Henstridge

Local Bournemouth 21 Mar 23

I have moved house twice in the last 12 months and set up two new houses 842 miles apart as the crow flies.
"Busy" does not describe adequately the level of activity; "frenetic" may be better.

As a result I have failed to revalidate my SEP by Experience and it has expired, so now I need to get it sorted out.
It only expired a couple of months ago, but to be fair to the CAA they have to draw the line somewhere.

As it has expired I need an Examiner (not an Instructor) to sign me off via a (hopefully abbreviated) Skills Test.

I don't know of any local Examiners, so I enlist the help of the closest flying school I can find.

They will need to remain nameless as between them three instructors proceed to waste an entire day of my time faffing about trying to work out whether they can take me up for a checkout prior to the Skills test.

The weather is scattered clouds clearing and certainly to my (and SkyDemon's) reckoning, VFR.

Even if it wasn't we could depart IFR to get clear of the clouds and if necessary shoot the ILS to come back in.

I have never heard so much bollocks talked about whether they can take me up on my IR(R) or their Instructor's IR then transfer control, whether that would be a charter flight or instruction or a pleasure flight until I took control.

After two hours of this, during which time they also try to invent reasons not to ferry the pilot and passenger from a snazzy N reg C206 they have just (expensively) handled round to the car hire desk on the other side of the airfield (I give them a lift in the end), they decide they can't help me.

Which they could have said over the phone 4 hours earlier.

To be fair to them, they do eventually (later in the evening) manage to locate an examiner for Monday, but I had nearly forgotten the mind-numbing inertia that goes with Flight Schools: 3 instructors sitting in a room inventing reasons not go flying on a virtually CAVOK day.

No wonder people don't want to learn to fly any more: sitting around waiting for someone to tell you we're not flying today is morale-sapping. So much better to be able to look at the weather and decide to fly, take the keys and GO, with no one second-guessing you. Not the first time I've really missed having G-POWL at my fingertips.....

Monday having been rained off (the clouds were on the deck all day - the hills at the end of our valley were in cloud, not even the birds were flying) we re-convene on a blustery Tuesday. Strong wind warnings are flying round, but the wind is straight down the runway and the clouds are reportedly at 1,400ft so we can depart VFR, at least.

My examiner today is a very nice South African who has, shall we say, a "practical" view of aviation. He looks at the wind blowing a gale outside, shrugs and we get on with it. My sort of pilot.

He brings with him Martyn, who he is training for his PPL and flies a Jabiru.
He wants to sit in the back and watch me make a fool of myself.
Sounds good to me: I'll try to entertain him.

This is intended to be a Skills test and not just an afternoon out, so he's going to stretch me, I don't know exactly how just yet.

We pre-flight the C172.
Every aircraft is different: beyond the standard dials there are always weirdnesses. This one has an ASI calibrated in both mph and Knots, so I must remember to use the inner dial. I've been caught out like this before. The other weirdness is the strobes: there are strobes but the light switch has been blanked off. Huh?

'We climb in and he looks at the weather, which is now mostly low clouds, not really VMC and I can tell he's worried.
"Do you have a valid IMC?"
"Yup"
"Great! Let's go"

This is why you need an IMC. We'd have been messing about waiting for the weather for weeks....

Because I'm not that familiar with Bournemouth I've printed out and studied the airfield map, highlighted the frequencies and clipped it to my kneeboard. This makes everything less stressful. Doing the IMC has made me much more organised in the cockpit, you do need to think ahead.

Typically, because I'm nervous, I get the pre-departure checklists in the wrong order but once we've sorted that out we can roll for take-off on runway 26. We have a 25Kt headwind (so there is literally no other traffic) and the aircraft surprises me by flying almost immediately despite the feeling that we aren't accelerating very much.

It's immediately bumpy and there are layers to the bumpiness that we climb in to and out of. At 700ft AGL we turn left towards Hengistbury Head, I am guessing the heading here as I actually can't see much, it's too hazy. By the time we are at the reported cloudbase of 1,400ft we're in and out of IMC so we punch up through the bumpy clouds and on top at 2,500ft it's much smoother and we can head for the Needles and then to the South of the Isle of Wight

As is so often the case, there are no clouds over the sea, they're only over the land. You only get to see this from the air, and it's a beautiful afternoon up here.

We need to prep for some stalls and steep turns so a verbal HASELL check, clearing turns and we're ready.

At which point the examiner says "but where's your HASELL check?".

"Er, we've done that already, hence the clearing turns, Martyn did you hear me do that?"

"Yup, you did that"

I'm glad he's here...

"Blimey, that was quick. OK, let's do stalls" which are a complete non-event. 75ft height loss, no more. Steep turns, bit of power, easy and he gets bored after a couple of turns so we head for Bembridge.

And half way there, approximately downwind for Sandown's runway 22 he pulls the throttle: "Engine failure, see if you can make the runway"

I can see the airfield but there are clouds in the way.

A partial-IMC PFL, this is a new one, actually quite a good real-world example.

It's hard to judge. I can only pitch for best glide, trim, set up the approach when we can see the runway, then just hold the controls when we go IMC. Popping out 500ft lower we're still on target, so he quizzes me on post engine failure actions (mags, carb heat, mixture, fuel, try a restart, tell someone then bloody concentrate on not dying) and now assured we can make the field and are a bit long, I'll tentatively pop in some flaps and as we drop in neatly over the threshold and below the trees I prepare to flare and he suggests now may be the time to throw it away. We could have dropped in for tea.

Now that was real aviation. Chuckles from the back: Martyn hasn't thrown up (yet).

Back up through the clouds to the smooth blue sky and we'll recover back to Bournemouth.

Now FlyBe has died (again) Southampton is dead, just dead. Their Airspace reverts to Class G at the weekends, what an incredible fall from grace for one of the busiest airports in the South. Maybe they'll be a bit friendlier towards GA now....

So their airspace and radio are quiet but for one LoganAir flight, whereas Bournemouth is buzzing with RyanJet and EasyAir flights.

The clouds clear over the Solent as we cruise back, making a ground speed of all of 64Kts, this takes a while but the late afternoon light on the boats and on the water is absolutely beautiful. And of course over the water it's very smooth.

Back at Hengistbury Head we can request a visual recovery for R26, the clouds have descended to 900ft and so have we, we can join on a bumpy left base and now the real fun starts: it's pretty damned windy out here.

All you can do is add 5Kts for more controllability, fly a high approach, keep flying the approach and react to whatever gets thrown at you. We get a fair amount of bounce from over the terminal buildings but eventually we reach the runway...and I flare too soon, too much concentration on the crosswind, so we do bang on a bit, but it's planted firmly so kill the lift and we're down, no one died and they can use the aircraft again.

He signs my licence and my logbook, we're legal again and had good real-world fun doing it. I'll use this guy again! I'll bet my IMC Renewal will be a complete riot (as it indeed turns out to be, see below)

Local Henstridge 17 Aug 23

I've been trying to find a share in the UK with a low or non-existent entry fee and low hourly and monthly costs.
From where I live now Compton Abbas, Henstridge and Bournemouth are the same journey time: Bournemouth has the advantage of instrument approaches and lights, Compton Abbas is now owened by Guy Ritchie and the self-fly hire options are a low priorty and Henstridge is a bit of a closed book: whilst it's the home of the Wessex Strut of the LAA it's quite hard to get involved without spending a lot of time hanging around at the airfield chatting to people, and flying is enough of a faff without having to spend a lot of time doing "Club" stuff.

I found this a lot with gliding: 7 hours spent helping other people get airborne, 10 minutes flying......

I decide to start by signing up with Bliss Aviation at Bournemouth. Their pricing is...phew! And they can't even organise a check out flight for more than 2 weeks away. Maybe I should keep looking...

I'm beginning to wonder if anything is going to turn up when I read in the Strut magazine of a PA-28 Cherokee share at Henstridge. Worth a look, certainly. Low initial cost, low monthly cost, low hourly cost.

I'm used to blatting around in a C182 at 140Kts but in reality do I need something as powerful as that? Would a PA-28-140 like what I learned on nearly 20 years ago keep me happy? It's a bit long in the tooth but it's got a virtually new engine and a brand new wing, following a spar AD last year. Inside it is mix and match and there's no 430W or G5s, but it does, on closer inspection, seem to have absolutely everything one could ask for, including an ILS I think works, and a working ADF.

So maybe a little re-evaluation of what I want to be doing: I'm in Spain a lot of the time and have pretty much worked out an aviation solution there, this is just for when I am back in the UK. I'm unlikely to fly it very far, that said Cherbourg is very close, it's more about the payload. Nessa won't fly with me since the bird strike so it will probably be me and maybe one passenger.

The 75 year old owner is a retired Westland helicopter engineer and actually keeps it pretty damned tidy, he doesn't do his own maintenance but is clearly capable of doing so. Engineering-wise, it all works and the engine is lusty. He's as big as I am but we're off in half the runway and there is no lack of climb ability. He's a funny old boy: his wife is a non-pilot but has cornered all the non-push'y-pull'y bits, so the radio, the nav and the paperwork, and once clear of the field he's lost in about 5 minutes. He only flies when it's smooth and his manoeuvres are very, very gentle. I'll have a go and being a PA-28 you barely need the rudders and the roof mounted trim wheel because the control forces are tiny. And someone has done a really good job of rigging it because there is no play whatsoever in the aileron controls. This is a little gem!

I hand him back the controls for a rejoin, he points out where to fly for downwind and completely misses the turn; we end up the wrong side of the airfield and he still thinks he's downwind. And he has a Garmin 196 on his yoke. But he's used to having his wife navigate.

There's a squirrely crosswind though, and when we do eventually get back to a sensible approach he handles the flare really well, greases it on. My main concern is the lack of footbrakes but he persuades me it's not really an issue so I think I'll join up. Just need a checkout now...

Local 21 Aug 23

On a cool and very dewy morning my checkout instructor, the serial aircraft builder, meets me at the plane. I manage to impress her and disappoint her in equal measure by actually checking the directions the control surfaces move but managing to kill the engine during the carb heat check by pulling the mixture instead.....

We taxy the aircraft out of the long grass and roll for an early departure off runway 24. From the left hand seat it feels snug, you don't get that kick in the back side from the C182 but this will only burn 7-8 US Gallons per hour.

Departing South she shows me the noise-sensitive areas (why buy a house near an airfield and not expect noise?) and under an 1800ft cloudbase we do some general handling. The AH works, which is a bonus, and the DI doesn't precess too much during turns. The VOR/ILS certainly shows Yeovilton's ILS correctly, so I've no complaints. And it is cleared for spinning.....

We re-join overhead and slot into the downwind for R24. She tells me I'm way too low turning Final, although it looks OK to me. I have mentally marked this runway as "short", so I have a tendency to get a bit low to ensure I'm down on the numbers with minimum energy, but she disagrees. The first landing is a bit hard, I'm not used to the picture from the cockpit, so we have another go, stay at 500ft turning Final and reduce the approach speed to 65Kts, and this time ensure I'm looking at the end of the runway and we're down on the numbers neatly. Let's see if I can reproduce that... yes, that feels OK.

We are only allowed to do 3 circuits at a time to prevent annoying the neighbours so we'll stay down. The brakes do pull straight, you just need to manoeuvre the aircraft very slowly.

The only time I feel I'm fighting the aircraft is the roof-mounted trim wheel which I keep turning the wrong way. I'll get used to it.

So I pay the share entry fee, sign the agreement and now we'll just wait for the insurers to put me on the list and we're ready to go.

Sandown 29 Aug 23

I can now, at my leisure, start to understand my new toy.

With a key card for the vehicle barrier at Henstridge I can park near the aircraft and tote my 12V vacuum cleaner over to give it a clean up.

A really thorough inspection of what is in the cockpit reveals a lot of fluff, old pen tops etc plus all the right documentation plus the actual unladen weight of the aircraft for my W&B app. All that is missing is a fuel dip. I'll order one...

The checklist in the aircraft contains duplications and stuff irrelevant to this aircraft so I've modified my personal checklist, but of course the non-standard bits get me very time.

We're ready to start so prime it, leave it, then "clear prop" and crank. It turns over but won't fire. Mixture is rich, mags are... ah, it's a separate switch.

Mags to "Both" and this time it starts. One more for the checklist.

My big worry is the handbrake instead of the toe brakes, so I spend a while just taxiing around, stopping and starting. As long as I taxy slowly it doesn't seem to make a huge difference, so let's fly.

Enter and backtrack 24, there's little wind so we take off and climb out in to the circuit. Let's make sure we can land it safely before we go anywhere!

My Instructor thinks I should be at 500ft QFE having turned Final over the lakes which looks high but at 65Kts it all unfolds slowly, I've got time to flare over the threshold and it drops on neatly with little energy. Go for 1 stage of flap and we're off again, climbing out surprisingly quickly and avoiding the noise sensitive areas I know exist around the airfield.

Once at a sensible height I can do some clearing turns and really start to explore the aircraft. The owner is quite a sedate pilot and I can't really do Steep turns and stalls with him onboard.

My main issue with the Cherokee has always been that the break out forces In roll are very low compared with the C172, the C182 and indeed the later PA-28 Warrior. There is no autopilot so it would be hard work to fly it IFR and for some reason it keeps dropping the left wing in turbulence. Or is it me?

I document the actual stall speeds with and without flaps (the stall warning buzzer does not work), and the power settings required to maintain height at 90Kts plus maintain a 500ft/min rate of descent. What I do find is that it is virtually impossible to stall it with all the flaps out, it just nods and loses a bit of height. This is why they use these as training aircraft

Let's go to Sandown.

We'll swap to Bournemouth Approach who are amazingly quiet: one Ryanair and a couple of VFR transits.

Over the Solent the stall Warner light keeps flickering, even though it was more turbulent over the land and it didn't flicker then. Huh?

Eventually it stops but it is weird.

Strangely, I sometimes got pre-stall airframe whistle in the C182 for no apparent reason there's clearly some aerodynamic effect we're missing here. Or it could just be buggered (it turnes out later it is actually buggered...).

No reply from Sandown Traffic so (stupidly) selecting the default left hand circuit for runway 23 we'll join and descend. This is a demonstration of just how rusty I am it's meant to be a RH circuit and I should have checked!

The approach feels quite low over the last bush before the threshold, then I flare a tad too high and drop it on harder than I would like, but not anything to write home about (as my old geography teacher used to say, adding "Laddie" at the end...).

Taxy in and get a bollocking from the marshal. He's quite right but fortunately no harm done this time. I'm actually their first arrival so of course had I come a bit later it would have been obvious from other peoples' calls that the circuit was right hand!

The airport's motto is "No PPR, no Hi-Viz, no miserable people". Very anti-establishment.

I'll be back at some point for lunch, but today I have a dog to get back for.

After a Coke and cookie we'll Depart R23. Being grass and uphill this is where we could have a issue.

But despite only 140hp being available we're off in less than half the available 884m. Maybe I should stop panicking about not having enough runway to take off, or to land in, but it seems to be inbuilt.

Back to Bournemouth Approach for a Basic Service (I like them to know what I am doing messing around under their glide slope). VFR to Beaulieu then Stoney Cross then pass North of Compton Abbas, checking for Spitfires, line up for a straight in for 24, and it's all OK and predictable.

Now I get to try the fuel pumps. A self-service system, it's all pretty simple, but once again I'm glad I've experience of this sort of pump.

I then forget to turn the fuel off so the checklist gets another revision.

Dunkeswell 30 Aug 23

It's gusty today, but I'm determined this isn't going to stop me, I need to explore the aircraft's behaviour in all weathers.

I have my new, improved checklist and I'm hoping this will be a slicker departure than yesterday's.

We'll use 24 again (I'm not quite ready for 06 yet) and this time try a short field take off. I have no figures in what speed officially to rotate at but the wing wants to fly at 55Kts so rotate and we're off in less than half the runway.

Swap to the confusingly-named Yeovil Radar. It's actually at RNAS Yeovilton, North of Yeovil not at Yeovil itself. Indeed I have flown in to the grass strip at Westlands (now Leonardo helicopters) Yeovil, now sadly closed to the public (unless you want to buy a helicopter from them...).

Departing to the West we get a great view of Dunkeswell and even a plane doing a low approach and go round. I'm just sitting there fat, dumb and happy, as the saying goes, this is NOT Dunkeswell but Upottery, a disused airfield near Dunkeswell. Confirmation Bias for sure: even the other aircraft was fooled, he laughs as he comes up on Dunkeswell Traffic saying he thought the airfield looked a bit deserted as he made his approach...

Dunkeswell is somewhere over there...

Runway 35 is in use, which is rare, so we join and report downwind right hand. At that point another aircraft says he is in the same place and I'm damned if I can see him so a snappy left hand orbit for spacing and there he is. I'll slow down and follow him round on to Base leg but he's even slower.

I can follow him down Final but he's not smart enough to exit at the intersection so I'll go round and this time the circuit is clear. But on Final there's a C172 in front, he's landed and bloody stopped at the side of the runway, he's worried (as indeed am I) about the parachutists just dropping. I'll land after him and stop or exit long before I reach him.

I'm getting the hang of this handbrake now, so some firm braking has me stopped just past the intersection so a snappy 180 and we're clear of the Active before he's even decided what to do.

Lunch is delicious and weirdly takes longer to order than to arrive. Apparently they're understaffed.

Back to the aircraft, and eeek....! The door is locked, with the keys inside. Oh bugger...

I know what happened: I locked but did not properly shut the aircraft door last night. It sprang open when I opened the top latch this morning so I assumed it was unlocked. It opened from the inside OK, but when I departed for lunch I shut it firmly.

Why do I always do something stupid every time I visit Dunkeswell? I left my camera here once, I've flown the wrong circuit direction once upon a time, now this.

The nice man in the tower laughs, says I'm not the first and lends me some spare keys. Fortunately these 1960s locks aren't very sophisticated and they all fit each other like 1960s car locks. The first key I try opens the lock. Phew!

I grab our keys, return his keys and fire up, I'm just about to taxy and the engine runs down. Quick: mags, fuel? Ah I'd turned the fuel off. The checklist gets modified again.

Reverse the route in Skydemon and fly it. I've got the hang of holding height now but the aircraft is divergent in roll and keeps slowly dropping the left wing. A little asymmetric rudder trim helps but it's hard to hold a heading: any bumps and it drops the left wing and rolls left. It could be assymetric fuel, or me being a crap pilot or there is something awry with the aircraft?

The wind today is from the North West which is quite rare, and runway 35 at Dunkeswell is perfectly placed but Henstridge's 24/06 means the wind is right across the runway today. The windsock by the Air Ambulance shows it slightly favouring 06 but there are fewer buildings on the 24 approach so I'll do that. Do a normal circuit, keep it crabbed until the flare and it simply drops on utterly drama free. Ooh, that was easy.

We even have to add a smidge of power to make the taxiway.

My instructor tells me of a secret grass runway she uses in her Tiger Moth off the end of the tarmac runway on the North Eastern side: apparently the grass there is fine to land on and it looks like it's oriented roughly 13 / 30. She suggests I walk it one day; I will. Useful to have up your sleeve.

At the pumps we seem to have used less fuel today? The deal is that we leave it at Tabs that way there's never too much fuel for the next person to fly it.

I'm beginning to be more comfortable with this little gem, and at half the price per hour of Whisky Lima I'm loving it.

Local 3 Sep 23

Today is The Legendary Perfect Aviation Day, which comes but once a year in the UK. So the Treasurer of the group and I will go out and have a Sunday bimble along the Jurassic coast before the other owner goes flying at 12:00.

We talk about what the light switches actually do as opposed to what they are labelled, what to do with the fuel you drop in to the fuel check (throw it away, apparently), take off and landing speeds, local airfield radio calls and procedures, the undocumented grass cross runway for crosswind emergencies, out of hours access and the million and one tiny things that make up flying a group aircraft, while watching a beautiful Stearman with a wing "walker" (actually a wing sitter and no, you wouldn't get me doing that) manoeuvring at low level with a succession of petrified-looking passengers strapped to the top wing. Ugh.

Then we fire up and depart on 06 this time, turn right, switch to Bournemouth and get a Basic Service, largely so they know we're not going to interfere with the Airshow which is just getting going. They are staggeringly quiet: just us, an EasyJet 737 departing and a guy shooting a practice ILS in a Warrior. I'm sure they will be busier later...

The coastline glistens in the sun, you can't get this view during the week because of the MoD ranges where they fire things out over the sea, but as it's Sunday all is quiet; even Plymouth Mil won't answer our calls. It's also smooth as silk: who wouldn't want to be up here looking down at the beautiful coast line?

At Bridport we turn North East for a rejoin, call rejoining and for once the Tower is Active so we join right Downwind for 06 and here's where I am unfamiliar.

They have moved the threshold further up the runway because someone hit a truck on the road going past the end of the runway so we'll aim for that at 65Kts, come in low over the fence and flare. My passenger thinks I'm 5Kts slow and he could be right so we'll push for a bit of speed on short Final, flare, get a smooth arrival and gentle braking gets us off at the centre taxyway, so about 250m roll, and that wasn't a short field landing.

Fuel up and we've used 32L or 8.4 US Gallons for exactly 1 hour's flight, so that's economic flying.

Swansea 11 Nov 2023

November is often iffy for flying so you have to pick your day and expect cold, damp conditions.

While I have been away the aircraft has been taxied into and the rudder damaged, so staggeringly it has not flown since a few days after I last flew it...

The repair has just been completed - it was missing a vital bolt that apparently needed a locknut but hadn't been supplied with one. It's signed off but of course we need to check it moves in the correct way!

It has sat in the long grass since September so my co-owner colleague and I have concluded we need to pull it out manually rather than try to rev a cold engine and drive it out. I bring a long piece of rope but by the time I arrive he has already dislodged it by simply pushing one wing at a time. I have a look at the dents in the ground and amazingly they're not that deep, we could probably have got it out, but this is good practice.

Let's see how good the battery is after 2 months. A number of pull-throughs, plenty of primer and amazingly, after surprisingly few cranks the engine starts and he taxies it in a spirited manner across the bumpy grass and on to the tarmac where he runs it at a high idle for a good 20 minutes to boil the water out of the oil. A good start.

The day has started as gloomy with sufficient fog for us not to be able to see across the runway but it's clearing now and other aircraft are starting to taxy out. I love the relaxed-but-professional attitude prevalent here: the NE end of the runway is still socked-in but the SW end has just cleared so a taildragger lines up and departs SW. At Oxford the Tower would have had us wait for both ends to clear, but here everything is at the pilot's discretion, which for experienced pilots makes it much easier.

Our nose tyre looks soft: 45psi is what we're looking for so a quick trip to the van for the compressor which runs for 2 seconds then trips the circuit breaker. Too much electrical load, so we borrow a hand pump and I get a good workout getting it up to pressure. That looks better.

Diuring the pre-flight we do discover the Carb heat cable is broken. It's flyable but needs fixing before we fly in clouds.

A quick trip over to the café for a bacon butty, and we're ready to depart. At the Hold the Tower advises us of a 2 minute radio silence for Rememberance Day so we sit and wait then backtrack and depart, noise abating as we climb out. I'm much more comfortable with this aircraft now and despite not flying it for 2 months it feels familiar, I understand its foibles. We have History together.

Swansea is our destination so we'll fly North of Yeovilton. They are closed as it's the weekend. I can never quite work out why HM Armed Forces don't operate at the weekends but there you are: if you want to invade the UK do it at the weekend!

Everywhere is flooded - England has had huge amounts of rain in the last few months (I've been in Spain so haven't really appreciated this until now...). Both the Somerset Levels and Somerset Moors are very wet.

From 3,000ft in this part of the country you can easily see the South coast, the Isle of Wight and the Bristol Channel. The scenery here is more interesting than Oxfordshire, that's for sure.

It turns out my co-owner achieved his IR(R) on the same aircraft as me, while it was with Brize's Flying Club. Small world...

Turning West and remaining South of Cardiff's Zone, on a listening squawk and avoiding Minehead's Danger Zone we then coast out for Swansea.

I'm keen to find a DME among the various bits of kit in the cockipt but sadly the Narco only shows the From Radial from the VOR you are tuned to, not your distance, which would be nore useful.

Coasting in to Wales I can see the airfield so I aim to Join crosswind for Runway 04. Halfway there my co-owner finally spots it but it's been obvious to me where it is since before we coasted in.

Runway 04 is on an upslope and turning final you fly down in to a valley where the threshold is, which means flying very low over the fence. My passenger is concerned over both height and speed, I can feel him getting nervous in that right hand seat, but we are in fact correct and stable, we flare and drop on neatly. After all, this is a PA28-140, the easiest aircraft in the world to land.

A burger lunch watching the parachutists (been there, so no thanks) then he will fly us home.

He's older than me and he actually draws lines on a real (and up to date!) 1:50,000 map. I suppose being younger (and maybe more IT-literate) I'm happier with SkyDemon. Whilst I always carry a paper map I have to say I very rarely use it nowadays.

As we approach Henstridge from the North West a black Beagle Pup reports inbound from the North. We assume he is behind us but as we join and report Downwind for 24 he reports Downwind and it turns out he is dangerously close, right in front of us. With hindsight, we should have extended downwind but by the time we see him we're turning Base, my co-owner has no option but to abort straight ahead and as there is no other traffic, does a "make it up on the spot" right hand 270 for spacing, instead of a complete circuit, something I've done before. Having scotched our approach this silly bugger then proceeds to go around as he's too high or he suddenly realises he's being stupid. We could have declared an AirProx off that, he was being hasty and not reporting his position properly putting us all in danger.

My co-owner does a couple of neat touch and go's for currency then a full stop. He handles the aircraft as I would expect, he's been flying it for 10 years or more! Nice to watch someone with more experience, always a few hints and tips to pick up.....

Oxford 15 Dec 23

For the first 18 years of my aviation I flew out of Oxford. I learned there, rented from there, migrated to a share based there and watched it slowly evolve from a slightly down-at-heel mixed-use grass and tarmac airfield with one GA school to an efficient business jet rental and maintenance hub, with three GA schools and a massive new Airbus helicopter facility on the North side.

Today I'm going back to Oxford for a cup of coffee to see what it's like from an outsider's perspective.

It's now December and it turns out from the Tech Log that since September the only person out of the six people in the syndicate that has actually flown the aircraft is me. I was told the other co-owner flew it every Sunday but he hasn't flown it since he took me out the first time. How weird.

Cover off, chocks off, pre-flight check, and for some bizarre reason manage to completely forget to check the oil. It's fine (I check it at Oxford) but a weird thing to omit.

We have sufficient fuel to get there and back so we'll start up, warm up, taxy to the holding point and see what's a-happening. Next to the Hold is a Tiger Moth so I won't power check in front of him.

Weekday flights are simply radio exchanges between moving pilots so situational awareness is paramount. One aircraft with an actual call sign of "Wild Cat 1" reports Final 24 but I can't see him.

Until a heavily-modified and heavily-armed Lynx-like helicopter descends vertically on to the runway in front of me and sits there looking menacing. I half expect the SAS all dressed in black to emerge and storm the airfield....I've had a similar thing happen on a client's front lawn (you know who you are) with a Merlin and a full set of squaddies so maybe I'm not quite so shocked....

After a bit he taxy's off down the runway so I can enter and backtrack, and by the time I've done that he's gone. Behind a bush, probably.

Roll, turn left for noise abatement then climb North up to the cloud base at 3500ft. Today is all about the IMC mindset: I want to ensure the AH and DI work properly, the VOR and ADF tune correctly and the ILS works ready for my IR(R) revalidation. We have no DME but according to the Exeter and Bournemouth approach diagrams this is not a problem, I just tell ATC first.

Without an autopilot single-pilot IMC is harder work, but I'm really not trying for anything cleverer here than a vectors-to-ILS and a vectors-to NDB approach as we have no 430W. As a get you home measure this is sufficient for now - later on if Henstridge has an RNAV approach we'll revisit this.

For the moment I shall be content holding a heading and doing a stable climb and a descent in IMC, so we will climb in to the murk and work on our scan. The AH is a bit dodgy but everything does work OK and I'm happy nothing is broken. Surprisingly the ILS way over there on the right side is much less of an issue than I expected and I can include it in my scan with ease, so I'm now not as keen for it to be moved over. Even the ADF works. That's been a while, but "push the head, pull the tail" will always work. The DI having to be reset a lot worries me more but it does eventually settle down, and so long as I know about it....

After a little gentle VOR tracking we can head North for Oxford and today they are surprisingly quiet, I find myself no.2 to a Warrior, and the runway is so huge! My Henstridge mindset now has me lower and slower and down neatly near the numbers, maintain the speed to the end and taxy on to the new ramp. Very nice....

PFT have new, slick offices, with a bar(!), there's a Pooleys shop (a new C172 dip for Muchamiel, a pukka pilots shirt and epaulettes for Morocco I think...) and the old PFT office has been demolished to make way for the new fire station.

The café is pretty much as before, but the food is good and before long we're paying the not-that-exorbitant £26 landing fee (compared to Bournemouth's daylight robbery £79), booking out on their new Yealink phone (I've programmed and wired a good few hundred of those...) and back out on the tarmac. My PA-28 is not the smallest plane in today, but it's very nearly so.

Check the oil (like I forgot this morning), check the fuel, fire up, call for taxy and this time they send me all the way down to the North end of R19. Departing from Oxford has often been a bottleneck but now they stagger the departures from the end and the interesction and it's a lot more efficient. Time for me to power check and we're off, airborne before the intersection and away South.

Oxford Radar say they are struggling with my Mode C altitude reading - this has been intermittent for a while and I think it's time it got fixed.

London Info are hugely efficient and soon I am back in the West Country, doing a cruise descent and checking in with "Henstridge Traffic", aiming for a crosswind join then downwind left hand for R24. Despite my frequent calls another aircraft nips in front and joins left base as I am Downwind. He knows I am there but decides he's more important, so I'll extend Downwind, loop around the village of Fifehead Magdalen and back over the lakes.

The new windsock shows it's 10Kts straight down the runway so I'm concentrating on keeping the speed down and my aiming point not the numbers but where the grass ends and the tarmac starts. Later, once I've got the wheels reliably touching right at the start of the runway I'll go to using full flaps and 50Kts, then we'll see how short a PA28-140 can land. All useful practise.

The contrast between Oxford and Henstridge is massive but both, in their own ways, are moving forward and both are actually the recipients of considerable investment. Henstridge hosts the Dorset Air Ambulance, hopefully soon to be upgraded to two helicopters and has a spiffing new facility, the hangars are expanding and improving and are all full to bursting with a huge variety of different types of aircraft, from microlites to warbirds to aerobatic taildraggers to N-reg IFR tourers and autogyros. I fully believe GA is alive and kicking in the UK, despite the normal Facebook detractors.

Local 19 Dec 23

It's time for my bi-annual IR)R) revalidation. It's a few weeks early, but now I'm retired I'm trying hard not to do everything at the last minute.

RANT is by far the best procedural IR trainer software, written and maintained by an Oxford instructor so includes all the bells and whistles to really put you through your Nav without trying to be a flight simulator. Several NDB approaches plus beacon ins and outs later I feel the ADF in the aircraft wont be quite the limiting factor I had considered it to be.

I explain to my fun new examiner that I'm a little inexperienced with the avionics in this aircraft having recently swapped planes, so he agrees that if the approaches are not up to standard they'll count as practise approaches. We may have to have a few sessions at this.

He agrees to come to Henstridge on an awful wet day in December, not one I would normally fly on but actually really good IMC experience. It's too easy to tool around simulating IMC on a nice clear day but in reality clouds are bumpy, disorientating and inconsistent. In real IMC flight you're in and out of them and the aircraft behaves differently in cloud, especially in warm weather. We have foggles ready but in reality we won't need them today.

It's absolutely pouring with rain as I arrive - it is forecast to stop raining in an hour but will remain partly IMC.

The aircraft is on the grass and I am not going to preflight it there. It's still raining, the grass is long and very wet. I'll put my wellies on, take the cover off, start it and put it somewhere hard for inspection in shoes.

These will be my first approaches with the equipment in this aircraft. Captain Hindsight (my favourite Marvel superhero) would say it would have been more sensible to have done some practice approaches to ensure everything worked as expected but there you go.

I've never driven an aircraft in wellies before. Fortunately the Cherokee was built with huge American clod hopping feet in mind so the rudder pedals are big, unlike the dainty setup in my old Alfasud I could barely get my size 11s around or the short-lived ARNA I physically couldn't drive the pedals were so close together.

Once up on the tarmac the rain does finally stop so now wearing shoes I can pre-flight, run up, power check and roll for a warm-up visual circuit to move it to the cafe on the other side of the runway where the Main Man is to meet me.

We discuss what is and isn't permitted. Amazingly, he allows me the georeferenced approach chart on SkyDemon on the iPad, which certainly helps with situational awareness. We do need to perform the approaches using the radio beacons correctly, however. I wouldn't trust SkyDemon as a primary approach instrument anyway.

We discuss minima and I explain my personal minimum is 500ft AGL as I don't get enough practise to go lower. Exeters threshold is at 102ft AMSL so using QNH decision altitude is 602ft today. With my IR(R) I'm actually allowed to go to 300ft on the ILS procedure (the whole 500ft AGL thing is advisory) but that's really scary if I'm not too accurate so not today, Thankyou, but it's worth repeating that the IR(R) does allow descent to the full published minima. When I've more time, more currency and a safety pilot I might experiment with the 300ft QNH minima, that's a staggering 200ft AGL. If the base is below 200ft in my experience that's thick fog and actually pretty rare. Them houses will be very large indeed.

Yeovil Radar give us a deconfliction service and we head up into the murk, swap to Exeter radar right on time for our training slots and ask for vectors to the ILS. This is all easy: I can ident it and get the Localiser to come in OK. It starts to go a bit pear-shaped when I can't see the glide slope indicator but it eventually does what it should and we start our descent. I reduce the throttle to get a 500ft/min descent rate (not enough, it transpires).

He does give me a very useful tip: next to the volume control in our COM1 box is a small PLAY button I've not really noticed before. Pressing it replays the last thing ATC said to you: very useful if you can't remember the height or heading.

I'm on top of things until I fail to pre-select Exeter towers frequency and Radar ask me to swap there, while I'm doing that the whole octopus and string bag thing starts to unravel. This is where an autopilot would be really useful. By the time I'm back on track I'm too fast and end up doing a dirty dive to get back to one notch above the glide slope where I like to be.

I manage to stay within half scale deflection Horizontally and above the glide slope, but it feels uncontrolled. At 602ft QNH I call missed and look up - we can see the runway which is in fact in just the right place, full throttle and pull up on the same heading.

Exeter then vector us round for an NDB approach via the coast. This all works OK because I'm simply doing what I'm told. Always opt for the easy way!

We end up on a 30 deg cut to the approach path but the ADF needle never seems to get to 257. Eventually I realise I have blown through so admit as much and they kindly offer us another go. My examiner agrees that one was a practise one, and they vector us round again over the coast back to the 30 deg cut.

I'm pretty rattled by now, but manage this time to get it near the 257 radial and then Turn 257. At which point it all clicks in to place, a few minor adjustments and a minute or so later it flips so I know we're over the beacon. Yes!

I'm not going to chase it, I know now flying 275 (257 with wind correction) will hold it and it stays comfortably pointing backwards.

The flip is the signal to descend so 22.5" for a 500ft per min descent and this feels more in control. The plate says this approach minima is 890ft QNH which is barely worth the effort but at 890ft we look up and there is the runway front and centre, joining the ranks of "runways I have only ever seen from the air". We did it.

He gets me to continue the approach asking what I do when I make the decision to proceed to a landing which is of course: reduce throttle, trim for 85Kts, pop 2 stages of flaps, slow to 75Kts then 65Kts over the numbers. And if I'm too high? Then sideslip or orbit.

We go missed, turn North, back up in to the clouds and turn right for Henstridge.

He now decides the AH and DI have failed (suction pump failure which I've seen for real) which is partial panel, I can do this. Using the turn and slip, the VSI and the whisky compass we do climbs, descents and turns on to a heading. You can do the whole UNOS thing with the compass but I find it easier to turn to approximately the right heading, roll out and fine tune from there. Always the simple solutions!

Next he takes control and puts us in to a spiral dive from which I can rapidly recover by rolling the wings level, checking speed high or low and pushing or pulling appropriately then adjusting the throttle accordingly. For a moment all the dials do the disaster movie thing where they all move in different directions at a dizzying pace, then Peace and calm is restored and we continue NE via a Deconfliction service from Yeovil and a large VMC hole through we perform a neat descending orbit to scud run our way back to Henstridge.

The cloud base here is quite low and Of course it begs the question: what happens if Henstridge's cloud base is very low? The RNAV approach is not ready yet and anyway we don't have the kit.

Over the last ridge South West of Henstridge the cloud base pushes us down to 500ft but we can see the airfield from here so join downwind LH for runway 24.

Of course the circuit height is meant to be 1000ft but we can do it low level so long as we avoid the villages, putting the mains on the start of the tarmac smoothly then backtracking on the still sodden runway for the café.

It's days like this where having a hard runway really helps: Compton Abbas is shut for most of the winter...

He's happy so a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit later I'm signed off for another 2 years 1 month.

I need to get the aircraft back over to the pumps on the other side of the runway. I could just taxy it over there but where's the fun in that?

A quick single circuit later the wind is picking up across the runway according to the funky new windsock, the right hand tank is nearly dry and the aircraft feels unbalanced. Not my best landing but OK, taxy in to the pumps and fill up, then back on to the grass, shut down, cover on. The grass is drier now but I still have wet feet. The light is draining out of the sky now as we approach sunset, I do miss the Spanish sun...

Newqauy 5 Jan 24

We're planning to go to Newquay today for an ILS and some pasties.

As we have had a truly apocalyptic amount of rain over the last few months ad especially over the last 48 hours once again we must dig the aircraft out of the mud by shifting it backwards and to one side, then taxying it across to the pumps. We'll start off with full tanks and hopefully by the time we get back it will have the right amount of fuel to leave it with.

It's bright blue skies here at Henstridge but forecast to be showery at Newquay. As we climb out Westwards we can see huge areas of flooded ground around al the river valleys and the Somerset Levels, also clouds over Devon and Cornwall.
Yeovil LARS is still closed for the Christmas break so we get a Deconfliction Service from Exeter and plunge right in.
IMC in bumpy clouds with no autopilot requires more concentration and organisation but is doable.

Swap to Newquay, give them their ATIS detail and request vectors for the ILS for runway 30. They in turn ask us to squawk and then ask for a 30deg left turn for identification, something I haven't been asked for before.
They are NOTAM'd "No Training Approaches" due to radar performance issues but are quite happy to accommodate us for an actual approach to land.

We'll brief for the missed approach, ident the beacon then just follow their vectors; we'll do a "naked" (no a/p) ILS in real IMC. Having the geo-synchronised procedure overlaid on Skydemon really helps a lot with situational awareness.

This is  not the needles crossed ethereal descent from the heavens with choirs singing in the background one might imagine but a real world visceral experience; a dirty roller coaster of bumpy clouds and rain, in and out of IMC, varying crosswinds, updraughts and downdraughts, varying light levels.
Ultimately all you’re concentrating on is the ILS and the altimeter, the speed you can judge by the note of the engine, you can’t think about doing it, it must be done on instinct, saying the heights out loud as you pass through them.

The threshold is at 385ft so my personal mínima is 885ft QNH (500ft above). 

However, today I have a safety pilot on board who says he’s visual with the runway so I’m going to continue to concentrate entirely on the ILS and fly the ILS down to the published CAT1 minimum of 540ft QNH (so 155ft above the threshold) before looking up. He'll take control if I'm about to hit something.

At 540ft I can look up and there are the massive approach lights, like a Christmas tree, so we continue as we were then flaps, slow up and it becomes a normal visual approach cone job. I do let it get a bit low and have to add throttle but it’s never dangerous.
Plonk neatly on to the endless runway, more suited to space shuttles than a PA28-140 and taxy in, manage to  misss the GA parking (sorry!), and head for a pleasant surprise at FlyNQY - they don't charge for non-practise ILSes. And this one was definitely for real.

After a couple of very nice Cornish Pasties in the terminal we pick up a bagful more for the wife. My co-owner will fly us home.
It is interesting to contrast my IMC and SkyDemon navigation style with his actual CAA map and navigation by carefully seldected visual references, something I gave up doing years and years ago ever since I misidentified a town while practising for my Qualifying Cros Country. Radio beacons don't move and GPS is (almost) always accurate.
He is mainly correct and certainly gets us home but mis-identifies Taunton. I am not sure I would want to go anywhere near any complex airspace using just a map and visual reference points.

Scilly Isles St Mary 19 Feb 24

Today we will see if we can Game the weather.

The conditions are awful on arrival at Henstridge: an 800ft cloud base in intermittent rain, but forecast both here and at St Mary’s in The Scillies to clear later (but no one is sure when).

It's one of those days when it’s gloomy but you can hear aircraft going past above the clouds and get very jealous.

There’s a Jodel with a snapped off main undercarriage leg by the tower and, surprisingly for a Monday, there are folk manning the Tower.

As we unwrap and move the aircraft a TB20 power checks and departs South in to the murk.
He obviously knows something we don’t.

Our Phone calls to St Mary’s and Lands End ATC all say it’s still yuk, with no improvement forecast until this afternoon.

But all the weather forecasts say it will clear to CAVOK, it's just a queston of when.

I’ve never seen daily official fuel testing done before, but a chap emerges, opens the fuel pump locker and proceeds to decant a litre in to a bucket, dips a test strip then signs a document and pours the fuel back in to the tank.
I'm not quite sure what he’s testing for, but this test apparently completes the Traceability chain all the way from the AvGas refinery via sealed tankers to our fuel tanks. Wow.

We fuel up, warm the engine then shut down as we're not going anywhere for a while. It's started to rain and there is a cold wind blowing.
To the cafe, I think.
After an hour staring glumly at the weather (the default UK pilot position) we decide to aim for Lands End but wearing lifejackets in case the weather clears and we can continue to St Mary's.

I'll fly the outbound leg as it's still 800ft and raining, so we roll on R25, punch up through the rubbish and it's clear blue sky on top at 2500ft.

We climb to 4500ft to cleaqr the cloud tops over Okehampton, then it recedes and by the time we pass Penzance we can see it’s clear over the sea, and the first flights are beginning to fly between st Mary’s and lands end.
It's done what we hoped it would do, so we ask Culdrose to renegotiate with Lands End and St Marys to allow us to proceed, and as we are the only aircraft he has on frequency he does so. All very easy.

As we now have a low-wing aircraft requiring the fuel to be pumped up in to the engine I need a better default mental mechanism for working out what tank I should be on. I'll opt for the clockface method - if it's mins 01-30 of the hour I should be on the right tank, mins 31-00 left tank.

We are asked to stay high, ast 5,000ft and offered runway 27 for St Mary’s, which is the short hump backed job.
The wind is gusty but pretty much straight down the runway so descend, pull the flaps, nail the speed on 65Kts, ride the turbulence, put the plane in the right place at the right speed, transfer attention to the end of the runway, pull the power off, a big heave and a gentle arrival as the stall Warner blares, a short roll out uphill and we are stopped before the junction with R32.

Following ATC's instructions we turn right then on to the grass GA parking and shut down.

Newquay are still socked in, cloud is all over the land but bright blue out to sea, we've certainly got the best of the weather here. Even Lands End are only just VFR.

The terminal is pretty empty but they had 100 people here this morning so the café is all but sold out.

As the weather has been so awful for so long they are running aircraft as fast as they can to try to clear the passenger and post backlog: the Twin Otters are using R32 and the Islanders R27.

There are passenger helicopters too from Penzance, plus a Trinity House helicopter preparing to lift fuel for the lighthouses. It's very busy.

We have had an issue with the aircraft not quite flying in trim: it flies left wing low, and on inspection at St mary's we find a loose locknut on the Port flap actuator bolt, allowing the flap to sit slightly proud of the wing when not deployed.
Stu normally has a spanner and screwdriver with him, but today we have to borrow a small spanner and a couple of minutes of adjustment has it all straightened out and tidied up. It's nice to be a couple of engineers.

We are melding as we have flown to gether quite a lot now: two pilots working in harmony, cross checking everything with no Ego's in play, each catching things the other missed.
He is a more visual navigator than I am, I'm Mr Skydemon but he's Mr ADF and map; no stopwatch but between us we do know exactly where we are at all times.
My method is more suited to IMC and VMC on top but I am very reliant on GPS. Swings and roundabouts.

We get R27 for take off and he hasn't done the terrifying downhill taxy towards the cliff to turn round and take off before.
This is where you really do need to know your brakes work....

We're off by the junction with R32 and departing via a right turn for Lands End, climbing to 2,000ft and the cloud still looks bad over Cornwall, not clearing until we are well in to Somerset, but we have a following wind now and this journey is a lot faster.

On returning past Yeovilton, switching to Henstridge and expecting no response we are surprised to hear the tower tell us there is a crane on the runway recovering the Jodel, but by the time we near the airfield he’s loaded it on to a truck and disappeared so we can join left downwind for runway 24, Stu drops it smartly on and we cruise to a stop.