Ireland North and South

Isle of Man - Newtonards 15 Apr 17

We want to go somewhere a little more serious than Cherbourg or Blackpool, so Ireland or Holland beckons.

Southern Ireland / Eire is blighted by requiring 24 hours Prior Notice (Waterford or Dublin Weston) or a £20 landing fee but a £500 handling fee (Dublin).
Ridiculous.

Our thoughts lead us to Belfast Newtonards, and as we are passing the Isle of Man (Ronaldsway) I think we will drop in there first.

This makes for interesting GARs, as we are effectively leaving Britain by flying to the Isle of Man, then re-entering it by flying to Belfast.

Fortunately, we can now use onlinegar.com which is quite simply the greatest recent improvement in aviation (SkyDemon's ability to create flight plans comes a close second...).

Skydemon on the iPad has an annoying feature of always displaying its time and ETA at next turning point in UDT, whereas just above it is the iPad clock which is displaying Local Time. This has caught me out before.

We're taking Tom (now my eldest daughter's fiancé) and Kieran (youngest daughter's boyfriend). While the girls do Wedding Dresses, the Boys will have a Day Out.

On with the lifejackets, explain how to use the liferaft and about shoving shoes in the door hinges before ditching, then we'll start up and depart.

It's quite windy, and my mind is full of Ronaldsway crosswind components as we roll on 19, so I pull it off the ground flapless at 45Kts which is not clever, as the stall warner buzzes and we start to drift off over the grass not reaaly flying. Yoke sharply forward and the aircraft reluctantly flies but it feels messy, uncontrolled and unprofessional. Not a great start.

Depart via a right turn to the North West and remain below the clouds at around 3,000ft until it starts to get bumpy as we approach Wales, so we climb up through the scattered bits to smooth air on top at 7,000ft. It closes up as we head in to Wales, then abruptly stops at Colwyn Bay as we coast out in to bright blue sky and fabulous views.

Wales recedes and we swap from London Info to Ronaldsway Approach, descend for a Left Base and look for runway 26. In my defence, I haven't flown there before and I was assuming it was up in the hills, so it takes Kieran and Tom pointing before I finally do spot Runway 26 there outside the left window, roll left and we're set up for Final.

It's windy and bumpy, so I have to concentrate as we roller coaster our way down the approach, but it's stable and the landing is smooth.

We are instructed to exit Left to taxiway C and D and into area Whisky which is the GA parking, where we are met by a very nice man at Isle of Man Flight Training, who points us at the restaurant who look like they do a mean lunch, although this visit we only have tea and Cokes.

Back at the flight school the published £19.40 (minus 20% for cash) landing fee somehow turns in to £50.18. Never mind, he was very pleasant, but £30.78 pleasant?

Yet another example of the aviation infrastructure making charges up as they go along...

Our phones tell us we are abroad (huh?) and Kieran's welcomes him to Guernsey, which is just wrong....

When I was young the TV and newspapers were full of British Army Land Rovers and Ulster Constabulary riot Police attempting to maintain order in Northern Ireland, Ian Paisley shouting in to a loud-hailer about something he "wouldn't allow the Catholics ever to do" (all of which, of course, they eventually did do...) and, let's face it, Martin McGuiness shooting people.

Let's just say my view of Northern Ireland is a little "coloured" by this... Will I need a flak jacket?

We climb out from Ronaldsway in bright sunshine and it's smooth until we reach 1,000ft at which point the North Westerly winds try quite hard to tip us over. I'm wise to these mountain turbulence issues now and I make sure I've got plenty of speed, no flap, we're not above 109Kts (the rough air manouvering speed of a C182) and then the wind can do what it will, my seatbelt is on. Bring It On.

It clears up as we climb out over the sea and we can see Ireland immediately ahead in the haze. Ronaldsway suggest we contact Belfast "mid-channel", so we guess the approximate mid-point and Belfast tell us to report coasting-in for Newtonards.

Newtonwards is right on Strangford Louch in the North West corner, so the moment we coast in we coast out again and swap to Newtonards who suggest runway 33, and we make blind calls from there on in.

Runway 33 is short and looks shorter, with buildings and a hill behind it. Concentration and accuracy required. We opt for a long straight-in and a very Irish voice flying a C172 behind us tells us he is visual and that yes, indeed, we are extremely long Final, and he will orbit a bit before following us in.

There is no shame in being nervous, I've not been in here before.

As we sink in on full flaps it's very gusty, and we lose lift over the seawall but it's all under control and we touch....and touch again for a gentle arrival on the centre-line, solid braking and we call backtracking, exit at the intersection with R21 and taxy in. We hear the C172 landing behind us as we arrive at the pumps and stop for some Northern Irish hospitality.

Our friendly C172-wielding Instructor meets us at the pumps and we apologise for holding him up on Approach. They're all wonderfully friendly here, not wearing flak jackets and keen to hear about where we've come from and where we're going, what we'd like for lunch and so on. I notice that when referring to plural "you" they says "you's", which is a little confusing, but we are in Ireland.

We end up having the most beautful chicken goujon burgers and Cajun wedges which are very spicy and quite delicious. 10/10, Ulster Flying Club.

Replete, we enjoy the amenities and discuss our options. They are all keen for us to go up the North coast and fly over the Giants Causeway, which I think we might just do. My main concern is Kieran and Tom feeling ill, as it is quite bumpy today, but they seem keen and we have sick bags, so let's go.

They write us a note with some names on it for getting clearance on the way and I ask Tom to hold it up in the cockpit so I can quote these random names at ATC. I'll never remember them!

We borrow their PC for an AFPeX flight plan (I might use Skydemon in future) and we fire up and taxy down 21 for 33, stopping to watch a PA28 as it comes in for a touch and go. He is lighter than us and is all over the place in the wind, but gets it right and climbs out again.

This blind calls lark works well, we simply listen then when no one is coming in backtrack 33 and turn for departure, calling as we go.

Now this is serious: 33 is short, we're at MAUW as I want plenty of fuel to get home, and all I can see ahead of me is a hill covered in houses. Nowhere to go if the engine quits.....

20° flaps, hold it on the brakes as previously practised, release and roll. At 45Kts we're in the air; a gentle push brings us to 55Kts and we're climbing with room to spare. Any engine issues, however, and we're turning back: I'm not going in to these houses.

As we climb the terrain climbs with us so it feels like we're only in level flight but at last we breach the top of the hill and turn North. Fields! Nice big, green, gliding distance fields....

Lose 1 stage of flap then do the ATC bit, reading from my cheat sheet.
Cue peals of laughter: "Ah, youre the guys with the flight plan..."
The Flight Plan holds a number of Lat & Long coordinates heading up to the Giants Causeway and they are completely flummoxed by it. When I explain I want to go up to the Giants Causeway they reply "oh, go wherever you want below 2,000ft...".
I like Northern Ireland.

However the radio now goes all buzzy like it did before and no amount of microphone disconnecting can shut it up so I switch to COM2 and simply reboot the GNS430W.
Ah, that cured it. A little bit of IT knowledge fixes most things.

We scoot under their zone North West and head for the Giants Causeway. The scenery is fantastic, very like Scotland, but it's bumpy until we get round the headland and descend for a better view.

The countryside is deserted, except for busloads of tourists at the Giants Causeway. Better view from up here!

We then turn inland and climb to clear the hills back towards Belfast. We can see Scotland to our left and it gets clearer and a lot smoother as we route away from Northern Ireland back towards the Northern tip of the Isle of Man.

As the tip appears ahead we turn just slightly North to clear the gliding sites and then back on course. No one is gliding today. I wouldnt glide off the Isle of Man, there's nowhere to land...

We are advised by Ronaldsway Approach of oncoming traffic, which sounds like "Tornado" but turns out to be a Tobago. A Tornado would have been more exciting.

Between the Isle of Man and Fleetwood is mainly windfarms: there are hundreds of them out here in neat rows.

Eventually Fleetwood emerges from the haze and we descend for a low pass down Blackpool sea front. Blackpool are happy for us to pass under their take-off path as no one is flying today! Warton have gone home for the weekend so we are free to route direct to the Manchester low-level route from here.

I've done this route a couple of times and sweated both the radio and the height-holding, but now there's a Manchester low-level route listening squawk, I have Alt Hold on the autopilot and we have a huge following wind so a 168Kts groundspeed; nearly 200mph. It's over in a few bumpy minutes and no one is flying today!

Tom and Kieran are both football fans (not really my idea of fun, but whatever floats your boat...) so have managed to photograph 6 major league football stadiums in the last 20 minutes. It's grim Up North.

Climbing out South we squawk VFR and Tom flies us home via Wolverhampton Halfpenny Green. It's fast and bumpy, but smoother at 3,500ft than at 1,000ft. As we pass Birmingham I can get Oxford's ATIS (just how powerful is that radio?) which tells us the wind is now 290° 18Kts gusting 24Kts. Looks like a runway 29 day....

At 27 miles Oxford wants to talk to us as we have now overrun our VFR flight plan by a good margin, and are happy that we are within range and heading in the right direction. We ask for R29 and there is a short silence while they confer: you would have thought that given the conditions they would have expected the request but no, they have to get the runway inspected first so we orbit over the back end of Blenheim Palace's grounds while they get Rover 2 out of his warm, comfy tea chair. Poor bastard, I know how he feels.

At length me and an orbiting Cessna 340 are cleared in for R29. He lands and we roll left base, slow up and I think we'll go full-flap here. Slow to 65Kts, lots of bumps but no crosswind component whatsoever so we slide down and drop on neatly. Positive braking stops us before the 01/19 Stop bars, but the approaching Cessna on 19 goes round anyway... fair enough.

We ask for and get a backtrack to the apron, where they decide we should be on the grass. The fact that we pay for a tarmac apron slot cuts no ice, and I'm not going to argue with them. I've flown nearly 6 hrs and I'm knackered.

Bournemouth - Kerry - Bournemouth July 17

I've never been to Eire and never drunk a proper Irish pint of Guiness, a state of affairs that needs rectifying.

Waterford is booked solid so we'll go further West: to Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula with Lucy and her fiancé Tom who we'll pick up from Bournemouth on the way.

Kerry (Farranfore) has a reputation for being socked-in a lot of the time with low cloud and rain, so the only reliable way in is via an Instrument Approach, at least part of the way. But the UK IR(R) is not valid in Eire: apparently Irish mountains are somehow different from English mountains. What to do, what to do....

We are very constrained on time: Lucy's work will not release her before 4:00pm; honestly, she's treated like a small child. Manage by results, not by attendance! So we cannot get going until probably 5:00pm by the time she has got to Bournemouth and we've saddled up. Kerry closes at 8:15pm and with the forecast Westerly wind we're looking at 2hrs 50 mins flight time. It's tight.

The kind Europcar man has agreed to stay late at Kerry, so we'll try for that, but if we end up in Shannon, so be it.

Having alternate plans reduce ones' flying stresses enormously and are well worth thinking about.

Nessie and I can take a leisurely approach to getting the aircraft going - getting the fuel just right (full tanks out of Oxford gives us 71USG on take off from Bournemouth, with 4 up and the raft but no cover we're bang on the increased MAUW of 3110lbs giving us 1 hr reserve at the far end, enough to divert to Shannon or Cork, both H24).

I am very worried about the aircraft starting from cold, I believe there is a corroded lead somewhere and the initial crank is painfully slow.

As we prepare the aircraft we watch a C182 land on runway 19. He lands main wheels only, bounces on to the nose wheel only, then main wheels only, then nose wheel only... How to damage the firewall!

Bournemouth takes 37 mins, they're quiet and a Right Base plus a gusty Final gets us on the ground. We taxy in to Bliss Aviation and are marshalled by two people in hi-viz vests. One is about 15 and is on Work Experience! I'd have given my left nut to do work experience at Oxford in 1979, times must be improving.

We are fleeced (£65, seriously?) but they do have WiFi so I can file a Flight Plan direct from SkyDemon and when we call the Tower 2 minutes later they confrim they have it. Pretty good.

Lucy arrives, I cross my fingers and she starts perfectly. It must be cold starting that is the issue.

Our Flight Plan has us departing Bournemouth at 1700 Local and at 1658 we are at the holding point for the runway. If my calculations are correct we will be on the ground at Kerry at 1951 Local.

There is a RyanAir departure taxiing up for departure and I assume an immediate departure as we are nimble and quick and can be gone in a moment, but no: they make us Hold for it, then 3 arriving light aircraft, so we aren't cleared to depart until 1722. We're going to be late....

As we depart Bournemouth heavy, I'll let the speed build on the ground to 75Kts as we've loads of runway then ease her off gently. The rate of climb is not exactly stratospheric at MAUW but we're off and climbing, heading North West.

Yeovilton LARS are active despite it being late Friday afternoon, and contrary to the published NOTAM, the RA(T) for the Red arrows to come down from Scampton in is still active, so we divert to the South West to stay outside, then curve round towards Cardiff. More delays....

Slowly the weather begins to deteriorate (doesn't it always over South Wales?).

We're being bumped around a bit under the clouds at 3,000ft so we climb up through to 4,000ft where it's bright sunshine and a lot smoother, talk to Cardiff and cruise out over the Bristol Channel and up towards The Gower Peninsula and our appointment with Strumble Head, the last bit of Wales before you head off for Ireland.

The shortest transit between Britain and Ireland is between Strumble Head and Waterford, so that's our planned route.

As we coast out I give London Info our heading, height and ETA at the FIR boundary so if we hit the sea before reaching Shannon's radio coverage they will have a pretty good idea of where to come looking for us.

With a headwind our ETA is slowly slipping backwards: even at full power we're doing an indicated 135Kts but only 118Kts across the ground.

SkyDemon kindly subtracts one from the other and gives us the local wind of 20Kts on the nose. Yuk.

Over the Irish Sea the cloud slowly thins until we can see bits of land ahead with small, fluffy clouds at our height. Ireland slides beneath us, green and inviting. Shannon calls us up and we negotiate a 4,000ft Zone Transit overhead Waterford before swapping back to Shannon.

The clouds slowly build in both quantity and height until North of Cork near the delightfully named Fermoy Knockdronagogh they close up completely. We'll be doing at least some of the descent in to Kerry IMC, regardless of what the rules may say...

We are aiming to intercept the Localiser for runway 26 around 12 miles out and follow the glide slope down for a cloud break. At 3,000ft we are on top of an unbroken sea of clouds and there be mountains out there.

The 2 GPS units say we're on course and NAV2 is showing we're nearly upon the Localiser so I'll turn to 260° and watch the glide slope come in. Here it comes: big breath and tip the aircraft down in to the clouds. The grey room envelops us and we follow the glide slope down.

It would be wonderful to say I fly a perfect approach, but inaccurate: I fail to reduce the power sufficiently and we start to speed up, I then start to diverge from the Localiser first one way then, over-correcting, the other.

The a/p is on so we're not going to tip over but I momentarily lose situational awareness and turn the wrong way. So busy am I trying to correct this that I fail to notice our speed, now 140kts and the glide slope drifting away from us downwards until abruptly we go visual at 1,500ft.

OK, there's runway 26 just off to our left, that's easy to fix but we are nearly on top of it: 1,000ft too high and doing 145Kts. We're a long way outside my "I can get it in from here" cone.....

Throttle all the way back to idle, nose up to reduce the speed and as we drop through 120Kts pull some flap. First stage can be pulled at up to 140Kts but I really don't want to damage anything.

With the extra drag and the nose up the speed comes back and our vertical speed goes off the clock, hard against the bottom stop. The aircraft makes some interesting noises and the ride resembles a roller coaster.

At 100Kts I pull the 2nd stage of flap and keep the nose even further up until we get to 85 Kts, then ease the power back in as we finally enter the landing cone, albeit a "land long" cone.

After all that we make a creditable and smooth touchdown, proving you can make a decent landing out of a bloody awful approach!

Touch down time 2006 Local. We've made it with 9 minutes to spare. Not enough time for a go around...

We are marshalled all the way up to the end of the old runway, shut down, are bussed back to the main building and exit through an entirely deserted passport control, Customs and terminal building.

Our kind car hire man is still there and within 5 minutes we are gone.

After a wonderful weekend of Guiness, soda bread and excellent weather we're back at Farranfore for a more relaxed return journey.

They're overcast at 2,000ft so departure will be easy, but we have to be back at Bournemouth before 1800 Local so need to be getting on.

It's fun to peel off from the outbound airline passengers to the Pilots room (Another Sky Demon flight Plan, I'm loving this...) and then through our own separate security channel: everyone stares. Why are these people getting special treatment?

An interesting security wrinkle is that whilst they need to be seen to be checking us we don't need to conform to normal airline rules regarding the contents of bags, especially liquid quantities. We could in fact be carrying chainsaws, knives and strimmers but actually we've only got large bottles of water.

Our kind handling man drives us out to the aircraft which, happily, starts just fine following a pull-through.

I hate pulling through, I'm scared to death the engine will kick over and chop my fingers off!

We taxy across to the pumps and fill up.

I've done the fuel calculations three times to ensure I get this right: I need to have enough fuel to get us back to Bournemouth and then on to Oxford, but remain within a few pounds of MAUW.

Then divide by two and convert to Litres.

So many opportunities for error......

168 Litres brings us to tabs, with enough fuel and a 45 minute reserve but we're 30lbs over MAUW. Well, Cessna build them strong and we'll be underweight by the edge of the ATZ.

Start up, and call for taxy. This time, we are cleared for take off exactly on time at 1500 Local.

Keep the aircraft on the ground to 75Kts then gently rotate and ooh er, we are slow to climb. Turning left the ground climbs and we don't seem to be climbing at all, but slowly it recedes and we climb East towards the cloud base.

We climb over the hills we were trying to avoid coming in and the weather clears, with scattered fluffy clouds over green rolling hills. Ooh, Ireland is very pretty.

Crossing in to Waterford's Zone we are advised of low-level traffic departing to the South from the airfield: a Coastguard SAR helicopter. We are visual with the bright orange helicopter so tell the Tower we are happy to see the helicopter is flying today in case they have to pick us up later in the middle of the Irish Sea!

The fantastic weather continues as we swap back to Shannon and coast out giving Shannon our exact heading, height and ETA at the FIR boundary.

Predictably the engine, to my mind, sounds rougher over the sea but the oil temps and pressure remain constant so it really is all in my mind.

At the FIR boundary we bid goodbye to Shannon and hello to London Info. A line of clouds in the far distance presages Britain but it's clear over The coast of Pembrokeshire so we'll tell London Info what we're doing and gently descend to St David's to take some photos of a friends house.

Slow the aircraft down, descend to 700ft and cruise past the house, setting up a little circuit over the cliff tops then round and back over the sea.

Two circuits later we have pictures and can climb back to cruise altitude. Our course plans to avoid one of the Pembroke Danger Areas which, unusually for a Sunday, has been NOTAMed as Active.

London info is convinced it's Inactive, however, so after a little to and fro with them we set off through the Area, concerned about "Live firing to 56,000ft"...

Nothing hits us, so I'm sure London were right, but still worrying.....

Heading well to the South of Swansea we swap to a harassed sounding Cardiff.

The radio is very busy here, with the controller vectoring airliners all over the place and getting stressed with GA aircraft giving him their life stories then not doing what he tells them to do.

One poor chap seems to be on course to infringe the Cardiff Zone and won't turn away.

We take the line of least resistance and skirt round his zone entirely, swapping briefly to a calmer Exeter and slipping under some clouds over Dartmoor before turning for Bournemouth.

Bournemouth have no wind so to save time we ask for a 08 approach which they happily give us and a gentle descent gets us on the centreline and down on to 08. Taxying in (I know exactly where to go now) we stop at Bliss and shut down to be fleeced again...

We leave Lucy and Tom and their luggage and fire up for the trip home. With just two up and half tanks Whisky Lima fair leaps off the ground....

I have a mad panic about half way home that we are about to run out of fuel but my addled brain has been doing the calculations wrong and in fact we have loads left.

Via a Farnborough LARS listening squawk we swap to Oxford over Chieveley and descend slowly for a Downwind join for R19, weaving in with landing helicopter and jet traffic.

For a sunny Sunday evening Oxford is very busy, maybe that's the secret of their success?

Damn, that Guiness was good.