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.
