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!

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!

France / Spain Flying Trip

Decided on my 'big trip' for 2005 (well, until the bank balance recovers anyway) to fly down to Spain with a couple of friends on a 'guy trip'. Went with Dan (Canadian next-door neighbour) and Dave (American friend of Dan's) and of course myself (Canadian / British dual national) - there is a joke in there somewhere.

Decided to make a week or so of it, but because I am only IMC rated, had to fly VFR in France and Spain, so very much weather dependant. However, by and large, the weather gods were with us and I did not have to cancel any of the planned flights.

Gloucester to Rouen
As this was a weekday, and it was April, I opted for the 'short sea crossing' and the 'top of London' route. It took a total of 2.7 hours from start up to shut down. This route is of course via the 'altitude and width constrained' route under London TMA and sandwiched between Heathrow, Luton and Stansted - AKA 'Mig Alley'!

Weather was foggy at Gloucester at first, but was clearly going to 'burn off'. Set off in 'low cloud' caused by the lifting fog and got 'on top' by 1000' but all of this cleared once outside of the 'Cheltenham Bowl' anyway. Held 2300' for the London bit and had fun spotting the traffic (I would not be happy doing this route at a weekend when it must be manic!). I had to disengage the 'human auto-pilot' when we spotted opposite direction traffic and had no choice but to fit between a helicopter on one side and a low wing aircraft on the other at a similar altitude - such fun(?). Weather improved and got nice views of Canterbury cathedral and the white cliffs of Dover coasting out.

Rouen is a huge airfield and by the looks of it, massively under-utilised - can't be long before it is discovered by the low cost carriers. Landed on runway 04 after a left hand approach. Cleared customs (by prior notice) and paid the exorbitant landing fee of €10 J. Fuelled both the plane and ourselves (steak avec frites in the airport restaurant). Dan asked for the 'Cheval Steak' assuming it was horse steak (well - they DO eat horses!) and got a pained look from the waiter who explained to this strange chap that spoke some form of French that they do NOT eat horse and that it was a fried egg on top of the steak (‘lahhke aee jock-eeee’ - accompanied by suitable miming gestures). Landing fee a minimal €10.00.



Rouen to Bordeaux
Cracked straight on as planned. Weather good with scattered 'fair weather' CU's at 3500'. Very quiet and few aircraft seen. Crossed the Gironde avoiding the nuclear power station and cleared to approach via reporting points N then NA in turn at Bordeaux at 1500'. I was then cleared for a left downwind join for runway 05 as number 2 to an A320 on 5 mile final.

Bordeaux is a very impressive and busy regional airport, a bit like Birmingham, with lots of 'big boys' and mandatory handling from Air Assistance. Cleared to taxi to Lima (the GA apron) where I joined one other business turbine - I don't think they handle much GA at all at Bordeaux.



Great couple of days with fondue meals, a vineyard trip to Chateau Franc Mayne and lunch in St Emilion etc. Had fun at Dave's expense after we encouraged him to find the way to the town of 'Cedez le Passage' - every signpost referred to it, but we never did find it!



On return, total bill for landing, two nights parking and handling (excellent service by the way from Air Assistance) was €51.00 - crazy money by French standards, but pretty reasonable by UK standards.

Bordeaux to San Sebastian
I was keen to make it to Spain on this trip and set out to good weather. I had planned an inland route, but tried for the coast route through the dreaded R31A1 military area on a weekday on the advice of Flyer Forumites. Headed out to Arcachon at a modest 1500' and contacted Cazaux Military for clearance. He was VERY French and after three 'say agains' it dawned on me that we were cleared only if we could maintain 500' maximum along the coast! However, it was VERY active as we saw jets a few times and I was happy to accept - 500' along the French coast with wide open beaches and sand dunes was too much fun to miss. Needless to say, my height-keeping has improved dramatically as a result!



Cleared through Biarritz along the coast and flew past San Sebastian airport (20 km east of the town) to orbit the actual town a couple of times to get a good look at it. Then returned along the coast and cleared to approach left downwind below the height of the surrounding hills for runway 04. The airport was quite busy with regional commuter turbo-props and a couple of ugly crop sprayers. Landing fee a silly €7!







What a lovely town San Sebastian is. It is clearly still very proud of its Basque heritage. Discovered a potent local beer (Keler) and the very nice local 'green wine'.



San Sebastian to Saumur
Got a good weather forecast from an internet cafe in San Sebastian, and true to prediction, a cold front swept through the night before we were due to go to Saumur. The morning looked OK and was clearing.

The forecast did say PROB 30 TCU and TSRA etc. and got as far as Biarritz when low cloud and rain forced us down to 1500' or so. Couldn't raise Cazaux for clearance for R31A1, so backtracked and cut inland to SAU. Flew through some persistent rain when it started to ease and brighten a bit. Eventually we broke out onto CU's at 2400' with the odd visible small TCU with showers, which we could easily dodge. Routed east around Bordeaux then direct to Saumur.



Again, following advice from Flyer Forumites, I was not surprised to find Saumur Radio unmanned, so orbited the town and determined the wind direction from the wind sock and made blind calls in French for a left hand approach to land on runway 28. Worth noting that they do not accept credit cards for fuel and I had to pay in cash - other than that, they were very helpful and friendly.



Saumur is a lovely town, but we only had one night there as the weather forecast for Saturday was good, but Sunday not so good. We booked into the Hotel de Londres in the town centre (owned by the person who runs the Aero Club at the airfield) and got to see the castle and a bit of the town but that's about it. Saumur warrants much closer inspection on another trip!



Saumur to Le Touquet
Early heavy dew and light fog burned off to scattered CU at 1500', so went 'on top' with sight of the ground through the gaps to 3000'. Passed Le Mans and saw the race circuit with a race in progress. Steered well clear of the nuclear station at Dieppe and routed up the coast. Le Touquet was buzzing and the lady French controller was pretty stressed - a combination of pilots not doing what they were told to do and her clogging the frequency with b*llockings and incongruous detailed taxi instructions.

Seemed to calm down by the time I got there at about 12:45 local and cleared for left hand downwind join for runway 32.

Managed to turn the aircraft and passengers around in one hour flat with customs and re-fuel as I had filed a flight plan for the final leg already at Saumur (as we all know what L2K are like for 'losing' FPL's!).

Le Touquet to Gloucester
Got up to 3500' for the sea crossing and was tempted to climb higher and go VMC on top over the UK, but bottled it coz of the freezing level and went underneath at 2500' most of the rest of the way.

Shoreham and area were very busy. Farnborough Radar was working like a trojan and doing a brilliant job. Lasham was VERY active and warned about an aircraft in my 1200 same altitude at 2 miles - started to weave looking for him when Dave (the back seat passenger) told us how upset he was to miss that great photo of the glider we just passed! Be nice if you told us next time Dave!

Brize claimed to be very busy and refused us FIS unless we were going to transit, so I asked for a zone transit where he gave me 'unknown station wait and remain clear of controlled airspace' - I did think about squeezing between the active South Cerney and the Brize zone (not all that difficult if you know the area) but thought better of it and called Lyneham for a zone transit. They were very helpful and I got between South Cerney and Kemble to return to Gloucester.

Summary
A very good trip with a total of 15.6 flying hours logged and a number of personal flying firsts:

· First flight into Spain
· Furthest I have yet been from home airfield
· First time I have flown two 3 hour legs in one day
· First clearance at 500'
· Visited four new airfields
· First time I have used French position calls

My thanks to the members of Flyer Forum who helped with advice on my postings and it highlights to me the importance of prior planning.

D-Day 60th Anniversary

Having been strangely omitted from the official guest list for the 60th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, Dan decides that he and a colleague of his, Sean, are going to gatecrash and give their Canadian Forces uniforms an airing. How better to get there than be flown in a private plane – OK, actually we had planned it for a few months, but it sounds better the way I’ve just told it.

We already had the hotel booked, Chateau le Chassagne near, well - I’m not sure, but a fair way to the east of Caen and inland from Deauville (as everything closer had been booked for months). The nearest airfield I could use that wasn’t closed for security reasons, was Le Harve, even then I had to formally pre-book.



We set out on Friday from Gloucester. The weather was good, with scattered cumulus at 2500’, so I went ‘on top’ at 4500’.

We crossed the coast at GWC headed directly via SITET to Le Harve. I notice that the clouds below me started to close up and ahead at mid-channel, they look like they have changed in nature and gone ‘solid’. London Information ask warily if I have permission to land at Le Harve. I confirm that I have but they decide to check. They come back and confirm that indeed I have, but the bad news is that the ‘cloud’ I now see is low fog and Le Harve have 300m visibility in fog and are closed at the moment!

Further enquiries confirm my alternates in France are also fog-bound, so I divert to Shoreham. I get distracted on my final approach and make a landing that measures a 7.3 on the Richter scale :-(

We adjourn to the bar at about 12:00 for lunch and of course beer for the passengers (no – that’s fine, you go ahead, I’ll stick with the orange juice!). The forecast is for the fog to move slowly east and clear during the afternoon, so we wait and ring for regular updates.

Meanwhile, Sean and Dan are ‘scooping it up’ at the bar. Dan spots a nice Fosters glass and conceals it in the arm of my windbreaker with a knot tied in the sleeve.



By 16:00 the weather has still not fully cleared in Le Harve, but it is improving fast enough for us to give it a go before Le Harve closes. This time, we get to within 10 miles and are asked to ‘orbit’ by Le Harve who are busy with government officials in various expensive jets shooting instrument approaches. So we orbit, and orbit and orbit – Sean has now gone very quiet in the back. I pester them and we are cleared to approach to five mile – and orbit.

After 20 minutes of holding we are cleared to approach, but they give the cloud base at 600’ above the airfield. I can’t understand this as we are in hazy but clear sky, then the reason become apparent – the fog has lifted to low cloud which starts exactly on the coast and covers inland – the seaward side is fine and clear! I approach at 1000’ on the seaward side of the coast along the cliffs and spot the airfield between the narrow gap between the top of the cliff and the low cloud. The controller helpfully suggests that as I am visual, I can make a low circuit approach and land on the northerly runway with a slight tailwind ‘at my discretion’. So I squeeze the plane between the cliff and the cloud base on the lowest base turn I have ever done, probably 500’ AGL or so. Fortunately, the runway is plenty long enough and the landing is good.

No sooner had I cut the engine, than Sean leaps out of the plane and the reason for his silence becomes apparent – he immediately starts to relieve himself (I swear before his feet even touch the ground!). Meanwhile, an attractive and well dressed French lady is teetering over to where we have stopped! Dan spares her blushes and bounds over to meet her before she see Sean (who is in mid-flow and couldn’t stop to save his life). Turns out she is a ‘meet and greet’ – she is amazed that Canadians have flown ‘all that way’ (she thinks we have come from Canada) in such a small plane!



We clear the terminal and wait for Dan to pick up the hire car and yes, more beer! The hotel book dinner for us in a very nice (but not cheap) local restaurant. Sean is horrified by the bill and proceeds to mop up the sauce from each plate with bread. This is topped off by beer and wine around midnight at the outdoor pool at the hotel. Sean sleeps soundly that night in a shared room with Dan, but Dan is troubled by the sound of rain and sleeps badly (ask him).

On Saturday we head for the Juno beach area and get all the required passes for the next two days, then attend a formal ceremony at the Beny-sur-Mer Canadian military cemetery. The Canadian Governor General was there and nearly spoke to Dan, but a young lad leaped between them – I could see she was disappointed! Dan and Sean meet Canadian Forces colleagues and we are introduced to ‘Smokey Smith’ the only surviving Canadian VC holder.



So on Sunday 6th June, Dan and Sean don their uniforms (yes – they did shrink in-flight) and we drive to Juno beach for the 11:00 we were advised. Just outside Caen, security are turning people away without passes (including actual D-Day veterans – who comment sourly that it was easier to get to the beach in 1944!), but we get through the first checkpoint with our passes. At the checkpoint near the beach, we are stopped again and asked for our special ‘beach passes’ – the ones we have will only allow us to this point apparently. The police relent and ask (with a wink) if we were with the coach in front – a hurried ‘yes’ is sufficient and we are waved on.



Unfortunately, we were given the wrong time, and most of the formal ceremony had already finished, but we saw some of the later events. It was sunny and hot and Sean in particular was suffering in his dark green dress uniform. Having toured the area and met more colleagues, we returned to the car, changed and went back to the beach for a wander, lunch and a few beers.

Following a fly-past by WW2 aircraft, we decide to cool off by going back to the hotel for a swim and freshen up before trying to meet up with their Canadian colleagues in Deauville.

It is at the pool that Dan discovered that his digital camera bounces nicely on tiles, but doesn’t float!

The following day, we head for the airfield, via Honfleur. We stock up on wine at the local ‘Champion’ and are initially delayed by crowds in the town. The cause of the delay was a visit by Queen Elizabeth – she was pretty broken up to have missed Dan! What a lovely little fishing port Honfleur is (mental note – must come back here with the wife). We have a late ‘petit dejeneur’ at the quayside and a wander around the town, then on to the airfield.



The final, unexpected treat was that once airside at Le Harve, laid out in front of us was the Battle of Britain memorial flight, with a Spitfire, Lancaster and a Hurricane (and a spare Dakota DC3). We didn’t have much time, so with the crews permission, had a good look around the Lancaster. I did offer the Spitfire pilot a go in my TB10 if I could try the Spit – but no dice!



A nice uneventful return to Gloucester topped of a really great trip.