I asked for advice on the ever reliable Flyer Forum, and several contributors pointed me either at Barbados Flying Club, or a chap named David Hart who rented out his own plane on Antigua. After discussions with the wife, she agreed that Antigua would be best.
I called David about six weeks before the holiday and he just asked that I call him ‘when I was there’. So I called him again once I started the cruise. He put it on his calendar and just said to call again the day before.
So the day before I got in touch again and made arrangements. We were to meet at the stairs near departures by the toilets at VC Bird International Airport in Antigua at 10:00 on 4th March. Well we met up about 15 minutes after the appointed time by the usual but somewhat imprecise ‘are you David Hart?’ Q&A method for anyone that looked likely. I didn’t actually ask a very scruffy Rasta-type character with a stained T-shirt and flowing dreadlocks smoking something that smelled very suspicious who was actually sitting on the stairs, all the time thinking to myself ‘nah – surely not!’, but as the clock ticked to 10:10 I was starting to wonder!
He had previously asked me to bring my licence and when I offered it to him, he looked at the cover and said that was fine. I was kind of expecting a pre-flight brief with maps etc. but he casually asked what I wanted to do. Well, Monserrat would have been nice, but in the end I asked to do a leisurely around Antigua tour, which he said would take just over an hour anyway.
Well, no briefing as we passed through departures security (yes we were scanned, but that was all as David is well known at the airport and simply said we were going for a local) and walked straight out the plane near the end of runway 25.
VC Bird Airport is the only airport on Antigua (although I have heard there is another airstrip, but I can’t seem to find it). It is pretty small, but the runway is big enough for large jets flying direct from the UK, the likes of BA, Virgin etc. There is one runway of 2700m in length aligned 07 / 25. The apron is pretty small and David explained that it was chaos on two or three set days of the week, this not being one of them, so it was pretty empty and very quiet when I was there.
David did the pre-flight checks as I did a quick visual check of the plane myself. It looked in very good shape. It has recently been repainted and seemed well maintained albeit with a fairly dated, but IFR-compliant instrument fit.
I put my wife in the back, while I loaded up followed by David in the right-hand seat. I used an old checklist I used to use on PA28’s while training to do the pre-start checks and asked David about any differences he may operate for such hot weather use. It was a balmy 30 degrees centigrade and we get hot very quickly! Apart from that, the weather was scattered cumulus that hangs above pretty much every island, although is was a bit hazy that day, with no distinct horizon out to sea (fairly typical of the channel actually), but otherwise, visibility was fine, just not perfect for photographs.
I was happy to agree that David should handle the radio as the local accents were a bit hard on me, while I would fly the plane and David would let me do what I wanted when I wanted. On start up, there was a bit of a hiccough as the brakes on the passenger side weren’t working at all, despite a shutdown, some fiddling and pumping of the handbrake, David’s brakes were still not working. I commented that mine were fine and demonstrated. He decided that it must be just the passenger side and opted to continue, I was happy since I was used to using the brakes very rarely on the RV anyway.
We taxied out to 07 to do the power checks while the windsock said there was a ‘perfect’ crosswind (pretty much 90 degrees to the runway) from right to left with what I guessed would be 20kts – oh goody!
We were cleared for take off. David advised that I use two stages of flap (not something I would normally do) but yeah, fine. I positioned on the runway and applied full power with a lot of into wind aileron. We picked up speed slowly (compared to the RV6) but normally for a PA28 and I rotated smoothly at 60 kt IAS. We climbed away as I tweaked the rudder and ailerons to maintain centreline. I cleaned up during the climb as usual and we levelled out at 1500’.
The request to ATC was for a clockwise tour of the island, so I duly did a right turn and ran parallel to the coast. Unfortunately, this aircraft does not have intercom connections for the back seat, so my wife was sat in the back seat with headsets on acting purely as ear defenders.
Initially, I found that I was losing altitude, in part because David runs his engine at a touch under 2400 rpm and in part me being subconsciously used to the much lower ‘picture’ I was used to flying straight and level in the RV6. I soon got over that as we started a bimble.
David was pointing out the geographic features and the houses of the various stars, including Silvio Buslesconi, Elton John, Eric Clapton – each was of course buzzed dutifully in turn, but no one was in!
The marina at English Harbour looked particularly interesting, as did the nearly ‘Nelson’s Dockyard’. Mental note to visit there after the flight.
David called for clearance when crossing the extended centreline of the runway, but there was no traffic so no problem. The flying was easy, but we did pick up some chop at various points due to the local effect of some of the hills. A few steep turns for better camera angle and ‘one handed’ photographs by me made for some fun if unconventional flying. I was amazed at the colours of the sea, with the various shallow sandy bottom bits, coral reefs, deep water etc. Fantastic turquoise colours that the photographs struggle to do justice to.
We then came to the deep water harbour for Antigua at St Johns. There were four cruise ships at anchor, including of course the one that I was on, so a couple of orbits were in order for more photographs.
We then called for clearance to pass the upwind end of the runway for the final bit of the bimble, which we did an orbit for as a passenger jet was taking off and climbing out. When we saw it was clear we proceeded.
I did a bit more of the island coast and said I was happy that we had seen everything. David called for a rejoin and we were given a right base join for runway 07 with the wind at something like 140/20 – nice! So of course I left it a bit late to turn a long-ish final and like a novice wound up to the left of the centreline, but I put that right, dropped the power, put two stages of flaps on and we were well high for the piano keys, but as we wanted to be at the other end, I was aiming further down the runway anyway. David chipped in that I should avoid the piano keys and the first third of the runway anyway due to a hill on the right at that end of the runway, which with this wind would give some pretty interesting chop and sink!
Even with my aiming point, I was still high, so pulled on the drag flaps and pretty much chopped the power altogether and did in effect a glide landing, with the nose well off to the right to allow for the crosswind.
In the flare I kicked her straight and put in quite a bit of into wind aileron to hold the runway heading and we touched in a ‘firm but fair’ landing, which in the conditions, I was pretty happy about. David seemed pretty happy too - at least I think he was as he managed to prise his hands away from his eyes at this stage and started breathing again (only kidding – no, really!).
We parked up and packed up. In the end it was 1.3 hours logged start-up to shutdown. David escorted us through an empty arrivals and we were waved through. We were saying our goodbyes when I reminded him that he probably wanted paying for the flight. It came out to $US 220 – not fabulously cheap, but certainly value for money as far as I was concerned. A great flight with wonderful scenery.
