I saw a posting on Flyer Forum where the redoubtable ‘Timothy’ was debating whether the demand for him to talk about his solo flight to the north pole was greater in the west country or ‘ooop north’. In all innocence, I posted a reply to say ‘west country please’ and next thing I knew, I ended up organising and publicising it!
Well, it was the least I could do really. I was happy to offer Timothy a place to stay at my house, I am only a 20 minute drive from the airport and have a spare room now my daughter has moved out. So we booked a date, Friday evening 25th July. I liaised with the airfield manager, Darren and he kindly offered the main terminal at Gloucestershire Airport from 19:30, so we booked the time for 19:45.
By way of publicity, I sent ‘Private Mails’ to all the pilots on the Flyer Forum who had Gloucester and Kemble listed as their base. In addition, I liaised with a contact at the LAA Gloster Strut who promised to send details to all of their members. In addition, I spoke to the four main flying clubs at the airfield and they agreed to put an A4 notice I had knocked up on their notice boards.
Timothy said he was already bringing his own PC’s and projectors and only needed screens. I asked Darren if he had any screens, which he didn’t seem, to but being a true gent, he bought one on the airfield account.
I wasn’t certain how many were attending as it was only with the Private Mails that I asked for a positive or negative response. I got 20 ‘definites’ from this, so I assumed the number would be somewhere between 20 and 40 – 20 being ‘respectable’ and 40 being ‘excellent’.
I turned up at the airfield at about 16:30, not because there was anything I could do until the scheduled flight for the Isle of Man left at 18:30, but just to be there with nothing to do! I grabbed a cold can or two and just sat or wandered around watching the planes come and go – am I really sad? I guess so, but this is just my idea of relaxing and kicking back.
At about 18:30 I picked out the distinctive shape of a twin on approach to runway 27. I guessed this was Timothy in his Aztec, so popped out my camera and started snapping away. Sure enough it was him, so I let myself through airside and snapped a couple more of him and Catherine (his hitch-hiker for the trip back from Canada) unpacking. And yes folks, Timothy really does arrange his propellers so that both are 12 – 6 o’clock!
Catherine’s parents were waiting, having driven up from Minehead while I showed them all to the Aviator for a quick bite to eat.
By the time I got to the terminal, it was all set up courtesy of Darren and the fire crew! As the hour approached, a few more people were turning up while I helped Timothy set up. He uses two screens and we only had one, so I pressed a somewhat reluctant flipchart stand into service. He show a map of the journey on one and photos on the other – and very effective it is too!
Eventually, a grand total of 24 assembled, I was hoping for more, but this was OK.
Timothy delivered his talk. For me, the highlights were:
• His obvious awe over the scenery at Svalbard,
• How he went on the trip solo despite having planned on an experienced co-pilot,
• His amusing tale of a low level pass of the ice strip near the north pole with astonished American tourist faces watching some ‘mad Brit’ beat the strip up in a small twin.
• The obdurate radio guy at Resolute who was as helpful as a chocolate fireguard.
There were questions throughout as Timothy indicated that he would prefer it that way. It was an excellent talk and Timothy is an experienced and compelling speaker. When I say that the talk went on until 10:30 without a break, it may sound like a bit of a marathon, but I for one (and I am sure everyone else) hardly noticed the time passing, it was that interesting and dryly amusing in the way that Timothy is.
The talk was concluded with a gratifying round of applause from an attentive and well informed audience.
At the end of the talk, two forumites also based at Gloucester introduced themselves to me. The internet can be strange like that, you have forum conversations with people based at the same airfield as you, but of course you have never met them and wouldn’t know what they look life. Anyway, I finally met GavM and ADP. They asked if Timothy and I would be interested in a pint at the Aviator followed by a ‘play’ in a wrap screen commercial twin squirrel (helicopter) approved simulator!
Well the answer would normally be ‘you bet your ass I would’, but as both Timothy and I needed to be up early the next day (Timothy to get to White Waltham by 09:15 and me to be wheels up hopefully for Deauville at 09:15), I could only spare a little time and asked Timothy if he was OK for this. Well he was, so off we went.
ADP (Adrian) works at this place airside and explained that it was a £300,000 simulator that was used to train commercial pilots and where they would log the time as it counted towards the ratings. Well it certainly looked the real deal. All of the dials were in fact screens all driven by Windows software – I guess it was a toss up what crashed more, the software of the pilots! No, really the software behaved very well.
I have never flown a helicopter and have no idea what the controls are nor how they work. ADP gave me a quick briefing and I was pretty much the first up. I found the take off straightforward enough as was flying it. Really not too tough at all. But coming to the hover and landing – no there’s the trick! Thinking about it, I guess that is the same for flying fixed wing as well.
Anyway, I managed to get it nicely into a vortex ring (whatever that is, but from what the simulator did, it’s bad – a bit like a stall. On the other hand, I did get it out of it, nose down and power on – again’ like a stall recovery. But even with Adrian doing the power, I couldn’t land it and crashed nicely on runway 27 at Gloucester!
The others fared better, but I think they had a bit more experience and if not, then certainly more aptitude! Timothy of course was set up to do a IMC approach on the ILS into Brize, which he did nicely – you can go off a person you know!
Well, we all had a play until about 00:30, when Timothy and I had to make our apologies and take our leave.
It really was an amazing simulator and I think we are all sorry that Adrian is changing jobs in a week or so to go and work for Cirrus. On the plus side, maybe I can swap some rides in the RV6 for some ride in an SR22!
Now that I have met Adrian and Gavin, I am sure I will be in touch and arrange some evening flying or maybe mini-flyouts. The trouble is that I am now pretty much wiped out for August, with a business trip to India from 28th July until at least the 9th August, maybe until 16th August. The off to Canada to see Dan and do some flying for a week on 23rd August.
Still I might squeeze in an evening or two and I have booked two weekends in September. I will have to leave all of the weekends in August to the rest of the group, so I don’t feel particularly guilty.
