Back to claggy old Blighty!

As the RV6 is now back on-line after a protracted annual, I did my group rules flight with an instructor the weekend before last. I did want to do the full hour’s workout so that it would cover my rating renewal due in June, but due to mis-communication, the instructor thought this was just a check on my landings, so didn’t have the necessary time. So I have booked the full hour for the Easter weekend.

While I was at it, I also booked last Saturday morning for a simple bimble. The day dawned and the weather was truly horrible, very low cloud, a good breeze and raining, so even circuits were out. So I changed the booking for the afternoon, when the weather was forecast to improve. Indeed it did, so I made my way to the airfield at 14:00 and met up with my daughter’s boyfriend.



The weather wasn’t great, but the lower cloud layer looked around 1200’ and had firmed up, it wasn’t raining and the wind was modest. So I decided that a local would be fine and if worst came to worst, I could easily scuttle back to the airfield at 1000’. I checked the plane out and gave the canopy a good polish. It was OK-ish for fuel, but very lopsided, with far more in one tank than the other, so I pulled the plane out and taxied over to the pumps to put a few litres in to balance it back up.



Rob clambered in and we buttoned up and taxied over to E1 for runway 22. As I was doing so, the wind seemed to be blowing some rain our way and the clouds being pushed over the airfield looked very misty and drizzly. But in most other directions, the weather looked do-able, so I decided to take-off and stay tight to the airfield to see what it was like. Once airborne, we climbed and at 1000’ I was level with a thin scattered layer. Above that and the next layer looked like it cut in at about 3500’, so I wandered out west a bit where the clouds looked thinnest and with large areas of the ground visible beneath the scattered lower clouds. I levelled out at 1500’ to the west of Gloucester and did a few turns, climbs and descents just for the fun of it.

I tried to decide where to go, but the clouds didn’t seem to open up in any particular direction. I could still see the airfield. Well, we clearly weren’t going anywhere, so I admitted defeat after fifteen minutes and called for a rejoin from a grand distance of five miles from the airfield. I was given a direct join at whatever altitude I could manage to maintain VMC.



It wasn’t anywhere near as dramatic as it may sound, as I was still between layers and could easily see the ground through the scattered lower layer. In any event, at 3 miles to run, I descended to below the lowest scattered layer and managed 800’ as I scuttled back in for a right downwind join for runway 22.

There was a flying school Cessna in the circuit doing circuits, and I tucked in behind them. Th approach and landing were fine as I taxied back after a very short 15 minute flight. Needless to say, the weather on the next day (Sunday) was glorious, such is the luck of the draw in the UK!

The trials and tribulations of licences!

A slim brown envelope arrived for me the other day. With it’s distinctive shape and Canadian government markings, I knew it had to be about my standard Transport Canada private pilot’s licence. Sure enough it was. Turns out that Transport Canada is going to reissue every pilots licence in a new ‘booklet format’, which will amongst other things include, wait for it, a photograph of the pilot!

It seems amazing to me that the JAA / CAA licence is nothing more than a pile of A5 laser printed pages folded in half to make an A6 booklet, many pages of it I might add, and of course without any photograph, so it is stated as only being valid with separate government issued photo id. The FAA licence is much better, but still not perfect. The FAA licence is a plastic credit card type licence, but still lacking the obvious, a photograph! Now it seems that Transport Canada is going to do the sensible thing of including a photograph, but doing it in a very old fashioned ‘passport’ type booklet arrangement. One day, someone is going to put it all together and join the 21st Century and put it all on a plastic credit card with a photo and a chip containing all the information needed – but clearly not just yet!

So, I read the form letter. I have been selected….. (oh goody) ……..yabedi yah……..fill in a simple form available for download from a web address……..(fine)………it will be free of charge (first bit of good news)……oh and it must contain a Canadian style passport photograph and be witnessed by the same category of people listed for a passport application – there’s the kicker!!! Of course that last bit is at my expense. Why won’t they accept a photograph without authentication and simply compare it to your existing passport photograph that the government already has (I have a Canadian passport), well that would be far to simple!

OK, this is going to be a pain and if I don’t do this, the licence gets cancelled in June. So, off to a professional photographer for a Canadian passport photograph (no of course it isn’t the same as a British one!), then get the photographer to stamp, sign and date the back of it. Then take that with the application form to someone on the ‘passport approved’ list of people that can vouch that it is a true likeness of me. You know, people like Doctor, Dentist, Judge, MP, Queen, George Clooney….. Actually, you can also get it signed by Flying Instructors……but of course only those accredited by Transport Canada. If I lived in Canada this would be a breeze, but as I live in the UK, a lot of hurdles.

Only one on that list that has known me for the required two years is the medical examiner that does my pilot exams. So now I need to make a special trip to see him with the application form, approved photo and he has to sign both with a prescribed form of words. Of course I must also pay him. Oh yes, then I send the whole lot to Canada and wait eight weeks. None of this is the end of the world and I do value my Canadian licence enough to go through these hoops, but after this, can you please leave me alone for five minutes? I am sick and fed up with government bureaucracy in all it’s forms, whatever the government!

Here’s a really crazy idea – why don’t flying licences work the same way as driving licences, where most countries recognise other countries licences and simply hand over the keys without further verification. Better still, how about one licence for all countries - me? No hesitation, use the FAA lock, stock and barrel! Yes, I know I'm dreaming!

Just having a rant really. I’ll wander off now and sink a beer or six in front of the TV and fantasise about my trips to Italy and Newfoundland in August!

Flying in the Caribbean

What with the RV6 still ‘out’ (since end of December) for it’s annual (final tweaking to leg struts and spats etc.), I was looking forward to sneaking in a flight with an instructor while I was on a cruise ship holiday in the Caribbean.

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.