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!