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!