Saumur Radio unmanned, so orbited the town and determined the wind direction from the wind sock and made blind calls in French for a left hand approach to land on runway 28. Worth noting that they do not accept credit cards for fuel and I had to pay in cash - other than that, they were very helpful and friendly.



Saumur is a lovely town, but we only had one night there as the weather forecast for Saturday was good, but Sunday not so good. We booked into the Hotel de Londres in the town centre (owned by the person who runs the Aero Club at the airfield) and got to see the castle and a bit of the town but that's about it. Saumur warrants much closer inspection on another trip!



Saumur to Le Touquet
Early heavy dew and light fog burned off to scattered CU at 1500', so went 'on top' with sight of the ground through the gaps to 3000'. Passed Le Mans and saw the race circuit with a race in progress. Steered well clear of the nuclear station at Dieppe and routed up the coast. Le Touquet was buzzing and the lady French controller was pretty stressed - a combination of pilots not doing what they were told to do and her clogging the frequency with b*llockings and incongruous detailed taxi instructions.

Seemed to calm down by the time I got there at about 12:45 local and cleared for left hand downwind join for runway 32.

Managed to turn the aircraft and passengers around in one hour flat with customs and re-fuel as I had filed a flight plan for the final leg already at Saumur (as we all know what L2K are like for 'losing' FPL's!).

Le Touquet to Gloucester
Got up to 3500' for the sea crossing and was tempted to climb higher and go VMC on top over the UK, but bottled it coz of the freezing level and went underneath at 2500' most of the rest of the way.

Shoreham and area were very busy. Farnborough Radar was working like a trojan and doing a brilliant job. Lasham was VERY active and warned about an aircraft in my 1200 same altitude at 2 miles - started to weave looking for him when Dave (the back seat passenger) told us how upset he was to miss that great photo of the glider we just passed! Be nice if you told us next time Dave!

Brize claimed to be very busy and refused us FIS unless we were going to transit, so I asked for a zone transit where he gave me 'unknown station wait and remain clear of controlled airspace' - I did think about squeezing between the active South Cerney and the Brize zone (not all that difficult if you know the area) but thought better of it and called Lyneham for a zone transit. They were very helpful and I got between South Cerney and Kemble to return to Gloucester.

Summary
A very good trip with a total of 15.6 flying hours logged and a number of personal flying firsts:

· First flight into Spain
· Furthest I have yet been from home airfield
· First time I have flown two 3 hour legs in one day
· First clearance at 500'
· Visited four new airfields
· First time I have used French position calls

My thanks to the members of Flyer Forum who helped with advice on my postings and it highlights to me the importance of prior planning.

D-Day 60th Anniversary

Having been strangely omitted from the official guest list for the 60th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, Dan decides that he and a colleague of his, Sean, are going to gatecrash and give their Canadian Forces uniforms an airing. How better to get there than be flown in a private plane – OK, actually we had planned it for a few months, but it sounds better the way I’ve just told it.

We already had the hotel booked, Chateau le Chassagne near, well - I’m not sure, but a fair way to the east of Caen and inland from Deauville (as everything closer had been booked for months). The nearest airfield I could use that wasn’t closed for security reasons, was Le Harve, even then I had to formally pre-book.



We set out on Friday from Gloucester. The weather was good, with scattered cumulus at 2500’, so I went ‘on top’ at 4500’.

We crossed the coast at GWC headed directly via SITET to Le Harve. I notice that the clouds below me started to close up and ahead at mid-channel, they look like they have changed in nature and gone ‘solid’. London Information ask warily if I have permission to land at Le Harve. I confirm that I have but they decide to check. They come back and confirm that indeed I have, but the bad news is that the ‘cloud’ I now see is low fog and Le Harve have 300m visibility in fog and are closed at the moment!

Further enquiries confirm my alternates in France are also fog-bound, so I divert to Shoreham. I get distracted on my final approach and make a landing that measures a 7.3 on the Richter scale :-(

We adjourn to the bar at about 12:00 for lunch and of course beer for the passengers (no – that’s fine, you go ahead, I’ll stick with the orange juice!). The forecast is for the fog to move slowly east and clear during the afternoon, so we wait and ring for regular updates.

Meanwhile, Sean and Dan are ‘scooping it up’ at the bar. Dan spots a nice Fosters glass and conceals it in the arm of my windbreaker with a knot tied in the sleeve.



By 16:00 the weather has still not fully cleared in Le Harve, but it is improving fast enough for us to give it a go before Le Harve closes. This time, we get to within 10 miles and are asked to ‘orbit’ by Le Harve who are busy with government officials in various expensive jets shooting instrument approaches. So we orbit, and orbit and orbit – Sean has now gone very quiet in the back. I pester them and we are cleared to approach to five mile – and orbit.

After 20 minutes of holding we are cleared to approach, but they give the cloud base at 600’ above the airfield. I can’t understand this as we are in hazy but clear sky, then the reason become apparent – the fog has lifted to low cloud which starts exactly on the coast and covers inland – the seaward side is fine and clear! I approach at 1000’ on the seaward side of the coast along the cliffs and spot the airfield between the narrow gap between the top of the cliff and the low cloud. The controller helpfully suggests that as I am visual, I can make a low circuit approach and land on the northerly runway with a slight tailwind ‘at my discretion’. So I squeeze the plane between the cliff and the cloud base on the lowest base turn I have ever done, probably 500’ AGL or so. Fortunately, the runway is plenty long enough and the landing is good.

No sooner had I cut the engine, than Sean leaps out of the plane and the reason for his silence becomes apparent – he immediately starts to relieve himself (I swear before his feet even touch the ground!). Meanwhile, an attractive and well dressed French lady is teetering over to where we have stopped! Dan spares her blushes and bounds over to meet her before she see Sean (who is in mid-flow and couldn’t stop to save his life). Turns out she is a ‘meet and greet’ – she is amazed that Canadians have flown ‘all that way’ (she thinks we have come from Canada) in such a small plane!



We clear the terminal and wait for Dan to pick up the hire car and yes, more beer! The hotel book dinner for us in a very nice (but not cheap) local restaurant. Sean is horrified by the bill and proceeds to mop up the sauce from each plate with bread. This is topped off by beer and wine around midnight at the outdoor pool at the hotel. Sean sleeps soundly that night in a shared room with Dan, but Dan is troubled by the sound of rain and sleeps badly (ask him).

On Saturday we head for the Juno beach area and get all the required passes for the next two days, then attend a formal ceremony at the Beny-sur-Mer Canadian military cemetery. The Canadian Governor General was there and nearly spoke to Dan, but a young lad leaped between them – I could see she was disappointed! Dan and Sean meet Canadian Forces colleagues and we are introduced to ‘Smokey Smith’ the only surviving Canadian VC holder.



So on Sunday 6th June, Dan and Sean don their uniforms (yes – they did shrink in-flight) and we drive to Juno beach for the 11:00 we were advised. Just outside Caen, security are turning people away without passes (including actual D-Day veterans – who comment sourly that it was easier to get to the beach in 1944!), but we get through the first checkpoint with our passes. At the checkpoint near the beach, we are stopped again and asked for our special ‘beach passes’ – the ones we have will only allow us to this point apparently. The police relent and ask (with a wink) if we were with the coach in front – a hurried ‘yes’ is sufficient and we are waved on.



Unfortunately, we were given the wrong time, and most of the formal ceremony had already finished, but we saw some of the later events. It was sunny and hot and Sean in particular was suffering in his dark green dress uniform. Having toured the area and met more colleagues, we returned to the car, changed and went back to the beach for a wander, lunch and a few beers.

Following a fly-past by WW2 aircraft, we decide to cool off by going back to the hotel for a swim and freshen up before trying to meet up with their Canadian colleagues in Deauville.

It is at the pool that Dan discovered that his digital camera bounces nicely on tiles, but doesn’t float!

The following day, we head for the airfield, via Honfleur. We stock up on wine at the local ‘Champion’ and are initially delayed by crowds in the town. The cause of the delay was a visit by Queen Elizabeth – she was pretty broken up to have missed Dan! What a lovely little fishing port Honfleur is (mental note – must come back here with the wife). We have a late ‘petit dejeneur’ at the quayside and a wander around the town, then on to the airfield.



The final, unexpected treat was that once airside at Le Harve, laid out in front of us was the Battle of Britain memorial flight, with a Spitfire, Lancaster and a Hurricane (and a spare Dakota DC3). We didn’t have much time, so with the crews permission, had a good look around the Lancaster. I did offer the Spitfire pilot a go in my TB10 if I could try the Spit – but no dice!



A nice uneventful return to Gloucester topped of a really great trip.