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 owned 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.
Worse still, later he tells a colleague at the airfield I was the one that was lost.
Er, no.
I don't do "Uncertain of Location".

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.
And she's happy I can fly it OK, which is a relief.

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 had 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 7 miles 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, but this is NOT Dunkeswell; it's 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...

Newquay 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 more or less visual with the ground so I’m going to continue to concentrate entirely on the ILS and fly it 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. I am quite permitted to do this, but tend not to as the margin for error gets less the closer to the ground you are. But my needles are crossed and its getting smoother as we descend.

At 540ft I can look up and very, very close are the runway and 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 clear 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 working well as a team now as we have flown together 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.

Local 13 Jun 24

It's been a while and I need some certainty I can not only fly the plane effectively but more importantly get it in and out of a 450m grass strip near Bury St Edmunds.
It's noticeable that since flying from Henstridge my spot landings and take offs have become more controlled because the relatively short length of the runway (Henstridge is 630m) concentrates the mind wonderfully, I have an inbuilt irrational concern about running out of runway.
It's very windy today, mainly across the runway; it will rain later. But I've always taken the attitude that you get what you get with the weather, and anyway this is great crosswind practise.
The aircraft has been moved to the concrete because they've been mowing the lawns. Long may the concrete parking last, it's much nicer underneath the aircraft doing the fuel drains or the cover to be on dry concrete, not wet grass.
Start up, taxy out and backtrack for R24. No one else is flying, but I've long been aware this does not mean the weather is unsuitable, but it's a weekday and not CAVOK. People are amazing: they will refuse to fly in anything remotely challenging.
Apparently it's a legal necessity to carry a Personal Locator Beacon when visiting a strip: the CAA's Strip Guide says so. Fortunately not only do I have one, there is one in the aircraft, so we are doubly legal.
This is my first proper short field experiment so we'll set 2 stages of flap and rotate at 55Kts. This works really well, the aircraft feels happy to fly and our ground roll was less than 200m. So far, so good.
At 100ft or so we get a lot of rotor off the warehouses to the South of the runway, it's a proper stop-to-stop job with the yoke for a few seconds, the landing could be interesting. Eventually it all calms down and by the time we are at circuit height it all feels under control, but now for the approach.
Two stages of flap, 600ft over the lakes watching the fishermen, roll the speed back to 65Kts aiming for 60Kts over the start of the tarmac and at 100ft it gets all a bit haywire as expected. Roll with the punches, maintain a steady approach and it all calms down at 20 foot or so, big pull and the stall warner flashes as we touch just on the numbers, roll in the throttle and off we go again.
I've got the measure of the conditions now, so this second one will be to a full stop.
Another PA-28 parked by the Tower would like to taxy for take off so we offer to extend downwind to give him time to roll, which he accepts and expedites as I run down the Approach. I have plenty of time to call short final and brush the very long grass a few feet in front of the start of the tarmac on 24 before touching a couple of feet in. Sensible but not too harsh braking and Google Earth, working off the SkyDemon records, later decides we roll to a stop in 200m. As we have 450m to play with, I think that's OK. Backtrack and let's try to replicate.
It's hard to get a really slow approach as I want to maintain good roll control in the choppy conditions so add 5Kts additional aileron authority speed but the landing distances are good, so we'll touch and go and climb upstairs through the clouds (nice bit of IMC) to 4,000ft for some stalls. With 2 stages of flap it will not stall until 45Kts, with 3 stages 43Kts and utterly benign, which is of course why the PA-28-140 is widely used as a training aircraft....
It's at this point I can look around. My "work" is all done and I am up here at 4,000ft on a sunny day with the best view in the world. Occasionally, as we all do I'm sure, I wonder why I chose flying as a hobby. Then I come up here and just want to go "wheeeeeeeeeeeeee........". So I'll just punt it round the clouds for a bit, with a huge smile.....
Back to the field for a final full stop and the Helimed helicopter is about to launch. I offer to extend downwind but he's happy to wait, we manage to replicate the landing but we're faster on the brakes this time and pull up in 190m, ready to vacate. Apparently this is a problem for the helicopter so we vacate past him before he then lifts off, and we can put the aircraft away.
I'm a lot happier now I can get the aircraft in and out of the strip, just need to plan the fuel carefully.

Higham strip 14 Jun 24
It has poured with rain all night but this has cleared through to clear skies with scattered showers and a gusty SW wind. Some of the showers are forecast to turn thundery later but we'll be home by then.
Taxy the aircraft round to the fuel pump and... it's locked. We have to call the owner of the airfield to ask him to get the fuel tester guy to come back and open the bowser. Fortunately that only delays us 25 minutes, Nessie jumps in (for her first flight since the bird strike in 2019) and we depart.
I have had to plan the fuel extremely carefully: we want the bare minimum departing the strip that will get us back to Henstridge with an hour's reserve (I never ever fly the  plane with less than an hour's reserve).
The aircraft burns between 8 and 10 USG/hr depending on how fast it is flown so we'll plan for 10USG/hr and an hours reserve of 10USG. The wind will be behind us going up and in our faces on the return journey, SkyDemon predicts 1.4hrs out, 1.8hrs back (and later analysis shows this to be exactly correct).
It's a bit bumpy and we get a bit rained on but Nessa is OK. We use London Info most of the way but I'm keen to use Oxford Radar for the gap between them/Brize and Benson, which is busy all the way up to Westcott (give that a wide berth, people use it a lot).
An hour and 21 mins later we do a low approach and go round at the strip. After all the planning it in fact looks quite long.
Cambridge gives us a wind check of 210° at 10 Kts for a 16 runway and we roll in over the A14 for a long, gentle approach. I don't want to get this wrong: there's a hangar at the end.
Two stages of flap, speed all the way back to 60Kts, aim for the very end of the runway and just at the point we flare it starts to drift off to the side, in to wind. Weird, but we're wheels on now so steer left out of the weeds and a gentle bit of braking gets us stopped halfway down, as expected. Phew.
Taxy in and shut down, Nessa leaps out and now the big question: taxy to the end and roll with the hangar looming on R14 or take off on R34? There is no windsock but throwing bits of grass establishes the wind is right across the runway so we'll roll on R34. Wave goodbye, start up, hold the aircraft on the brakes and pull back on the yoke to unload the nosewheel as per the handbook.
55Kts comes up with plenty of runway left so rotate and we start to climb but again we are drifting left towards the only tree in the vicinity. Keep the yoke forward for speed and the wings finally do lift us enough for us to manoeuvre away from the tree and the wires and climb out over the wood. Next time we might climb out a bit further to the left, the landscape is lower.
But it just felt a bit crappy, I'm sure I can do better. A later Google Earth analysis of the SkyDemon logs show the take off didn't use all the available runway and drifted off in to wind. Well, lessons learned.
The journey home is slower but basically a re-run of the run out, although it's notable how quiet it is. Only mention Thunderstorms on the weather forecast and people go back to bed......
The only interesting thing that happens is that an A400M passes 1500ft below coming away from Salisbury Plain, he looks to be flying very low indeed presumably back to Brize Norton.
1 hour 48 mins later we're back at Henstridge and lined up for R24, the wind is about what it was yesterday and some quite serious rotor occurs at about 100ft. I seem to be able to reliably get off at the first taxyway now so I must be stopped in about 200m. A long way from only just managing to get the C182 down in 650m, a very long time ago......

Higham Strip and Duxford 15-16 Jun 24
This evening we are going back to pick up Nessa. We've agreed it's a push to get out and back before darkness, as Henstridge has no lights (unless you are a Helimed helicopter) so I will stay over in Suffolk. I've calculated the fuel again very carefully and come to the conclusion that a fuel stop on the return journey would allow us to to take off from the strip with a limited supply and thus be as light as possible. Cambridge are closed to visitng aircraft at weekends (you what?) so Duxford it is.
What I don't understand is the other guys who booked the aircraft today to go to Blackbushe cried off because the weather was going to be "on the deck all day".  Actually the cloudbase never dropped below 1,200ft and the rain never got above "light". Weird, am I the only one happy to fly in virtually anything?
The winds have swung round to more align with the runway so there is now no rotor from the industrial buildings on the climb out and the thermals have calmed down as it's evening, so 1hr 5 minutes later we're turning Final over the A14. This time I will lean more to the left hand side of the strip. There is a fair bit of rotor on the approach but this time we stay in the middle of the strip and, as before, stop in 200m or so. Who said PA-28-140's couldn't handle the strip life?
The big question of course is getting out 2-up plus Basil plus luggage, wellies, Basil's food and so on. Careful weighing and calculation using the PA-28-140 short field runway chart has us off in 1250ft or 381m of the usable 450m. Tight.
I toss and turn over this overnight, no one wants to be the subject of an AAIB Accident report: "the pilot elected to continue the take off despite wet grass / inadequate weight or fuel calculation / poor short field technique" etc etc.
But in the morning Nessa decides my previous strip departure was too scary and elects to meet us with Basil at Duxford, thereby completely removing all worries.
Arrive at the aircraft to find I've left the aircraft locked but with the key in the door. I hope this is the most stupid thing I do today.
Fire up, let the engine warm and using the correct short field / soft field technique we roll. Being early morning there is only a small crosswind component and we're off and climbing out happily by half way down the strip, so 200m. No rotor, no floating, easy this one.
Duxford is 10 minutes away and just opening at 10:00am, so despite the telephone PPR briefing stating that I should join Downwind for 24 the nice lady suggests a straight-in. A Maule is just behind lining up for 24 grass. Of course there will be 500 people watching this landing, so it had better be good.....
All this concentration on landing technique (and of course the fact that you'd have to be an idiot to land a PA-28 badly) results in a greaser, so I can backtrack, avoid the huge hare that runs across the runway and taxy in to park next to a P-51 Mustang. Serious aircraft envy...
The bowser fills us full up: we've got a very long runway and with a bit of luck won't have to fill up again back at Henstridge. My W&B app says we are just over MAUW but I think with the mile long ruway we should be OK.
Nessa and Basil arrive, we all fit in to the aircraft, call for start and waddle out to the runway, pretty damned heavy. The aircraft is slow to accelerate and doesn't want to unstick, glad it wasn't like this on the strip, but eventually we climb out, it takes several minutes to reach 1,000ft but slowly the fuel works off and the aircraft becomes livelier. With the occasional clear air turbulence we work our way West then South West for Oxford (we're high enough and far enough South to ignore Oxford and stay with London Info, who are noticeably busier, but then it is Sunday), then on to Swindon and Trowbridge.
One aircraft comes up on London Info: a Coastguard King Air "On task" in the Channel between Dover and the FIR boundary at 1200ft. No surprises in what he's looking for....
As we swap to Henstridge (manned today: it's Sunday) the Helimed helicopter has a Shout and launches North directly below our inbound track, we then join Downwind for 24, slot it neatly and rotor-less on to the runway and taxy for fuel. But it's exactly on Tabs both sides so no fuel necessary, we can go and park.
You certainly do need to manage the fuel carefully on the PA-28: so between 00 minutes and 30 minutes I use the right tank, then 30 minutes back up to 59 mins the left tank. The C182 was certainly easier.

This whole exercise has been great in terms of proving the strip abilities of the PA-28: I am now confident I know its landing abilities and technique and the short-field performance and correct technique, I shall be less concerned in future.

Bodmin 2 Aug 24
Back from the hothouse that is Spain in August, I'm enjoying being cooler. Most of the year Spain has better climate but not in July and August....
Since my last flight I have been diagnosed with some long-standing high end hearing loss (too much loud rock music as a young man...) and am now sporting discreet whizzo Bluetooth hearing aids that have restored my hearing to that of a 20 year old. My main concern is that they may interfere with the noise-cancelling headphones but in practice they make absolutely no difference whatsoever other than being able to hear better. I probably ought to tell the CAA but I don't want to open another can of CAA worms. I can hear sufficiently well without them to get a Class 2 medical so this is really only an upgrade.
Stu and I are going to Bodmin this morning. We planned this trip ages ago but ended up first in The Scillies then in Newquay, so this time we are actually going there. I know it's relatively short grass and it has been raining so my newly-polished strip skills will come in handy. Remember, land slow on the threshold and gentle or no braking.
Stu is going to be delayed so I'll do a couple of circuits. Start up and depart as usual but as we climb out the ASI simply continues to climb. I know I'm not doing 100Kts or even 120Kts on climbout, we have a problem.
On the Downwind leg the ASI now says I am doing 180Kts, then it comes back to a more believable speed turning base but I don't trust it now so we'll fly the approach on guesswork; land a bit long and decide to give it one more circuit to see if it settles down.
The second circuit looks similar so we clearly have a problem and it's not me. Again, land by guesswork and this time park up by the pumps. Stu is a licensed avionics engineer so maybe he'll be able to shine some light on it. My guess is a partially-blocked pitot head or tube.

When Stu turns up he agrees and wants to fly it so we'll go to Bodmin. If we know the ground speed, easily accessible va Skyemon or Stu's handheld 1996 clockwork GPS solution we can ask for the wind speed and subtract one from the other to give an approximate airspeed. Well, that's the plan.

We climb up on top where it is smoother, but below the Airway that is down here. We know when we are nearing Okehampton as the tops of the clouds rise, then fall away as we head for Launceston so we find a gap and wing over in to it for some fun, just because we can.....

Bodmin are quiet (where is everyone?) so get a wind check and a straight in for R21 and practise our GPS-assisted approach with Stu singing out the airspeed, so I can trim for approach speed then simply let go and the aircraft will do the same speed whatever I do with the throttle. As I float above or below the approach path more or less throttle will vary my vertical speed. It's all very easy and we can put the mains on the threshold and slow for, unbelievably, the first exit. The man in the tower says that's the shortest roll out he's seen today. These strip skills are handy...
We are parked up next to a smart-looking Mooney and facing the rough grass.

Bodmin's cafe do an excellent lemonade, bacon butty and flapjack so our mission is quickly accomplished, but going back outside it's bloody cold here.
Check oil and fuel and Stu starts up. It's only then that we realise we can't get it out of here without reverse thrust so we need to shut down, I can leap out and push the aircraft back and round until he's confident he can get it out. I hope he doesn't leave me behind...

We opt for runway 31 to give ourselves as long a take-off roll as possible, but before rolling we have to hold for them to clear the sheep off the runway with a Land Rover. That's a first.

Runway 31 is 655m of grass including the starter strip but the first section is uphill. We are 2-up with quite a lot of fuel. I'd do a short-field/soft-field take-off and rotate at 55Kts. But Stu chooses a no-flap take-off with no soft-field technique and as the end hedge starts to look uncomfortably close he drags it off the ground at 45Kts. The stall warner flashes and the poor aircraft struggles to achieve a positive rate of climb. The hedge is not far below us and now the A30 looms. No tall vehicles today but we'd probably have hit any passing ones. Eventually Stu gets the yoke forward and the buzzing stops but flap and short field technique would have made that less buttock-clenching. On a hotter day that could have been a problem.

Just when we think we're over the worst the door top blows open. I know it's possible to close it in flight but have never done it: it requires two people squeezing with one person closing the latch, and this only works below 70Kts so you have to slow the aircraft down.
Every day's a School Day...

He likes to fly VFR below the clouds using a real map upon which he has a real route marked, and using the ADF as well this works well as we pass Okehampton, with rain now on the hills to our South. The weather clears up as we come back to Somerset and soon we are passing the lakes to the South of Yeovil and lining up on Henstridge.

We do hear some rather mangled radio calls as we approach for a left downwind for Runway 24 but it is only when we are established downwind do we suddenly see another aircraft to our right who is clearly not expecting us to be there. He moves off to the South and we land successfully (if a little long) using GPS-derived speed, but after we shut down the pilot of the other aircraft comes over to ask us if our radio was working OK as he hadn't known we were joining. A quick radio check confirms that we can both transmit and receive so I'm not quite sure what was going on there?

The following day Stu removes the tube from the back of the ASI and cannot blow down it so dismantles the pitot head. The head is filled with unidentifiable gunk but after removal the tube is now blowable so after re-assembly and a test flight we are back in business, I buy a pitot cover and we'll fit that Friday.

I’m not sure he’s really meant to be fixing this sort of stuff but he does know what he’s doing….

Dunkeswell 6 Aug 24
I need to be back in Blandford by 2:00pm so I'm not going too far today.

Bolt Head is the most likely candidate but they want £20 cash and I haven't got that on me so Dunkeswell it is, for the fabled bacon butty.

The ASI works perfectly, which is great news. I have Skydemon as a backup but quickly become aware I don't need it.

Clouds are at 3,000ft today so 2,500ft keeps me VFR and happy. I could go higher and it would be smoother but I can't be arsed, it's lovely out here today and being a weekday it's really quiet.
Surely, everyone is on holiday so should be flying?

20 minutes and a few fun steep turns later (because I can) I request and am granted a straight in for R22, over the parked aircraft.
There is no parachuting today.

For some bizarre reason I land long and fast; got to keep that speed back...

The restaurant delivers on the bacon butty and plenty of Famous Five lemonade, so a quick pee, check very carefully I haven't locked myself out of the aircraft again, start up, taxy out, power check and roll on R22.

Without an autopilot flying long distances can be tiring so I’m experimenting with releasing the yoke and just using rudder to control direction.

Once trimmed out the aircraft flies pretty well and it’s a lot less tiring.

Rough air is a different matter but so long as you don't mind the aircraft floating up or down 50ft this is a very relaxing experience, it might just reduce the IMC workload IMC as well.

Report 8 miles to the West of Henstridge, this time I get a response (so I know the radio is working OK), join LH downwind for R24, turn over the lake at 500ft and plop it on the threshold, roll to the 2nd exit (optional now I understand short field) and fill it up with fuel for the others' flight tomorrow.

In the afternoon I visit Newton Peveril strip and meet Tim, the owner, who says he would be very happy for me to drop in. It's 460m of beautifully maintained grass, and they are friendly folk.
I might come this way next week.

Lee on Solent-Sandown-Lee on Solent 9 Aug 24

My old college friend Paul has had some recent health issues and I want a chance to catch up with him. He lives near Lee on Solent and worked on getting his PPL a few years ago but never completed it, sailing taking priority in the end. I've never flown with him but he has expressed interest in going to Sandown for lunch.
It's pretty windy today so with the normal summer thermals it will be a bumpy ride. I can test fit the new pitot cover that should stop the rubbish from getting inside, then ensure it is removed and start up.
But for some reason the indicated fuel pressure won't come up. It's off the bottom stop but it's nowhere near what we would nomally see. Turning the electric pump on brings it back to normal but turning it off again it drops back.
This is not a problem for take off but may be an issue in the cruise and needs monitoring. I just hope it doesn't presage catastrophic mechanical fuel pump failure.
We're on tabs so have sufficient fuel to get us around today, so power check at the Hold and then Hold a little longer to wait for an incoming Helimed helicopter, who is grateful. Roll on runway 24 and we're in to bumpy immediately.
Some people won't fly in bumpy but I always take the attitude that you get what you get and you should get on with it.
Compton Abbas have a NOTAM'd air display today so we'll avoid that and simply navigate VFR at 1500ft to Blandford Forum, Stoney Cross, Beaulieu then Calshot, monitoring the still-quiet Southampton frequency and displaying a Listening Squawk before swapping to Lee on Solent, who have a slightly weird circuit arrangement for runway 23 which basically involves not overflying all the housing estates and turning quite a short final for R23 over the industrial estate.
Despite the gusty crosswind chucking us about on short Final, the landing seems to go OK so taxy in and as I step out of the aircraft my phone decides that now is the time I need to pick up Paul, so for once I am spot on time.

A quick pee, and we can take off for the isle of Wight. I'll do the gusty take off and Paul can fly us from 100ft or so.
Allowing someone else to fly is always a mixed bag but so long as they do actually relinquish control when asked they can't do much damage up here.
But Paul is good: smooth, confident and happy to wield throttle as well as yoke so we settle in for a smooth-over-the-water guided tour of the Isle of Wight via The Needles. He holidays a lot there and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the coastline.
Eventually we return to Cowes and he turns inland for a right base join for runway 23 at Sandown. I'd be happy for him to land it, but it's gusty across the approach so I'll take it, and work through the rotor amongst the trees and golf course to drop it on the grass for a "Ooh, that was unexpectedly drama free" landing. The difference between landing at 75Kts and 60Kts is a lot of drama. Wish I'd known that

Taxy in and shut down for a most excellent lunch with lashings of Famous Five ginger beer and a good long chat before starting up for the return journey.
Correct soft field and short field take off techniques get us off the ground in 200m but as we climb away that door blows open again. It takes us a couple of busy minutes to shut it, mindful of the AAIB report writing itself: "the pilots were distracted by a partially opened door and the resultant aerodynamic stall and fatal spin in to the field near Bembridge was avoidable". The secret, to closing the door is, as before, keeping the speed down (without stalling it).
Back over the water to Lee on Solent there is another PA28 lining up for the circuit and we end up both orbiting to give each other space. He rolls out of the orbit earlier and joins Downwind but he's not really far enough ahead of us so we need to slow right down or we will need to go around.
Paul pulls the throttle back but fails to pitch the aircraft so we just sink still doing 100Kts which was not the desired effect, so I take  it and immediately pull the flaps and pitch for 60Kts which feels like very heavy braking but gives the leading aircraft just enough time to clear the runway as we bimble down Short Final behind him.
It's close but he clears 2-3 seconds before we absolutely have to Go Around (why the tower doesn't give us a Land After I don't know) and now we just have to cope with what is now a 20Kt crosswind. Working the controls like a one-armed wallpaper-hanger it fnally clears up at 6ft above the runway and we can drop on with just a touch of remaining crab. This aircraft is just so easy to land, it flatters; I'm not really that good...

One more landing fee and I'm back in the aircraft for the run home.
The wind has really picked up now and I wonder what the approach at Henstridge has in store: crosswinds tend to pick up rotor off the hangars and large industrial buildings.
Back to Calshot, Beaulieu and Blandford Forum then past Compton Abbas and join downwind for R24 expecting windy weirdnesses, but rolling Final the windsock says the wind is straight down the runway, so with minimal disturbance we can drop on and stop at the pumps.

Oxford - Beccles - Oxford 11 Aug 24

Today is my great uncle’s memorial, in Walberswick in Suffolk. It’s a 5½ hour drive via the M3, M25 and A12 or 1.7hrs in the air. I know which I would prefer.
I wake up early in the morning and can't see across the valley, but it’s forecast to clear.

By the time I get to the airfield the cloud base has lifted and everything to the North and East is CAVOK.

I’m now starting to run late (this will be something of a theme today), I won’t quite hit my 10.00am slot for Oxford.

The tower (there’s actually someone in the Tower this morning) has us on R06 so I’ll backtrack and power check at the end. Depart to the North and fly up country to the familiar Oxford area. I won't get lost around here.

Brize’s radar has failed so they are shut and Oxford is on a procedural service with Approach and Tower on the same frequency, which makes life easy, so check in with them and float down over Oxford for a right base join for R01. Expecting the hard exit via C1 I bimble down the runway, they ask if I can make the grass shortcut at F. Well I can but it means quite harsh braking. If I’d known I’d have landed shorter…

Off on to the bumpy grass taxyway, then on to the apron and park up.
Hi-Viz on, take spare Hi-Viz in to Ops to pay the landing fee and find my sister, who isn’t there. I know she's on site, but where is she?
They’ve put her in the GA lounge in the other building behind an electronically locked door. Who on earth dreamed up this lunacy?
I finally get her to the other side of the locked door and demand over the internal phone that security release the door. There is another way in to the building but all the signs point in this direction. And as a visiing pilot I thencan't get out via the revolving fence gate...
So finally we have to head back to Ops, then I still have to pay the landing fee and book out. Why couldn't they just have kept her in Ops? I think in future I'll ask guests to simply stay in Ops.

Only then we can don hi-viz's, walk out to the plane, taxy around to A1 and then have to hold behind some plonker in an SR22 who did his power checks 10 minutes ago before I started the engine but is fart arsing about doing God knows what and blocking the Hold. I've flown an SR22: they're not that complex...
Finally (and it wasn’t that he was waiting for an IFR clearance) he moves up to the Hold, takes off and we can get cleared. What a faff! What should have taken 10 minutes has taken 50 minutes so we are now heading to be seriously late.

Cleared Eastbound we have to thread the needle between NOTAM'd Live firing at Otmoor and gliding at Weston on the Green (apparently including the social media star Petetheirishpilot, who is great fun), but then it’s a clear run NE so I can pop a cushion under my sister and get her to fly it. She has 22hrs amassed in Australia a few years ago (quite a bit more than I thought) and actually is pretty good, apart from the inevitable rusty-pilot porpoising / pilot induced oscillations both vertically and horizontally. She's a horse rider so is naturally pre-inclined to handle an aircraft well.

It’s over an hour to Beccles via Duxford and the landscape gets drier and browner as we head East. The West Country was much greener: they've clearly harvested here.
As we approach Beccles we realise we’ve timed it badly: they’re about to drop parachutists so we need to orbit to the West of the field. Big Sis starts out OK, but half way round decides to recover a 100ft height loss as well as tightening the turn. Speed drops back below 60Kts so an authoritative push from me prevents stall/spin by restoring our angle of attack, or lift bank as I like to think of it, and we continue the turn as if nothing had happened.

Beccles declare “all chutes on the ground” so we immediately roll out, fly the R09 approach behind a C42, watch him use the entire runway, grass and all then have to backtrack for exit, so we pull the speed back to 60Kts, work through the rotor over the muck heap in front of the runway and drop it on near the numbers, gentle braking has us stopped before the end of R09 hard, exit and taxy to parking.

I have arranged a hire car and to our surprise not only is it there but it’s a nice Jaguar. Wow!

5 minutes later we’re on the road and off to my Great Uncle’s memorial service.

After a lovely send off we return the Jaaaag via the Morrisons service station.

I wanted to fly the aircraft light out of Beccles: it’s a short runway, a hot day and we’re 2 up so I haven't fueled since we left Henstridge. We have 15USG distributed between the tanks, enough to get us to Oxford where we can fill up, but we’ll need to run the left tank dry. This is something I’m not happy about, but I mentally practise fuel pump, switch tanks and check pressure until I hope I can do it fast enough so the poor old engine doesn’t starve.

The short field departure from Beccles is a non-event, we even get off before the tarmac runs out, then big Sis does the whole pilot induced oscillations thing again.
But then I have a failure of confidence in my ability to handle the fuel tank swap, so as we near Duxford I ask if we can stop there and fuel up. No, the fueler has gone home (which is a bit naughty as we later encounter, rather too closely, a Harvard having an evening bimble on its way to Duxford) so we’re committed to handling a dry tank.

Picking our way from Westcott around the Weston on the Green parachuting zone the engine suddenly starts to miss. My previous practise runs hold me in good stead as I fuel-pump-swap-tanks faster than the eye can see and the engine immediately picks up again. I know we have at least 5USG left and only 17 minutes to run, which is plenty.
Amazingly, the normally hugely inaccurate fuel gauges are actually spot on, left showing empty and right showing 5USG. Worth noting for future reference.

Joining left base for R19 at Oxford my nerves get the better of me and on being told I’m no 3, meaning a possible go round, I share my concerns with the guys in the tower and whist not declaring an emergency ask for a land after. In the event they simply get the guy in front to go round and we drop on neatly. Phew...
He was doing circuits so it's good practise for him. And he gets an early turn.

They order a bowser to the apron and we hop out and inspect the tanks. Left is dry as a bone but there’s about 8USG in the right tank, more than I thought, so I’d clearly erred on the cautious side. Filling to an inch above tabs both sides is £300 but the money has never been better spent….

The evening light is lovely and several of the school planes (flown that one, flown that one, did my IMC in that one) are doing evening circuits.

Leaving Big Sis in Ops to get the bus we can depart on R19, depart South around Oxford then South West over my old house, past Swindon and Devizes then round Keevil just in case they are still parachuting, turn South and make a gentle descent over the hills back to Henstridge.
I prefer R24 and there’s no other traffic plus the windsock is straight across the runway so R24 it is.
It’s been a long day which is reflected in my long-ish messy landing but it’s safe, so taxy in and shut down. I’m knackered.

One thing I have noticed recently is the increase in the number of women and Asians coming up on the radio, for too long GA has been the sole haunt of old white men spending the kids inheritances (like me) and younger white men training to be airline pilots. This is yet another indiccation of changing social trends: women and Asian people now have more money and want to go out and learn to fly. 

Salcombe Bolt Head 17 Aug 24

I want to vacuum out the aircraft as the carpets are revolting, and then aviate, so having announced my intentions on our WhatsApp booking / snagging group and Andy, one of the other owners decides he'd like to come along.

I've not met Andy before so we agree to meet for lunch before the flight and compare notes. Over a gut-busting Henstridge lunch I learn he's got tailwheel experience lots of hours in lots of aircraft and a similar attitude to me: ensure things are right, but then get on and don't faff about.

We are both concerned about the oil level, normally a bit below 6L but now virtually empty. George who flew the aircraft earlier had put a bottle in earlier in the day but now we have to put a second bottle in to bring the level back up.
Also, I've noticed the fuel pressure not coming up properly on the mechanical fuel pump. Use of the electrical fuel pump brings it up but on the mechanical fuel pump it does nto come up to normal pressure until about 10 minutes after you've taken off.
Both a little worrying.

Andy will fly us to Salcombe Bolt Head, my favourite coastal grass strip, which he does with little drama, although he uses no take off flap on tarmac, it's interesting to see how other people fly the plane although I find it more stable on climb out with 1 stage. He also keeps the nose down in ground effect until he hits 75Kts, whereas I would go for height over the road at the end of the runway, replete with high-sided 40 tonners....
The weather turns a bit cloudy and cold further South West, clearly a harbinger of what it will be like in Dorset later. He has an iPad Mini on a yoke mount, mounted portrait and track up. I think I might get a RAM mount for my iPad but it will be landscape, and North up. It's weird how some people are track up people and some are North up - it's a difference in the way the brain works...

We avoid the noise abatement area to the North of the field and line up for a long Final for R29, there is a crosswind from the North but the windsock is barely moving, so we can disregard it. Andy puts it efficiently on a little past the numbers, but is worried about getting out again. It's 600m so I'm not bothered, I know what this aircraft can do and we're not heavy on fuel so I'll fly us out.

A Ginger Beer and crisps tea in the little walkers' rest café round the corner on the cliff top, and we're ready to return. We check the oil and it's fine so clearly it had needed two bottles.
Push the aircraft out of its parking slot, start up and we're taxying out. Power check, then line up on R29, two stages of flap, brakes on, full power, yoke all the way back, release the brakes. This gets the weight off the noewsheel and the performance difference is staggering - we're light on the wheels by 45Kts and I allow the aircraft off at 55Kts, accelerating in ground Effect to 75Kts. We've used 222m of the runway. Andy says he's never seen a PA-28 flown like that...

Climb out over the cliffs (probably not a good place for an EFATO) then turn round back to the North East, take some pictures and chat while we cruise back to Henstridge. Andy probably weighs as much as I do and the aircraft seems more stable with equal weight either side.
Although it's Saturday the Tower has now gone home so we can join Downwind for R24, put it neatly on the end of the tarmac and taxy in for fuel.
He's nice: I'll fly with him again. And he has an all-original Lancaster simulator in his shed.....

Goodwood 14 Sep 24

It's an early-September beautiful Saturday for once in the UK. I'm feeling a bit jaded as my Ryanair from Alicante didn't get in until 10:00pm and by the time I had recovered the car and got home it was nearly midnight. IMSAFE warns me of dangers lurking, but I slept well and just need a decent lunch now.
My orignal plan for today was Oaksey Park near Kemble but on closer inspection they have no café, so Goodwood it is; I haven't been there in years.

By comparison with the tearing rush that accompanies a rental aircraft slot, a syndicate pre-flight can be leisurely and comprehensive. Our aircraft WhatsApp group warns of an issue with the stall warner, and indeed when I power up the buzzer sounds and the light illuminates continuously.
Clearly it is unusable as a warning device, so the question is do I scrub, or disable it and fly without it?
Whilst I wouldn't fly IMC without it, I think a short day VFR flight in an aircraft I know is OK;  it's a question of Risk Management.
I can unscrew the fuse holder, remove the fuse and put it in my top pocket, ensuring I leave myself a post-flight note to re-connect it.

For some reason I have an audience: nearly 100 people are standing by the Air Ambulance tarmac watching me. I have no idea what's going on as the Air Ambulance has just left but it's quite disconcerting. I can't decide whether they are CAA inspectors, Air Ambulance supporters waiting for a ride or PA-28 groupies? We do get groupies but they are normally at the café, so what is this lot doing? They seem very interested in what I'm doing, and it's hard to concentrate when doing my normal pre-flight wee up against the bonfire.....

Everything else works, so we can start up, warm up and talk to the surprisingly busy Henstridge Traffic before moving to the Hold, power-checking with an audience, waiting for the Tiger Moth to land, then backtracking and rolling on R24.
Departing to the South East I can route via Blandford Forum, Stoney Cross and Calshot before diverting South a bit to avoid Lee on Solent’s ATZ, then over Portsmouth's Spinnaker Tower and straight to Goodwood.
The AFE entry for Goodwood shows a complete mess of circuits and noise abatement areas so I've printed it out and it's here with me. They're on R14 with a left hand circuit so I can draw the correct routing on the map, descend dead side and cross over the take-off numbers. Passing over Chichester I can see my long-defunct old employer at Birdham in the distance.
Oh no, that was 40 years ago. Now I feel old.....

Call Downwind for R14, truncate my Downwind leg to avoid flying over East Lavant (unnecessary but kind), then roll out Final, back to 60Kts (but no further as I have no stall warner today), flare over the starter extension and my first PA-28 landing in a month is smooth as silk. It really is all about removing excess energy on Short Final, this avoids bounces and long landings.

Taxy in over the undulating grass and park by the Tower, who tell me I need to book in at the Aero Club, right up the other end through all the half-disassembled Goodwood Revival marquees. By gum, it looks they have had a lot of rain here (I am later told by my neighbour that they had 4 days of solid rain last week. Glad I wasn't here...).
The Aero Club takes my Landing fee and tells me the café is closed. No announcement, nothing useful, just closed.

This is actually typical of Airport cafés the world over. Another aviator has come up with the intriguing concept that prior to your arrival the airport café is in fact in a "neither open nor closed" state, like Schrödinger's cat being neither dead nor alive, until you land at which point the function collapses and you find out which it is.  But only by landing can you collapse the function, it is impossible to find out beforehand.

Fortunately there is a Motor racing café over the other side of the track which is open, but despite it really not being very busy at all the food service is absolutely glacial.
I know the people at the next table arrived long, long after me and have just been served with the same filled baguettes I ordered, so I suspect I have been forgotten.
The waiter sneaks a surreptitious look at my table number (you think I haven't noticed?) and within 2 minutes my surprisingly good sandwich arrives.
But it's nice sitting in the sun watching the Mk2 Jags departing the pit lane, I'm in no hurry here.

Back to the Aero Club then past the semi-dismantled marquees towards the Tower where I meet a bored security guard who advises me that access to the airport area is "closed"; clearly he has no idea who I am. Rather than go full-on Karen with him I'll walk back then slip past him round the other side of the hangar to where the Tower operator is.

He's out of his Tower so I ask him where I go to the Hold for R14, expecting arm-waving and verbal explanations, but instead he grabs a hand held radio and we both leap in to his 4x4. Using the excuse of needing to do a runway inspection he takes me on a tour whilst using his radio to marshal incoming and outgoing aircraft. Pretty cool, actually.

As we cross one of the inactive runways he's amused that I look carefully both ways. I know people do weird stuff at airports, landing on the wrong runways and so on and gliders sometimes don't have radios so I always look: just habit. I'm actually quite suprised he doesn't look: one day it will come back and bite him.

Once he has showed me the Hold and the runway he then drops me at the aircraft. What service: that makes up for Schrödinger's café.

Start up, taxy to the R14 Hold, power check then wait ages and ages for a school C172 who is faffing about, doing his checks 3 or 4 times. Next time I'll park in a better place and go round him.
Following him on take off we must turn left for noise abatement but above 1000 feet can then head for the coast, then Emsworth, Hayling Island and the Spinnaker Tower. Swapping to a Listening Squawk for Solent, then Bournemouth we can route via Hurst Castle on the Isle of Wight then Hengistbury Head, down Bournemouth Beach and round the South West end of Bournemouth’s zone.

A sharp right under their stub gets us overhead Newton Peveril (not today, with no stall warner) then up to Blandford Forum and West for pictures of the house.
Given that it takes 30 minutes to drive to Henstridge it's amusing that the same journey only takes 8 minutes at a leisurely 95Kts, proving once again the efficiency of aviation over road transport. We'll join downwind for R24, get that speed back to 60Kts and 600ft over the lakes and drop on smoothly, taxy to the pumps, wait for a very aerobatic-looking taildragger, fill up and taxy round to the grass to park up.
My audience at the Air Ambulance has drifted away, Such is the fickle nature of stardom.
Pop the stall warner fuse back in and I'm off to the Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival, Gromit...

Draycott - Oaksey Park - Shobdon 17 Sep 24

This lovely late-summer weather won't last, but whilst it does it would be an awful shame not to take advantage of it. Today it's a tour of "airfields I keep flying past but not visiting" then lunch at Shobdon.
Our stall warner has now completely failed, but I'm used to the aircraft now, I can probably land it without the crutch.
More worrying, the left hand fuel gauge which is normally completely accurate is now showing full, no matter how much or little fuel the tank holds. The two combined point to a wiring issue in the left wing as they are very close together. If the wiring is deranged, the high current going to the strobe at the end of the wing could be a problem...

Like French and Spanish airfields, Draycott does not require PPR. PPR is a uniquely UK invention, inidcative of the underlying attitude of some airfields that landing there is by invitation only, not really the "healthy GA" attitude we would like to perpetuate. Some airfields dress it up as "needing to pre-brief you on noise abatement rules" but these rules are always there in the AFE or Pooleys Guide, which I always print out and bring along, so PPR is unnecessary unless you are Heathrow. Please stop it.

Draycott is very hard to find: even when SkyDemon says it is 5 miles ahead it is still invisible and only once I am virtually Downwind for R36 can I see the parked aircraft nestling under the trees.

To make up, though, the runway and parking areas are immaculately maintained. West London Aero Club, please take note.

The runway is a roller coaster with a huge dip half way down, but easy to land on and a smooth taxy later I am parked up outside the Clubhouse with its Honesty Landing Fee box and well-stocked Kitchen.

This is how aviation should be: since leaving Oxford I have come to appreciate small but competently-run grass strips for their informality married with their professionalism. If I lived in Swindon this is where I would want to be based.

Given the number of aircraft based and the aircraft hiding in the hangars I'd say GA in the UK, despite dire comments in the Press, is alive and kicking in 2024.

What I don't understand is how anyone can scrape together the £125,000 necesary to buy a typical Part 21 aircraft, given the Government's rapacious attitude towards direct and indirect taxation.

I am not poor, but I have never had £125,000 knocking about I don't have a better use for. I've basically always borrowed other peoples' aircraft. Maybe that's a better way?

After a Capri Sun and a chocolate bar I'll taxy to the immaculate run up area, wait for the arriving traffic to clear, backtrack runway 36 and roll. We're off before the dip, showing that the Cherokee is a perfectly adequate strip aircraft provided it's not overloaded. 15° to the left for noise abatement on climb out and we're off on the 12 minute leg to Oaksey Park.

This is another little hidden gem, South of Kemble but not by much. It has what I can only describe as a billiard table runway.

Goodwood, by comparison, is washboard and especially Compton Abbas is absolute rubbish but this is how a grass runway should be. Not a blemish, they must have a groundskeeper trained at a professional football club. Lacking the tarmac arrival squeak you just don't know youre down, only the end of the runway stops rising and the aircraft is slowing down. Very flattering.

Park up next to an immaculate Broussard and ogle the perfect Chipmunk in the hangar. The RAF ones I used to fly were never like this, they were dirty and used, bits were worn and polished by hands and boots.

Again, an honesty box and no formal food but snacks in the tidy clubhouse, and a friendly A/G operator makes this a good place to return, especially as they are planning to start doing pizzas.

But as it's a warm day getting the aircraft to start is plenty of fun - the vaprorised fuel in the system has to be cleared out by cranking with the mixture on lean, then again with it rich before it finally kicks and settles down. A smooth taxy to the runway and we're off in to the circuit then depart West to avoid Kemble before turning North West for Shobdon, over the Severn and up towards Wales.
The fact that Herefordshire is 35 minutes from leafy Wiltshire (and probably a 2 hour drive) shows the direct nature of aviation - even in a lowly PA28-140 I can cover huge distances very quickly.

Over the various low hills marking Herefordshire and join Downwind for the Right Hand circuit for R08. Offered hard or grass I think I'll put it on the grass today, and this is not quite the billiard table experience but it's usable, we'll taxy in and shut down for lunch, leaving the door open for cooling. I don't think anyone will steal a 1967 Cherokee, especially as I have the keys in my pocket.

Following an excellent lunch (although the really pretty girl no longer works here) we can start up again - easier this time, it's had time to cool off a bit. Taxy for departure and there are a number of aircraft waiting... and waiting... There's no one on approach, so rather than barge past them I can request 08 Grass and immediately roll.
And that all goes really well until we rotate and it gets really noisy - the door top has failed to latch and flicked loose. The door is secure but I don't really want to go all the way to Somerset with this whooshing in my ears, so tell the Tower we're going to do one circuit and land. I'm not going to mess with it in flight.

Back on to 08 Hard, taxy off on to the grass and back to a low idle, this door is getting to be a complete pain. I think it needs grease.
After a fair amount of tussling it does finally shut properly, but once again we have people hogging the access way to the runway and doing endless checks.
They're really not all doing full IFR checks (and should have done them before exiting their parking spot anyway) and I don't think they're waiting for Flight Plan slots so we'll need to have patience here.
A couple of aircraft are on Final including a pseudo-military helicopter (I'd guess SAS, but who knows?) who is doing touch and go's on the grass, and an audibly nervous Student gyrocopter pilot. The C152 in front of me is not only blocking the way but has rolled too far and the poor gyro has to descend over him to land on the grass. Still, good practise in Command Decisions (he Goes Around).
He finally gets going and we can follow him up the runway, duck right and depart South for Brecon, a good VOR exercise. Climbing to 3,500ft we are still battered by the rotor from the NE wind as we pass over the tops of the Beacons with 1,000ft to spare, but the scenery is worth it.
The sparsely-populated and wild-looking Northern Beacons give way slowly to the Heads of the Valleys A465, to be finally completed after many years of spotty investment from successive Governments (unless Kier Starmer cancels it...), then the "pretty from here but grim on the ground" mining communities that are now wastelands and sinks for Government handouts. Cheaper to have torn them down when they stopped the coal mining, surely?

The ground soon falls away and with it our ability to be at this altitude so switch from London Info to Cardiff Approach with a Listening Squawk and descend to below 2500ft over the littoral, then on coasting out over the Bristol Channel swap to Bristol with another Listening Squawk and descend even further to 1300ft.
The CTA limits here are a bit cheeky given that the ILS cone for R09 at this point is 2,000ft above us and this height doesn't even give me the ability to make shore in the event of an engine failure. Still, I chose to come this way so shouldn't complain...

As we coast in Bristol advises a landing EasyJet above us of "Unidentified Traffic below at 1400ft". Well, I'm on the Gloucestershire Regional QNH as given to me by London Info and my altimeter says I'm at 1300ft, so I could have a discussion with them about my altimeter versus their radar, but I can't be bothered.
Whilst at this heght the Control Zone restriction actually puts me over the hill this side of the Cheddar reservoir but below the top of the TV mast at Wells, which is a bit dangerous.
But once past the reservoir I can climb immediately to 3,000ft over The Mendip Hills then to 3,500ft to be above Yeovilton's MATZ stub. I could talk to them but today I just can't be bothered.
The only issue is that the MATZ stub ends only a couple of miles from Henstridge so to be able to descend in to the crcuit I need to turn East to give myself a bit of descent space, once over the edge I can chop the throttle, drop the flaps and slip it like crazy. The VSI goes off the clock negative and by the time I'm Downwind right hand for R06 I've lost 2,500ft and we're at circuit height.
I've struggled with the R06 approach a bit, it's got a displaced threshold and my built-in "running out of runway" panic always surfaces so I WILL be 60Kts on short final, and of course it's completely drama free: I'm at walking speed before the fuel bowser exit so 200m landing roll. There's an aircraft waiting to enter the runway there so rather than fight with him I'll continue up to the Eastern taxyway and come back to the pumps from there.
Having filled up I can taxy back to my grass parking area, but suddenly appear not one but two aircraft coming the other way. I can slip sdeways in to a wide part to let the first one through but the seond one pops helpfully on to the grass and I can ease past and on to my grass for parking.

I can't believe Henstridge is so busy on a week day: there are aircraft everywhere going off to do aerobatics, helicopters doing touch and go's and parked up at the café. UK GA is alive and well, that's for sure.

Lee on Solent Hovercraft Museum 21 Sep 24

Despite waking up to blue skies at home the weather at Henstridge is awful: low overcast and not looking to clear any time soon.
Wandering around glumly I meet Jim and Owen who have a clean red Bulldog in the new hangar, and for the first time I can have a wander around this shared hangar, full of PA-28s, a motor glider, a couple of C42's and, oh be still my beating heart, a genuine airworthy Edgley Optica. I thought they had all been dismantled.
This was the dream child of my late-1970's obsession with aircraft and I finally get to meet one in the flesh. I may get the chance to fly it at some point, if I play my cards right.

After a good root through the hangar, with its chaise longue for between-maintenance relaxation sessions, a cup of coffee in the café and a chat with the dejected-looking Saturday Tower staff Stu and I decide that as we know it's OK on the South coast we're going to go, and if we need to punch up through the cloud that's OK. Everyone else is just sitting around looking glum. Go Fly already!

We fill up with fuel, review the fact that the stall warner still doesn't work (despite Stu delving in to the wing earlier in the week) and depart on R06, immediate right turn and climb out South.
The base is about 1000ft AGL so despite having to climb to clear the hills West of Blandford Forum we are more or less VMC, certainly enough to know we're not going to hit anything covered in grass and soon the clouds clear and Poole Harbour appears bathed in sunshine. Good Decision.

We switch to a Bournemouth Listening squawk, coast out at Sandbanks, head offshore and for Hurst Castle. Our bad weather plan was to head up the middle of The Solent where we only need 100ft of clear air to get in to Lee on Solent, get a Deconfliction Service from Bournemouth and descend over the sea. But it's bright blue skies as we pass up North abeam Cowes and settle in to a long Final for R05, counteract the surprisingly strong Easterly wind on Final and plop it on. I do seem to be able to do consistently good landings in this aircraft by simply ensuring I am at 60Kts on short Final and pulling like buggery in the last 20 feet. Without the stall warner to warn, you do need to be a little careful but it all seems OK.

I plan to roll to the end but the Tower suggests a backtrack. If I'd known that was the plan I would have stopped a lot further back....

Taxy in and joy of joys my mate Paul is here, so we head off for the Hovercraft Museum, truly a magnificent trobute to Sir Christopher Cockerell and his unique invention.

They still run hovercraft between Portsmouth and Ryde on the Isle of Wight.

After a very good lunch at the beach café Stu flies us back to Henstridge where the weather has cleared.

We guess they are still on R06 but the friendly Tower people have gone home, so Blind Calls it is and we're back on the ground in no time, the fuel is now on Tabs where we always leave it.

Sandown 23 Oct 24

Our neighbour Debbie has asked for a trip out, and I'm temporarily at a loose end while waiting for a MotorHome Hab check.
The weather starts off awful with thick fog in the valley, but it's forecast to clear later in the morning so we'll delay our departure until 11:00am for a 12:00 take off and a 12:45 lunch.
I end up having a very strange telephone conversation with the husky owner of Sandown when I call to ensure Schrödinger's café is open: he tells me the airfield is closed today due to muddy parking areas but that as I've been in before (how did he know?) he'll open just for us but asks that we land on the Astroturf. Schrödinger's airfield, perhaps?
I've never landed on the astroturf before, it looks small from the air but we'll see what we can do. My spot landings have got a lot better since being at Henstridge...
I also want to experiment with my new yoke iPad mount; I am bored with my iPad always being on the passenger's lap. My old C182 mount doesn't fit so RAM have supplied me with a new part.

By the time we get to Henstridge the clouds have lifted to the point that I think we can get off and stay safe (although any flying school would have just gone home for the day...).
The RAM mount fits and we experiment with where to have the actual iPad. We end up with it above the yoke, which means I can't see the ADF or the suction gauge. Oh well, maybe I can fly without them today.
The previous user (who shall remain nameless) has left it with not much fuel in the tanks, so we'll fill it up to somewhere nearer the top hoping to leave it on tabs later. This does mean we'll be flying close to MAUW but that's OK for today.
It's being a bugger to start at the moment, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve and we're soon warmed-up and ready to depart. As it's quiet I want to power check on the end of the runway so I don't blow Paul's caravan away, but just as I enter the runway another aircraft announces they are left base for 24, so we'll need to expedite.
Stop at the end, swap tanks, 2,000rpm, good Ts & Ps, carb heat hot drop, mags, back to idle, full and free, 1 stage of flap, strobes, fuel pump, announce "rolling" and we're away before he can say "Final".
Departing to the South East we immediately call Bournemouth as there are military paradropping NOTAM's for today, they are grateful but tell us they are not currently dropping so we can happily circle our village for photos and cruise over Poole harbour at 800ft to Sandbanks, cruise down the front in increasingly-brighter sunshine and coast out at Hurst Castle for The Needles.
A sunny photo opportunity over The Needles later we can dodge the clouds up to Cowes and call right base for Sandown R23. I'm going for a very long Final as I want this to be right and not hurried.
Get the speed right back to 60Kts, sink over the trees, give it a burst of power to get us just to the end of the Astroturf and we touch just at the start as the stall warner, suddenly deciding to work today, bleats.
I am prepared for it to be rough but it's actually very smooth and the braking action is perfect. Of course, being uphill helps and we're off on to the matting taxyway then up on to the soaking grass parking. Yuk...
As good as his word, our man has opened the café and we can have goulash or chicken broth. And he has ginger beer. Any café with ginger beer works for me.

With a decent lunch weighing us down he suggests we taxy to the end of the Astroturf, turn round and depart but as there is no traffic and no wind I think we'll depart on R05; I don't fancy turning around in the mud at the end.
Getting out of the parking spot requires less power than I had dreaded, and we're soon power-checking before entering R05. Two stages of flap for a short-field departure, I think.
I don't get it quite right: in the end I pull it off a few Knots too early and we get a bleat from the stall warner as we lift out of ground effect. An immediate and instinctive hard push restores lift and, counter-intuitively I know that the more we push, the faster the aicraft will go and the more lift it will generate to get us over the tree-line. Such is the nature of aerodynamics: sometimes you have to push not pull to gain height.

We'll avoid Bembridge by turning out to sea after the end of the houses at Sandown, climb out and Debbie can fly it.
Once we've got her high enough in the seat with a couple of cushions she explains that when she had lessons before she couldn't see over the instrument panel, now she's much more comfortable and she's actually an excellent pilot, none of the "letting it get away from her" at all. Being in smooth air over The Solent probably helps but she's very competent and, after a few minutes, quite confident about turns, climbs and descents.
Returning via Bournemouth seafront, Bournemouth advises us of paragliders along the front and tells approaching traffic of us, at a height 100ft higher than what's on my altimeter. Re-checking I am on their correct QNH I ask them to re-confirm, it turns out our altimeter is registering 100ft lower than our actual height.
This is not necesarily an issue, except when calculating minimums at the end of an ILS, and it's wrong the safest way but we do need to be aware.
Debbie used to live in Wimborne and has a boat in the harbour so we ask Bournemouth for a Zone Transit to visit both, which as they are bored they are happy to give us, and we visit an area I've never flown over before, including eldest daughter's house.

Given that it takes 40 minutes to drive from Blandford to Bournemouth, it is quite surprising just how quickly we pass over Wimborne and Blandford. I want to experiment with as low-level as possible a transit between Bournemouth's ILS and Henstridge, for possible emergency scud running in crap weather conditions, going via Blandford and up the river valley to Sturminster Newton means I can get away with about a 500ft cloudbase. Not something I'd want to do by choice, but it's there as a backup. No research is ever wasted.
Debbie can't believe how quickly we get from Blandford back to Henstridge, I could quite happily bimble about all afternoon but poor Basil will be crossing his legs by now. So she can fly the left base leg down to the lakes before I take it and turn Final.
The wind has picked up since this morning and we're getting quite a bit of rotor off the warehouses to the South, but I think I can cope with that and we plop down neatly, roll out and taxy in. Fuel is at Tabs so thats perfect, wrap up the aircraft and that's another satisfied passenger.
"I could get very comfortable doing this" she says. Oh dear, Oh dear....

Nowhere 31 Oct 24

Today we will visit Andy, who has built the entire cockpit section of a Lancaster in his barn from scavenged original parts, including the canopy.

This is quite an achievement, and connected to X-Plane and a wrap-around 3-projector setup, generates an incredibly lifelike simulation of what it would have been like, in 1943, to fly a Lancaster on a bombing raid.

This is set up to be a 617 Squadron aircraft and our mission today is a practise release from 60ft of the Bouncing Bomb that devastated Germany’s Ruhr valley in 1943 by shattering various dams, flooding the war industries and denying them hydro-electric power.

Immediate impressions are that it’s a bugger to get into: normally you would need to climb over the main spar to gain access to the forward section of the fuselage but Andy has cut a half door in the “main spar” so us over-60’s can just walk in.

It’s small and dark: people were smaller in those days. The radio and radar operator station is surprisingly sophisticated - from the perspective of 2024 we think WW2 equipment was crude but this was state of the art kit, much still in use in the 1960s and 1970s.

One step forward is the navigator’s station. I had sort of assumed navigation would be turn, time, distance but over an outbound track of 800-900 miles that was never going to work so various radio aids were tried, jammed, superseded, counter-measured and improved over the course of the war. There is a map table but also an astrodome, sextant and radar console. Some of this kit looks suspiciously like what’s in our Cherokee. Private aviation is a conservative and slow-developing field.

And then forward in to the cockpit. The pilots position is up and to the left, and the controls are huge: big rudder pedals for flying boots and a vast yoke. No power controls in those days.

The flight engineer (in this case Andy) sits on the fold-down jumpseat to the right of the pilot and handles the throttles in pairs, necessary for taxying as there is no tail wheel steering and the rudders are ineffective at low speeds. The ATA girls used to deliver these single-pilot; how the Hell they managed that I do not know…

All the controls and instruments are originals that have had servo’s added and connected to the sim software so they respond appropriately.

Although the sim doesn’t move, the big wrap around screen outside the windows within a few seconds provides immersion sufficient to overcome this and to all intents and purposes you are really flying it. Having an IMC helps, as you’re more used to discarding your inner ear’s motion (or lack of it). Andy advises against standing outside the aircraft and watching the displays while someone is flying it, that is apparently very nausea-provoking…

It does feel big, like flying a bus. You need big control movements to start it moving, then back off to keep it moving but not accelerating away from your desired response. Not unlike flying IMC.

I Keep the yoke forward until the tail comes up then neutralise it, lift off at 120mph and lumber in to the air having used all of Bournemouth’s R26, as we are full of bombs ready to practise dropping over the lagoon behind Chesil Beach.

Gear up, flaps up, climb to 1000ft and level out.

The Instruments, although of WW2 vintage, are just like modern ones although the ILS (“beam”) landing guidance instrument is weird-looking. I didn’t realise they had precision approaches, I assumed it was all ADF and timed legs….

Cruise is 200mph (173Kts) so Weymouth comes up quickly, then Portland. We’ll descend to 500ft as we turn past Portland and to get it there requires an almighty push on the wheel. Unlike being a bus driver, these pilots were trained to really throw these aircraft around and it is surprisingly responsive. Overhead Weymouth now and descending we can line up for our bombing run. 60ft feels very low indeed: one downdraught and we’re in the water…

Bombs away, full throttle and a Rate One turn up over the hills and back towards Bournemouth Hurn R08.

It does feel like you’re flying the aircraft at a horizontal angle but I can’t decide whether that’s an issue with the sim, me, or if that’s what a Lancaster actually does.

We aim for a straight-in for R08, get the speed back, pull the flaps, fight the balloon (just like a C172) and get it on the numbers. We can’t use the brakes or the aircraft will tip on to its nose, so with only friction to slow us we rumble down the rapidly diminishing tarmac. Andy is dancing on the rudders then as we drop down below rudder speed and the tail drops we’re kind of at the mercy of the landing gods for a bit. But it slows straight and we taxy off on to the recently-vacated-by-a-Ryanair-737 Hold and shut down.

Wow. I’m drenched in sweat and we’ve only been up half an hour. The immersion is very strong.

Thruxton 16 Dec 24

Somewhere along the way over the last year we’ve managed to lose the ground screws we had to hold the aircraft down, and Storm Garragh forced the aircraft across the grass several feet. Fortunately, it only skidded a bit and two of the cover straps ripped out; it could have been a lot worse.
I will buy and install some new screws.

We were the only aircraft parked outside on the grass but now we have company: a Tomahawk. I've never flown one but have heard horror stories of unrecoverable deep stalls due to the T-tail.

We get to chat with Brian and Sarah who are off flying in it, also Les who owns a very nice PA-28 Arrow with retractable gear in the hangar, and apparently also owns a PA-28-180. I can't afford to own one whole aircraft; how on earth do some own two or three?

Despite not being flown for the last 5 weeks the aircraft starts first time. That's an amazing battery, and amazing fuel tank seals, despite Storms Bert and Darragh there is no water anywhere in the system. Very impressed.

I'd like today to be 3 landings to a full stop. I am current for pax at the moment but want to ensure I don't fall out of currenxcy so we'll do a circuit and land back, stop, then taxy round to depart again.
I’ve never departed North East from Henstridge because it’s wall to wall airspace that way, but today we head straight for it, request a MATZ from Boscombe Down and pass pretty much straight through their ATZ directly over youngest daughter’s house in Amesbury, then descend whilst waiting for Boscombe to release us to Thruxton. And wait….. And wait... They've forgotten us so  eventually I have to request the swap.

Thruxton are on runway 25 and there is an N-reg PA28 faffing about at the start of the runway. As we turn Final he calls “rolling” and just sits there. It is getting tight, if this was a Controlled Airfield I'd have been told to go around, but we'll see if we can squeeze in, so get it as slow as possible....

“Bloody move, mate. I’m on short final with my hand on the throttle ready to go round, going as slow as I can”.

Just in time he finally lumbers along the runway and rotates so we can flare and plop on, taxy all the way to the end and park up, book in at the Fire Station, walk across the tracck and head for the café for a hot chocolate and an excellent mushroom ciabatta.

Back to the aircraft, but will it bloody start? Either my technique has deteriorated or it’s getting more difficult to warm start it. We’ve clearly flooded it now so close the throttle, pull the mixture and crank all the fuel out and it suddenly catches so mixture in, a bit of gentle throttle and we’re in business once more.

Taxy up the bumpy grass taxiway, power check and we’re off, round to the North and we’re clear of all the airspace.

Whilst it seems quiet up here on a december Monday lunchtime without warning an AH-64 suddenly passes beneath us; we are very close to Middle Wallop here.
We’ll go anti-clockwise round the big Salisbury Plain permanent Danger Areas past Pewsey and Devizes, then climb to 3,400ft to thread the needle between Keevil airfield and Salisbury Plain before turning South.
A slight reduction in throttle gives us a slow descent over Longleat and Stourhead which neatly brings us back to Henstridge at 1,000ft so we can call overhead and then left hand downwind for runway 24, BUMPFTTCH and get the aircraft slowed down, turn final over the fishermen and we’re down tidily, departing the runway for the fuel bowser.

A nice, tidy flight completely ruined by me leaving my phone in the plane and having to go back for it!

Local 29 Jan 2025

December and January have been frustrating: grandchildren and Christmas have taken priority, the weather has refused to cooperate and on one particularly cold day when the clouds did finally part the aircraft simply refused to start.

Continuous and unsuccessful cranking flattened the battery and we had to resort to trying a jump start from a car.

G-POWL had a plug for this but G-AVFZ requires the rear seat cover to be lifted and jump leads attached.

The manoeuvrings required to get a Mini close enough to the rear of the aircraft to run jump leads are complex and standing in the doorway with my foot on the jump leads for 20 minutes was achingly cold, but it still wouldn't start.
The engineer has now fettled the plugs and swapped one of the mags but today is an unknown quantity. It’s rained overnight and is forecast to rain again this afternoon but it’s a beautiful, if cold, CAVOK morning in Dorset.

The good news is that the new cover has arrived and it’s fantastic: smooth, clean, neat, easy to slide off the aircraft and, most importantly, waterproof. The old cover has been relegated to the bonfire next to the aircraft (which I'm assuming they will light at some point, once the resident aircraft have been moved, or the fire lighter might get more of a bonfire than he bargained for...)

Our little grass parking area has expanded: we are now joined not only by the PA-38 by a Diamond DA20, the type not to buy if like me you have a long back.

A little overnight ice has formed on the wings which will reduce aerodynamic performance and raise the stall speed. As we have no stall warner it all needs to go.

A Tesco club card is surprisingly good for removing ice, probably a better idea than potentially damaging a Visa card. Another advantage of a low wing design is you can easily get to the whole wing from ground level without the obligatory Cessna 182 ladder.

As the aircraft is parked pointing South the morning sun has melted a little bit more of the ice on the East facing wing than the West facing wing and where the coloured stripe areas are the ice has completely melted. A couple of good physics lessons there concerning latent heat of melting and heat absorption vs. albedo.

The windscreen is misted up both on the inside and the outside so a fair bit of mopping is required.

It’s a very cold engine, so plenty of prime and crank. After a fair few goes it suddenly catches and runs, a bit roughly at first but soon smoothing out. We’ll give it a good long warm up then taxy it vigorously across the mud and on to the taxiway. My starting technique can’t be that bad.

There is absolutely no wind whatsoever this morning so we’ll Start on R24. The engine revs strongly so long before rotate speed at 65Kts it’s eager to unstick and there’s plenty of oomph with just one on board so we'll come round to downwind, then turn final at 600ft over the lakes and set up for the approach at 60Kts.

My first approach is, as usual, a bit too fast so I don’t stop till past the fuel exit but the second is perfect, easily stopped before the fuel exit. I’ve concluded the whole landing thing is speed, speed and speed (and keep your eyes on the end of the runway).

We’ll Backtrack once more then depart the circuit to the West and South for a bimble around the local area.

Everywhere is very flooded, we’ve had a lot of rain, I’m quite glad once again of the hard runway at Henstridge. I’ll bet the grass runway at Compton Abbas is closed (again).

Following a sightseeing trip over the river and the house and a look at the masts on top of the Bulbarrow we’ll need to head back, I’m getting increasingly urgent in-flight texts from Wessex Internet who are at long last (only 14 years late, chaps!) coming to drag our Internet kicking and screaming in to the 21st Century. Cue the obligatory anti-Openreach rant elsewhere on this site...

I’d like more practice on R06 so as there is no wind and no other traffic I can dictate a change of circuit direction. We’ll Join downwind for a touch and go followed by a full stop on R06.
Given that I haven’t landed on this for several months my aiming point is about right but I’m a little fast on the first approach. The second is quite acceptable so I’ll put the aircraft away.

The fuel is still roughly on tabs (where we left it in December; no one has flown the aircraft since we took it to Thruxton) so no need for any fuel today, back to the parking slot, let the engine idle for a minute then shut down.

The running costs on this aircraft are such that I have had great fun, done my 3 landings to a full stop, flown 0.8 hrs on the tacho this morning and it's cost me the princely sum of £65. Worth every damned penny. I wish aviation in Spain was this cheap...

Local 25 Feb 2025

My SEP Rating expires in a month or so, but I won’t be in the UK before then so today we’ll aim for a Revalidation by Experience, always a lower stress day out than if I let it expire.

The weather is good, the aircraft is available (it’s always available!).

There has been some discussion about me flying it up to Compton Abbas today for its Annual but last night I checked and the airfield is closed due to surface conditions, so that won’t happen. Of course Henstridge's hard runway is always open.

I actually really enjoy my bi-annual hour with an instructor. It’s designed for the instructor to catch anything really nasty but it’s not a formal test so no stress. Henstridge has a wonderful lady instructor who is friendly and, I hope, not too strict…..

The last person to fly the aircraft clearly forgot to put the tech log back in the aircraft and instead just wedged it in to the gap between the flap and the fuselage inside the cover but it has still got wet enough for the pages to be unreadable. Wasn’t me! Fortunately there is a spare dry page on the coaming. The wet pages will need drying out or reconstituting from photos. Not a great thing to do (athough in the end we do manage it).

I’ll do some circuits first on my own to ensure the aircraft starts and flies, and I can remember how to fly it. Also we’ve had issues warm starting the aircraft so I want to see what happens when it’s left for 20 minutes or so.

As always it starts first time when cold and I can test out my newly-repaired-at-great-expense Lightspeed headset. Once warm, which for some reason never takes long with this engine, I can taxy it across the wet grass and through the puddles to the hold, power check then roll on R24. I am loving this winter flying off a tarmac runway, so many airfields are closed.

As usual, the first approach is 5Kts too fast and the touchdown point a bit too late but the next two are textbook so I’ll park the aircraft up and wait for my instructor.

Bizarrely, not having a stall Warner seems to have improved my landings. I know what the aircraft does and at what speed and even with a gusting Northerly crosswind seem to be able to do consistent smooth ones now.

I haven’t a clue what I want to do today but she asks what my greatest fears are. Well, of course running out of runway on landing, and engine failure. I assume most pilots feel that way?

We explore my irrational “running out of runway” fear and I think I’ve pretty much got it licked: I can reliably get the Cherokee down and stopped in 300m, half the available Henstridge tarmac. The fear doesn’t extend to take offs, just landings. I’m sure psycho-analysis would say the fear is all down to my Mother or a fear of castration….

So loads of PFLs it is. But can I warm-start the aircraft?

It’s been sitting for about 25 minutes so I would class that as warm, not requiring primer. Mixture rich, mags both, crank and gently advance the throttle.

And it starts first time so what they’ve done recently has resolved whatever issue we had.

The HeliMed helicopter is spooling up for a shout so we have a chat with him and agree to hold for him to take off and while we’re waiting we discuss the difference between Oxford where movements are so tightly controlled by ATC and Henstridge where it’s all done good-naturedly between competent pilots with good manners and a fair amount of give and take. I’m really glad I learned at Oxford because it has made me unafraid of any big-airport ATC (up to and including Miami Approach, mixing it with transatlantic airliners) but this is just so wondrously sleepy and yet competent.

We discuss pre-take off passenger briefings, rolling checks (T’s and P’s, ASI alive, when to abandon the take off roll) and EFATO options (mainly the golf course), then take off and climb out to the South where we discuss what to check when the donkey stops. So left to right: fuel tank, primer, carb heat, throttle (duh), mags, mixture.

I’ve simplified PFLs in my mind to “trim for best glide, try a restart, MayDay, pick a field in the triangle between the nose of the aircraft and the left wingtip, then keep it in sight all the way down”, and we experiment in the big fields in the hills near the Bulbarrow and in the smaller fields down in the valley closer to Henstridge. They’re all potentially survivable, if occasionally leading to a low speed far end hedge arrival.

Then she suggests a glide approach from the overhead at Henstridge to an actual landing on runway 24. This I haven’t tried before and is a bit scary.

We track to the North of the field and hear incoming traffic who will potentially conflict with our plans so we'll opt for an orbit for spacing, then head back in to follow him down.

Chop the throttle at 2,000ft in the overhead, call “glide approach”, trim for 75Kts and try to finesse the 270° turn to land on. First attempt is going really well, including “I can make it to the runway” flaps out finesse up to final where we run out of height and a burst of power is necessary to get to the threshold. We’ve got a horrible cross runway gusty crosswind and my instructor says I can throw it away if I want but I’ve got it and we plop on tidily, clean up and climb away.

Climb out to 2,000ft again, and this time we do a textbook glide approach, bang on target and exit for the fuel pumps with a big smile.

We stop for a coffee and some hangar chat time afterwards and she is amused by the fact that I do actually Trim trim trim the aircraft (which comes from flying a C182 where if you don't trim you end up weightlifting...). We agree the secret to relaxed handling is "Trim and Let Go".
A very useful hour and my CAA licence is now current for the next two years and a month.

Oxford 15 April 2025

Today is a classic example of how weather can differ in different parts of the country, and indeed from the forecast.

Nessa and I want to go up to Oxford to see Nessa's aunt who has recently moved house. We could drive but the A34 between the M4 and Oxford always seems to contain at least one maniac determined to kill me, so we'll fly. Any excuse...

Someone has left the pitot cover off but worse, since I last flew it in February they've managed to lose it completely, and break the arm rest I liked. Back to propping the elbow on the knee for cruise, then.
Our previously-VIP outside parking area has accumulated another aircraft - this one French-registered. I'm legal to fly this!
The engine starts first time so we can taxy to the pumps and fuel with enough fuel to get there and back, which puts us at MAUW but we'll be OK, I know we can get out without any issues, and we won't have to fill up again later.
As we enter and backtrack 06 the HeliMed guys are about to lift so we call rolling and they slot in behind us.
We Depart North in few fluffy clouds at about 2,500ft, nicely on top with a good view of the ground: all easy VFR.
But at Swindon the weather deteriorates beyond the forecast fluffy clouds.
We'll try dropping under it but no dice, North of the M4 it’s all the way down to the ground and there are hills between here and Oxford. We'll climb up through back on top at 2,500ft, talk to Oxford who have been IFR all morning, but the forecast is for it to have eased by now.
They offer us the NDB approach for 01 which is a handy short cut through Brize’s zone. Our ADF works very well and is already tuned to Oxford so we’ll get vectors and fly the approach. I've not done this with Nessa on board and I know she doesn't really like flying in clouds but it's that or go home, so we'll continue.
We don’t have a DME so I’m using SkyDemon but it’s giving me distance from my turning point over Oxford instead of runway 01's threshold so my top of descent is wrong and I start my 500ft per minute descent too early. I’m quite aware of where the only appreciable lump (Wytham Woods) between me and 01’s threshold is so once I’ve descended to 1200ft too early (and with a prompt from the approach controller telling me I am below the correct descent profile) I level off for safety then once past drop to 1000ft where we go visual and are pretty well lined up for 01.
This is a non-precision approach, the METAR said cloud base was 900ft, I knew we’d go visual around that point so it wasn’t as dangerous as it sounds but I shouldn’t have relied on SkyDemon with an incorrect waypoint.
Anyway, we get a nice smooth landing out of it, park up and jump out.

Oxford is a lovely airport but their visiting GA procedure is confusing to the point of utter obscurity. Head for the huge “C” sign, see lots of signs pointing at this security gate saying “P1 go here”. Gate is locked, big sign saying “hit the call button for entry”. Hit the call button, the nice lady who answers the phone says she can’t let me in through that gate, I should go to Ops (where we always used to go).
Turn left, head for Ops, they are charming and welcoming as always, happy for us to use their loo and wait for our taxi, who they let in.
When I ask what’s going on they say they expect visiting pilots to come to Ops. So what’s with the big signs?

Lunch with Nessa’s aunt goes swimmingly and by 4:00pm we’re back at Ops booking out. They are apparently marginal VFR now so we can start up (they’ve definitely fixed the warm starting issues now) and head for 01.
We’re about the only traffic today, the marginal weather has kept all the training aircraft on the ground, so no take off delays for once. Luxury.

Schoolboy mistake, keeping finger on transmit button as I ask Nessa for Radar’s frequency so I’m ahead of the curve before rolling. I’m sure Tower have heard it all before….

The weather has improved a bit but the base is still around 2,000ft and as we pass Swindon we hit the forecast (and this time they do get it right) line of showers around Trowbridge. We’re getting wet and we’re down to 1500ft but it’s still more or less marginal VFR-ish (very -ish). I’m just thinking about getting up on top and diverting to Bournemouth when suddenly, 5 miles North East of Henstridge as we clear the hills it all stops and the sun comes out.

We join overhead and check the wind socks, they are erect and right across the runway. Choose 06 which it marginally favours, get blown North on the Base leg so that’s a pretty hefty crosswind.

Well, you get what you get….

The period without the stall Warner has taught me how far I can push in to the stall so we’ll just keep it pointing at the threshold, ride the rotor off the industrial buildings to the South of the runway, respond to whatever comes regardless of what the stall warner is saying and then just as we are about to touch, a bit of left rudder brings the nose round and we make a gentle, controlled touchdown.

I think I understand the purpose of the stall warner a bit more now: it's there to say you are close to the stall but not there yet so don't panic, but be aware. I feel the wings actually stall just as we touch the ground, meaning our ground speed is not way too high for this runway, but still we roll past the fuel exit and have to backtrack a bit.

But I can’t tell you how I did it or what control inputs I made, difficult lumpy crosswind landings have become a reflex.

As we finish putting the aircraft to bed we see the HeliMed helicopter returning and it's interesting to watch him being buffeted around by the quite considerable gusty crosswind, but the awesome skill of these pilots is amply demonstrated by the fact that he plops it down tidily like it was a flat calm day.

A Masterclass in how good these pilots are compared to me...

All in all, a day of complex weather judgement, a bit of IMC, and a few mistakes we’ll learn from. Typical British flying.

Sandown 30 June 2025

It’s hot, really hot.

England in summer is not normally over 22°-23°C so this 32°C heat is hard for both the people and the infrastructure to withstand.

It’s hotter in Spain (Seville is currently 46°C and even our normally temperate little corner is 32°C) but the Spanish people and infrastructure are better prepared for these extreme temperatures.

They even use higher-melting point tarmac and tie their rails down more securely.

I haven’t flown since April so I know my landings will need a little work and I do need to do things by the checklist.

Nessie and I will go to Sandown (“No PPR, no high-viz, no miserable people”) for lunch to try to find sea breezes.

The Pre-flight inspection shows a distinct lack of stall Warner once more; oh well, as long as we know...

I’d like to do a couple of circuits to get my 3 take offs and landings so Ness will try out the café while I make some noise.

Everything else looks OK so we’ll start up, warm up and taxy out.

With just me aboard and less than tabs fuel the take off performance is pretty good and before long I’m Final for 24.

The wind is right across the runway (isn’t it always?) and bouncing us around.

The first landing is, inevitably, long but the second one is more under control so I’ll stop at the café and pick up Ness.

Frustratingly I haven’t yet actually been in the new café, but she tells me it’s very nice.

It’s pretty hot by now and although we’re not that far above sea level here our initial climb out two up is a bit lethargic for my liking, those industrial buildings are a little close below us. Hmmm...

The thermals to the South East are very strong and it’s like driving down a rough farm track.

Even at 2,000ft it’s pretty uncomfortable.

We’ll do a Bournemouth listening squawk and swing around their CTA over the Western side of Poole harbour. Bournemouth are very quiet, just one EasyJet and a Dassault Falcon target tug jet.

It’s hazy and hard to see clearly but better over the sea as we turn East.

But it’s very hot indeed in the cockpit. Not since Florida have we been so sweaty when flying. I know it will be cooler at 8,000 or 9,000ft but there’s controlled airspace above here so that’s not an option today.

Even my iPhone goes in to "thermometer" mode so we'll need to actually navigate, fortunately we can see coast and land and I could easily do this run without any SkyDemon assistance.

Changing to Sandown, having assumed they were on R23 they surprise us by being on 05 so it’s a left hand circuit, we’ll join downwind and get the lie of the land.

It’s less thermally here which is a relief but still bumpy on the approach as we descend over the trees.

The runway runs flat for a bit then descends so we need to be on the ground reasonably pronto.

The final approach smooths out and despite being not down on the numbers we’re OK with length but I’d forgotten just how bumpy this runway is. Yuk.

We’ll exit on to the even bumpier taxiway and park up on row A for lunch.

It’s cooler here and quite breezy, we manage to find a table in the shade, 2 halloumi burgers, a Fanta and a ginger beer. Yummy.

We’ll start up for the return journey and leave the door open for as long as possible to cool the cabin; this then turns in to a problem as at the Hold we can’t shut the top of the door.

We really do need something up there to be able to pull it a bit more closed so it latches.

We have to abandon our roll and taxy back to parking so we can fiddle with the door.

Also the left tank is pretty much dry. It’s always a bit concerning to see the bare metal of the bottom of the tank but there is still 5USG usable in there, the engine burns 8USG per hour so there’s a good half an hour in there. But we’ll fly on the right tank.

Given the heat I’m a bit concerned about take-off performance but in practice with 2 stages of flap we’re off and climbing in no time, above the trees and straight ahead for at least a mile for noise abatement before turning left for Bournemouth.

We’ll stay below 2,000ft where Southampton’s airspace starts until we’re clear and by that time it’s not worth climbing, the view is still a little hazy up towards Poole.

Back across Poole harbour then round to 330° for Henstridge, and of course the moment we go feet dry the engine sounds smoother.

Over the house (wave at Basil who’s on the terrace), then once over the hills we can ease the throttle and cruise-descend for a Downwind join for runway 24, get blown North as we turn Final over the lakes (600ft leaving the lakes, remember), call Final, ease down the approach and trim back for 65Kts as it’s a gusty crosswind and we need a bit more aileron authority.

It’s always trade-off between the amount of runway you're going to use, and your aileron authority in the last stages of the approach.

The stall Warner doesn’t buzz even as I drop it on and roll for the pumps, it must be bust.

I'm flying with Stu on Friday so we'll take a look then.

Refuelling it back up to Tabs takes 117L; I can't believe I used 117L today, so it must have been well below tabs earlier. I've done 1.6hrs and the engine uses about 8USG/hr so that's 12.8USG or about 55L.

Bolt Head 4 July 2025

It's 4th July and Americans everywhere are celebrating their independence... from us.

Being British we won't be joining in, instead Stu and I will be going to Bolt head for tea. This seems somehow appropriate.

This mutual flying lark is extremely cost-effective, I get an afternoon out for £60 or so.

I am (inevitably) delayed getting to the airfield, so Stu already has the cover off and chocks removed.

He tells me off for not putting the control lock in last time I flew but is content at my level of fuelling; I thought I might have put more than tabs in (117L!) but no, it was OK.

We test the stall warner: it does work, although I never seem to hear it in flight. I’m obviously not flying my approaches slowly enough….

The engine warms up wonderfully quickly in the summer and soon we are off the grass and power-checking at the 24 Hold, then rolling for a 240° initial heading.

2,500ft feels about right so we gently bimble South West, bobbing in the thermals.

The ranges along the South coast are active as it’s a week day, so we must do a dog leg over Branscombe Farm strip, which looks amazingly long from here. Apparently it’s very nice but they’re only allowed 3 movements a day. Shame.

Over the sea it calms down and we pass Exmouth then practice some VOR tracking in to Berry Head BHD before turning over Prawle Point and looking for runway 29. It’s a green runway against a background of green fields….

Fortunately it’s right next to a quite visible mast and I’ve been in here before, so we'll bring the speed back, two stages of flap and we cross the threshold with the wind right down the runway and 65Kts showing.

A final heave as the grass approaches and we drop on for a neat and short roll, backtrack and park next to a Jodel with a cover on it that looks like it hasn’t flown for a very long time.

The turning circle on a PA28 is not quite good enough to get round in one.

Oh, for reverse thrust.

We end up having to do a little manual manouvering.

Staggeringly, as we walk across the runway looking for tea I glance back and someone is taking the cover off the Jodel to go flying, so appearances are deceptive.

Our friendly farm tea room is closed for a wedding reception practice (without any Notice or notification).

Fortunately we know the fridge has been hidden just behind these bales just here, so we manage to grab a couple of cloudy lemonades.

The 2020’s are wonderful, with everything being “pay online” nowadays; much better than cash.

Back at the airfield, Stu fires us up and we depart Westbound off 29: 800m of extremely smooth grass ending in a cliff.

Get this wrong and you’re in the sea...

The sun is now out and the coastal scenery on the way up to Berry Head is spectacular.

Stu says he wants to navigate all the way up to the EX NDB using the ADF which is all very well but it's on the published Instrument Approach for Exeter so we'll be flying straight through their ILS.

Stu, do you really think this is a good idea?
Thought not.

Instead we'll turn over Farway Common, which looks long, green and inviting.

Further North East, as we descend over the patchwork green Dorset countryside my SkyDemon shows a dotted line with arrows across our path.

As neither of us have remembered to check NOTAMs today we are completely unaware that the Red Arrows are about to come screaming across our flight path at our height and probably at around 500Kts, which could ruin everyones' day.

A quick read of the actual NOTAM via SkyDemon reveals we’ve got 40 minutes to spare: they’re in the air but not scheduled to pass this point on their way to Exeter Airport until 6:40 Local. So we're OK.

Note to self: check the bloody NOTAMs.

This has been one of the rare occasions I haven’t and it just goes to show how important checking them is.

You can get yourself in a lot of trouble pretty quickly if the Swiss cheese holes line up,

Local 6 Aug 2025

I’m planning a trip out in the Tiger Moth today, but before that I’d like a little bimble to get my eye in and remind myself how to fly. Tailwheel aircraft are apparently all about using the rudder and landings are all about judging the airframe's position in relation to the ground and the actual stall speed, as opposed to what the stall warner may or may not be saying.

England doesn’t have very many perfect summer days but this is certainly one of them: CAVOK with light and variable winds, few thermals at this time of the morning and no one else flying, yet.
And yes, I've checked the NOTAMs. No Red Arrows or RA(T)s.

Once again our little outside aircraft park has expanded, maybe they’ll concrete this bit now, with some tiedowns?
I do think there are some Compton Abbas refugees around, Guy Ritchie has made his airfield less GA-friendly and anyway why would you base yourself at an airfield with a grass strip that’s unusable for a good proportion of the year? Provided we have a 500ft cloud base and not a stonking crosswind Henstridge is usable all year.

Our agreement within the group is that we leave the aircraft on Tabs fuel, but there is considerably less than that today: 8USG left and 5USG right.
So should I fuel now then fly, or fly then fuel?

I need to be back with the aircraft put away by 11:00 for my appointment with the Tiger Moth so I’m not going far; I’ve proved to myself I can recover from a dry tank engine run down now, and have recent PFL experience.

So let’s fly. Amazingly, the fuel contents gauges in this aircraft are quite accurate, although I always dip before flight anyway.

Start up, warm up, taxy out. I’ll taxy on the 5USG and fly the 8USG, that way I know if the engine coughs I can switch tanks and I’ve got 30 minutes of fuel to get home.

I think we'll do a couple of touch and go’s to build confidence first.
On the first approach I’m too fast, land long, manage to drop all the flap whilst attempting to transition from 2 stages to 1 stage and we stagger in to the air lower over the industrial estate than I would prefer.
With just one up and little fuel we do get to circuit height pretty quickly but the second attempt is more controlled.
I still struggle to get it back to 60Kts and on the tarmac just where the grass stops, I just don’t do enough of this.

This time we’ll climb out and go bimble.

At 2,500ft the whole of Dorset and Somerset is right here just for me to gawp at: from the silver glimmer of the back of Poole harbour to the shadow of Portland to the distant glimpse of the Bristol Channel.
Fields of all different colours, hedgerows, winding roads and rivers, villages and towns, farms and estates, the tangle of buildings and runways that is Yeovilton, the hills up towards Salisbury Plain to the North East.
Here is Compton Abbas, just there is Blandford and behind it Wimborne and the amorphous mass that is Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch.
All this is mine and mine alone at: I’m the only one up here apart from an Air Ambulance announcing its passing South towards Portland. But the Dorset and Somerset one is based here and was sitting on the tarmac when I left so what is this one?

We’ll run South up over the hills to the Bulbarrow with its telecomms mast and check out our village nestling in the hills to the East. All is quiet; the trout farm glistening and the cows contentedly chewing the cud in the hills, the alpacas chewing the grass and the llama protecting the sheep.

Back North to check out the truncated steam line at Shillingstone. No tell-tale plume of smoke marking a live engine so we’ll swing North in search of Wing Farm. These little grass strips are usually beautifully maintained, fun to visit and often have excellent eateries attached.

However, it’s a little further than I would prefer so instead we’ll swing round to the North of Henstridge and rejoin via the overhead for another touch and go, this one much closer to both 60Kts and the end of the runway.
On the approach, however I get a single misfire from the engine: I think I might be about to run the right tank dry so on the climb out and above 500ft we’ll change tanks but keep hold of the lever in case there’s an issue.
All goes well, but I think we do need fuel so let’s full stop as 11:00am is approaching.

The final approach is at 60Kts and although I don’t get the wheels on the first inch of tarmac it’s good enough for me to turn off by the pumps without backtracking, that’s good enough for today.

Of course while I’m shutting down the tiger Moth instructor pokes her head through the door and tells me they’re running really late, could we do another day?
So I could have gone low level along the North Devon coast after all.

Never mind: another time. All in all a lovely bimble.

Local 16 Aug 2025

It's "Come and Meet Everyone" day at Henstridge and it's finally cooled off a bit; there is a gusty 10-15Kts wind blowing straight down 06 and the café is open. I get to meet the Tiger Moth and Optica pilots, these may be on for next week. Having done lots of enormously enjoyable hangar flying with a number of pilots and had one of Geoff's most excellent sausage baps maybe it's time for a late afternoon local bimble.
The previous occupant (who shall remain nameless, but they know who they are...) has managed to leave the aircraft virtually fuelless, with the pitot cover not only not installed but completely missing, the fuel still on and no Tech Log entry. Apparently his knuckles have been rapped...
Fire up, trundle round to the pumps and fill up with an awfully large amount of fuel. I seem to be the only one that ever fills it up and getting it to an inch over tabs each side takes ages. Start up again, a gentle warm up then round the taxiways past the hangars to the 06 Hold, power-check and roll on 06. We're away by half way down the runway, even with all that AvGas, up in to the late afternoon sun and thermals, South to over the house then North up to Wing Farm which looks approachable. I love these little farm strips, they're always very friendly.
Stu flies us around for a bit and it's so lovely to be up here without a care in the world, just bimbling about and watching the scenery as the shadows lengthen. It's easy to be task-focused, but sometimes it's really nice to just smell the roses. Past King Alfred's Tower and back in to the Overhead from the North, round in to the circuit for 06 and down. There's a fair amount of crosswind until we get below the hangars, then it all clears up and despite being high, and a bit fast we drop on neatly just after the displaced threshold and taxy back to parking.
After putting the cover on I get to talk to a lovely disabled pilot who flies a Streak Shadow and, like me, just enjoys the privilege of being able to aviate at a moment's notice in a free country. He, along with many others, is a refuge from Old Sarum where the landowners basicaly want to sell the land for housing at a huge profit and despite being told again and again it's not going to happen are now resorting to underhand tactics to get what they want. the airfield has been closed except for parachuting and the Listed main hangar "accidentally" burned down. He then relocated to Compton Abbas and following Guy Ritchie's purchase and de-GA'ing of the airfield again to Henstridge. I susepct Henstridge has been the main true beneficiary of Guy Ritchie's questionable purchase. Watch this space for whether Compton Abbas survives.
A good measure of a country's fredom and civilisation is their attitude to GA. The UK and Western Europe, the US and a lot of Africa you can fly without any real hassle, but Russia, China and India: "No". ChatGPT suggests this is due to a lack of historical GA activity but also notes the military's reluctance to release airspace to anything as frivolous as a PA28, mandatory flight plans which take days to process and, unspoken but definitely there, the totalitarian Government's lack of desire for their populations to travel and, most defnitely, to see their country from the sky unfettered by controlled routes.
When I am World Dictator my first rule wil be "All world airspace is free for GA unless someone can come up with a damned good reason why they need to use it, and that reason will be strictly limited in space and in time".

Haverfordwest 25 Aug 2025

We recently spent a week in a campsite near Minehead babysitting our eldest granddaughter and whilst there we took a bus ride up to Minehead, then on via Porlock hill to Lynmouth. It’s a beautiful ride across the moors and I’d like to take some aerial shots of the scenery. We’ll then go onto Haverfordwest for lunch as they have a good restaurant and do an all-day breakfast.

It’s quite blowy today, although it was not forecast to be. My prospective Tiger Moth ride has evaporated as the owner is going to Bodmin and has long departed.

Life jackets on today, as it’s a long way across the Bristol Channel from Lynmouth to Tenby.

Departing Henstridge is bumpy but then it often is, however coasting out East of Minehead we get a lot of rotor off the hills from the Southerly wind and we really get bumped about.

The best way to avoid the horrible artefacts and reflections shooting through Perspex windows is to shoot through the opened side window; I’m reluctant to lose my phone through the side window but using my big Canon EOS 6D it’s less risky.
Stu, who is flying while I concentrate on exposure, focus and composition is less impressed: muttered Scottish imprecations emanate from the right seat as the wind bangs us about, he’s having to work pretty hard to keep us shiny side up.

At Lynmouth I can finally release him and we climb away North West, the lumps slowly easing as we escape the rotor. The Devon coast disappears into the murk and slowly Tenby and its inactive ranges emerges.

Haverfordwest’s 03/21 runway is NOTAM’d closed as they have been holding the County Show on it, so we will need to use 09/27, which will give us a 90° 22Kt crosswind. The tower offer us 09 so we join overhead and settle down for a long, fast final. Crosswind landings are all about control authority and as it’s a long runway we’ll add 10Kts and just fly sideways into the upwind side of the runway, flare, and at the very last moment swing the nose round, as the mains touch we can raise the flaps to kill the lift and we settle gently on and roll out. So now I can claim my maximum crosswind is not 18Kt but 22Kt.

After some fuel and a damned good all day breakfast we watch Border Force interviewing a recently arrived Irish Cirrus.
Border Force don’t have a great reputation amongst the GA community: they are prone to obvious and avoidable errors and are keen on blaming GA pilots for the results of their own mistakes. The advice is “follow the rules, keep records, stand your ground”, which we shall see is appropriate...

Stu gets us neatly off the runway and the aircraft immediately yaws right round, it really is very strong. Climb out is bumpy and it doesn’t really smooth out until we’re back over the Bristol Channel.

On a Cardiff Listening squawk we listen to an aircraft reporting a huge fire and then updating the airport as they circle it. It sounds bad.

Then we chuckle as a clueless OH-registered (Finnish) ultra lite blunders in to Bristol’s airspace on their way to St Athan. His radio technique is hopeless and many transmissions are simply ignored; the controller is hugely patient but does start to lose his cool after a while.

Working our way back across Devon and Somerset Henstridge emerges once more. I always have trouble getting accurate weather for Henstridge but Stu gets me access to the HeliMed weather station on the airfield, which tells us that as it’s now past 4:00pm the wind has dropped significantly and indeed by the time we can see the windsock it’s back to its normal bumpy right across the runway 10Kts or so. A gentle arrival and we can put the aircraft to bed.

Calais 26 Aug 2025

We’re off to Le Touquet today to buy croissant. Well: any excuse for aviation…

We’ve read the CAA’s advice, we’ve created GAR’s for both legs between 48hrs and 2hrs prior to the inbound flight and we have receipts for both legs. Onlinegar.com is your friend here.

It has rained overnight and for the first time in a very long time there is a drop of water in my drain tube from one of the wing tanks. It may be time for new filler cap seals….

A weak front has been crossing Southern England, it has passed Henstridge but might affect us further East before it peters out.

We manage to depart exactly on time as per our Flight Plan, and simply head straight East for Solent, ask them to open our flight plan and also for a VFR zone transit. This goes swimmingly until half way across the zone, as I am concentrating hard on maintaining height to within 10ft and heading to within 5°, we go IMC.

Single-pilot IMC in bumpy clouds is always a challenge, even with a well-trimmed aircraft, particularly within a Control Zone, it requires intense concentration.

Even after we exit their zone we’re IMC until about Chichester where we finally pop out in to VMC on top. I’m worried this thick undercast will extend all the way to Le Touquet. I’m not licenced to fly Le Touquet’s ILS so at Seaford we descend through a hole for a look at things, but it’s 800ft and we need to be above 2000ft across the Channel above the drone zones so we climb back through the clouds to VMC on top and half way across the channel it clears to CAVOK so we’re fine.

At this point I finally get to test our double USB adapter and can confirm that It does indeed charge both a phone and an iPad at the same time, which is great news.

At the FIR boundary we swap to Lille Info who are incredibly busy with voluble French chatter, when we do finally get a word in edgeways immediately tell us the runway at Le Touquet is closed due to an accident.

Ah this is a bit of a problem. We can go home (we have the fuel), we can go to Lydd or we can go to Calais.

Let’s go to Calais.

Eventually we manage to tell them, turn left and we can almost immediately see the city of Calais with the airfield beyond.

All the controllers in France are massively helpful and it all feels very joined-up, Calais are not surprised to hear from us at all so must have been briefed, we ease in to their overhead and down on to R24 with a 22Kt wind straight down the runway, so our roll is very short and we park on the nearly empty apron.

Despite having all the infrastructure and paraphernalia concerning Customs and Immigration no one is there, the doors are all open and we just walk straight through, ending up in the restaurant for the menu du jour. France, ay?

5 minutes later an OH-registered Pipistrel ultralite turns up and the pilots climb out, taking off their life jackets. How many OH-registered ultralites are in the UK at any one time? We suspect this is the Bristol zone infringer from yesterday…

The nearest fresh croissants are a very pleasant 20 minute walk away, so we can walk off our lunch as we shop, raise a flight plan from the middle of Carrefour and walk back, through the tumbleweed of the Douane office and out to the fuel pump.

As we are setting up the pump for a wallet-lightening fuel injection Border Force call.

As they threaten huge fines for GA pilots getting things even slightly wrong I’m pretty wary.

They can find no record of our inbound (to the UK) leg.

Ah, but I have a receipt from their system showing clearly the details of that leg and confirmation that as far as they are concerned the leg is filed so I e-mail him a copy of that receipt and there is a pause from the far end.

“Ah, you do seem to have filed it correctly”

“Yes”

Another pause.

“OK we’ve found your records, everything is in order”.

“So are you going to be meeting us at Henstridge?”

“Maybe, maybe not. We like to keep you guessing…” but his tone is friendly, we haven’t cocked up (this time).

They are known as Border Farce within the GA community and I can see why.

With full tanks Stu does a very short take off run and basically keeps going on a 240 heading, climbing out as I get us changed to Lille who immediately hand us off to London Info. It’s a busy intermittent-IMC and control zone-heavy environment, quite nice to have two pilots who work well together.

Once settled in the cruise Stu is now happier with loading, flying and altering routes in SkyDemon, the weather is now gorgeous and very smooth as we pass Dover, Folkestone, Hastings and Brighton before descending for a “below the zone” sneak up the Solent then inland via Beaulieu and Stoney Cross.

We know the transponder Mode C altitude encoder is adrift somewhere and we are flying 100 feet higher than indicated so we deliberately fly no higher than an indicated 1800ft. It’s bumpy over the fields and it would be nice to fly higher so the moment we exit the Solent 2000ft restriction for the small triangle of 2500ft restriction we pour on the coals and climb.

We’re on a listening squawk with Bournemouth and a minute later their radar controller calls us and tells us we may have just entered their zone. If we did it was certainly by 6 inches or less and we tell them that our SkyDemon shows us not having busted their zone, but we will check the logs later for a more detailed look.

A later forensic examination of the logs show that we were close to but not inside the zone.

Dodging Compton Abbas we approach in a long final for runway 24, worried about crosswinds still. The wind has calmed down now it’s past 4:00pm but as we flare on short final we catch some rotor off the industrial buildings and poor Stu has to bang in some power to arrest what feels like zero lift, and pops it down neatly. Such is experience on type.

Local 21 Sep 2025

Staggeringly, the aircraft has not been used since Stu and I took it to Calais last month, the fuel in it is still French AvGas. Ooh La la.

Just a local flight early this Sunday morning: some circuits, a Bournemouth Zone Transit, a photo opportunity at the Needles then I want to see Lulworth cove.
You can’t go over Lulworth Cove during the week when I normally fly as it’s all ranges, but weekends are OK.

I can’t leave before 9:00am as that is when the airport opens but I certainly can start and warm up the engine at the same time as the equally noisy Ambulance helicopter 75 yards away doing its daily morning run up.
I have to be back before 10:30am as the normal Sunday morning user has it booked, so we won’t go too far.

The tower is normally manned at the weekend but this early in the morning they haven’t arrived so I will define this morning’s runway which from the windsock looks marginally like 06.
Good, I’d like some 06 circuits for a change.

It’s very smooth now the weather in the UK has cooled down a bit. I’ve been in Spain and it’s still 30°C there, but here it’s dewy.

06 is quite a hard approach to judge: an industrial estate, two roads, two fences and a displaced threshold. It’s not difficult, it’s just hard to really perfect. Manage to pull off a couple of half-decent touch and go’s before departing to the South, carefully avoiding flying over any local villages following a couple of (probably justified) rants from the owner about aircraft ignoring local noise abatement rules.
Must… Not… Infringe…

Bournemouth are bored so we’ll request a zone transit from Tarrant Rushtown to Hengistbury Head, passing directly over the airfield and watching a Ryanair I’d seen on the ILS for 08 nose in to its parking slot.
Possibly the Alicante flight I know so well.

Exiting the airspace and coasting out we’ll descend to photograph The Needles before climbing West for Swanage. The isle of Purbeck has a ridge running East-West right across its middle and buried in its centre is Corfe Castle. I've never quite understood Corfe Castle's defensive psition before, it's all a matter of perspective.

Beyond Swanage is Lulworth Cove, a circular bay and tourist attraction. Beyond the fact that it is completely circular it's really just another bay, but it's very pretty.

Further on is Portland but time is running out so we must now turn North. I know Henstridge is only 10 minutes from here on the coast, so we'll turn directly North, over the ridge, over the A35, over my house, over the top of the hill at Turnworth and a gentle descent in to the 06 circuit for a quite respectable touch and go. Damn, I’m good...

Except I’m not… the next landing is a complete train wreck. Pride cometh before a fall.
I try to get the aircraft on the ground too early, get a little bounce and it starts to wheelbarrow, then all the fight goes out of the wings and we settle on to the wheels. I could claim the winds off the industrial buildings were to blame, but actually I’m just crap sometimes.

Still, exit to the pumps without a backtrack and we’re filled and ready at exactly 10:30am.

Of course the other owner doesn’t turn up and has asked me to put the cover on in case he doesn’t fly.

As he hasn’t flown for the last month I suspect my early return has been for nothing which is a shame but that's aviation. I've had fun and it's only cost me £102.

Buttermilk Hall Farm 2 Oct 2025

Today lunch is planned with my friend Andy, who lives near Towcester.
A quick scrutiny of SkyDemon shows a small strip 10 minutes from his house called Buttermilk Hall Farm, run by a nice man called Kevin, so let's go there.

Storm Amy will come through tomorrow, but today is windless and misty; hopefully it will clear.

It would be wise to taxy over to the pumps for a fill up before we fly: it's on Tabs but it's nice to have full tanks: space in the tanks, runway behind, and all that...
Checking the instruments, the Artificial Horizon is doing a drunken roll; the last time this happened was IMC on climb out from Jersey. It’s broken, so no deliberate IMC today, then.
Or at least, partial panel as required.

Departing to the North the weather is clearing - it’s forecast to be CAVOK for the rest of the day.

There is Red Arrows traffic around Brize Norton NOTAM’d for this morning, so it would be best to talk to them and ask for a MATZ transit.
They sound remarkably relaxed; when asked about the Reds, apparently they’re delayed due to mist at Brize.

A VFR Transit Lechlade to Burford is requested and approved, and departing the Zone to the North an A400M passes well below. He is really very low.
It would have been nice to have been told…

Oxford Radar now offer a listening squawk so a routing via Banbury remains well away from their ILS and Weston on the Green’s drop zone.

In between the normal professional chit chat between them and assorted bits of instrument traffic working the Hold and the ILS the jump plane and the Radar Controller are trying to cope with an unidentified aircraft that just flies straight through D129, not on Oxford’s frequency or squawking anything.
Who are these people, and where do they get their licences?

Fortunately there are no chutes in the air, but you do wonder…

Very quickly after Banbury comes Silverstone then Towcester race course and…. that field up there must be Buttermilk Hall Farm. Kevin suggests R30, although the windsock suggests either runway is usable.

Safetycom is the correct radio frequency to use for these little strips, and an overhead join the most suitable approach, then manoeuvre for downwind for R30.

Turning Final, the wind is from the South West and pushes the aircraft wayNorth East out of the approach line and well towards the edge of my own personal approach cone. Let's see if we can rescue it, otherwise it's go round time.

The wind becomes gusting on descent towards the narrow gap in the trees.
Staying fast is a good option here as there is a need for good aileron authority. The downwind trees are quite close so the crab will need to remain on until the last moment.

Going over the road at the end of the runway there’s a cyclist - it feels like I am brushing his head but in reality I’m still 15m up, too high and too fast for this 550m strip.
Over the threshold, speed bleeding back, touch the mains about 150m in and the grass flatters by slowing the aircraft and with minimal braking 100m is still spare.
Backtrack and park up, ready for Andy who has comprehensively misread the location instructions and is two villages away….

After a damned good lunch the strip beckons, so check fuel and oil, start up and warm up, power check and taxy out past the Blisworth tunnel ventilation shaft.

R30 is still appropriate as the wind is right across and strengthening in advance of Storm Amy. There is a line of fir trees at the end of the runway but Kevin has cut a gap that is hopefully wide enough.

As with all grass runways the aircraft doesn’t accelerate as quickly as on tarmac but with 2 stages of flap she will fly at 45Kts so at 55Kts rotate and we’re away; let it climb enough to clear the gap then hold the nose down for speed, let it reach best climb at 75Kts, lose the flaps, turn South and cruise climb to 2,500ft.

It's boring going back the same way so a route East of Oxford and straight over the Mini factory is best, then on to Abingdon, over our old house and away to the South West.

The weather deteriorates over the high ground to the East of Swindon. The cloud is intermittent at 2,700ft so a descent to 2,000ft has more clear air. It’s not actually raining but very nearly, until we reach Frome when it abruptly clears up. This is what happened a few months ago- it seems the weather really is better in the South West.

Descending over the last hills to the North of Henstridge we’ll join overhead for R24, turn downwind, pop the flaps, turn base then final and watch the windsock telling me all about Storm Amy’s imminent approach. It’s bumpy down here but as normal it smooths out at 5m and we can arrive gently and exit for fuel.

Wolverhampton Halfpenny Green 6 Nov 2025

The weather today can be best described as iffy: cloud, rain and mist.

But today is my only realistic option this side of Christmas; the weather has not cooperated recently, as is so often the case with autumnal British weather.

The old Artifical Horizon with its inbuilt and very annoying slight lean to the right has been replaced with a refurbished unit that works a lot better. Now just the DI that drifts all the time needs replacing. It’s getting noisier, so replacement time must be soon.

Eastbound looks rubbish on the TAFs so we’ll not visit Damyns Hall or Denham today. Welshpool is a possibility, or Gloucester. We call Gloucester, and they’re closed today, so that’s off. Wolverhampton Halfpenny Green sounds a good alternative: they have a café, and they’re open.

We’ll do a couple of circuits first: my confidence in getting landings right the first time after more than a month not flying is low, and there’s random rotor off the industrial buildings to the South, so this will be fun…

On my first approach I get blown out to the North turning final, so have to crab it all the way down final but contrary to the old adage about good landings coming from good approaches get a reasonable arrival, if a little long.

The second approach is more controlled and I put the mains smoothly where I want them, so we’ll depart direct Northbound avoiding the posted noise-sensitive areas.

The cloud base is at about 1300ft but clears as we head North, skirt the Bristol zone on a listening squawk and head North over the Severn.

The clouds clear in to sunshine before returning North of Gloucester, so we climb on top at 2,500ft.

Approaching Wolverhampton we are back down to 1500ft below murky clouds, then the airfield appears.

Three massive, newly-tarmaced runways, lots of tidily refurbished buildings, friendly admin staff and a reasonable landing fee help. However, the café is, slightly unfortunately, less than helpful: arriving just after 11:30am we are told that breakfast closed at 11:30  sharp and lunch orders could not be taken until 12:00. We are left in no doubt that we are a nuisance to have arrived at such an awkward hour and that “chef needs half an hour to swap from breakfast to lunch”.

More like half an hour to nip round the back for a ciggy….

Shades of 1960’s Blackpool boarding houses. We look at each other while Madame stands there metaphorically tapping her foot and wielding a rolling pin, like an Andy Capp cartoon.

Stu is dead set on a late-morning fry-up, and watching other guests tuck in to their clearly freshly-delivered meals is not hugely helpful.

We settle reluctantly on a surprisingly good couple of buns from the chiller, but neither of us are really satisfied with the outcome. We both suspect that a 20 minute run to the excellent all-day café at Shobdon might have been a better bet…

Going back to the aircraft I start opening the Zeus fasteners before suddenly realising I’m at the wrong aircraft. Bloody PA28s all look the same. How embarrassing…

Stu will fly us home once he has checked the oil on the correct aircraft…

The weather going back can be best described as “Marginal VFR”. They’re doing circuits at Halfpenny Green but we’re the only guys going cross-country.

Again the weather clears around Gloucester and again it closes in as we skirt the Bristol Zone. We’re only just VMC at 1000ft scud running over Longleat and down to King Alfred’s tower, but Henstridge is clearer and Stu joins us tidily in to the circuit for R24, and round on to Final.
He does all the flap and speed reduction as he turns Final which I think is a bit dodgy as you're in to Coffin Corner with no flap and it's doing it all at the same time but there you are: it’s not really wrong, just not how I do it.

Dunkeswell 10 Dec 2025

The weather since we returned to the UK last week has been unflyable.
I mean, I’m always keen to go out but…. yeeuch.

But at last a single nice day appears in the wake of Storm Bram and despite some strong winds still gusting about even the Tiger Moth is flying, which goes to show any wind is OK if it’s straight down the runway…..

I think a circuit and a Touch 'n Go would be wise: it’s been just over a month and I want to make a reasonable job of landing at Dunkeswell where everyone can see me...
The aircraft does come out of the mud surprisingly easily and after warm up and power check it's wheels-up and round the circuit. For once, and I don’t quite understand why, it seems easy to get the speed all the way back to 65Kts Final then 60Kts over the threshold for a tidy arrival at the start of the tarmac.
OK, well I can do that, so depart 240° for the lakes South of Yeovil. It’s bumpy at 2,500ft and our ground speed never rises above 75Kts.

Why do I always cock something up whenever I fly to Dunkeswell?
They’re on R22 with a left hand circuit, I know where R22 is but mentally I’ve decided that R35 over *there* is the one I’ll join left base for.
Ooh, hang on, that’s not right. A quick adjustment and an embarrassed radio call and we’re over the parked aircraft on the starter extension and down on R22 for a very short ground run, there is very little crosswind.
Backtrack and park up on the starter extension as the grass is muddy. I dont think anyone but the Tower noticed...

Hot chocolate, I think.
It’s gusty up here at Britains highest commercial airfield and I’ll drink my chocolate outside with a couple of aircraft spotters, one of whom has driven down from Compton Abbas. I’ll bet that took him a while….

Hot chocolate finished and cup returned, it's time to Book out, fire up, swing the tail round so I’m not blasting the C172 behind me, power check and simply roll on to the runway for a short take off.
I’m bored with this turbulence so we’ll pop up through the clouds to 4,000ft on top where it’s suddenly much smoother, and faster: we now have 125Kts ground speed.

Descending in to the left hand circuit for R24 I can hear another aircraft at about the same distance from the airfield as me but joining from the North, so we’ll announce one right hand orbit for spacing before joining downwind. Flying at a tower-less airfield is like negotiating passing opposing traffic on a single track road: done best with a little professional courtesy. That said, I have experienced a few cowboy operators before....
Joining Downwind I can see him on Final. He lands and backtracks as I turn Final but is clear by the café with plenty of time to spare, so another nice 60Kts over the threshold plop on for an easy departure by the pump.
Fuel up, park up and cover up. Turning the Master off the DI makes graunching noises, sounding like its approaching the end of its days. As indeed it turns out: Andy flies it a few days later and the DI has failed.

Popham 17 Jan 2026

Nineteen years ago, give or take a few days, I took my Skills Test and became a Licensed Pilot. Nearly 700 hours later I’ve learned a lot about flying and about myself, had to face a few home truths along the way, but have enjoyed every minute, even when things have been going wrong.

We will go and visit Popham today to support them: they are under threat from Basingstoke Council who want to expand Basingstoke by building on the airfield. Absolute idiocy. There is plenty of unused land around that junction on the A303 without making a land grab for the airfield.

We have seen a lot of rain in the last few days and whilst our parking place is suitably well drained, and we have a hard runway, I worry about Popham’s grass runways, so a quick phone call to ensure they are open.

“Soggy but open” is the verdict.

The aircraft’s DI has died. This is a problem as it’s a pretty cloudy day and we may well enter cloud. We know Popham is VMC and certainly Henstridge is sunny with scattered clouds but deliberately flying partial panel is not a great idea.

We’ll do a quick circuit for a touch and go, which goes surprisingly well so we can head off East.

Ultimately we can turn back or just stay above anything solid until we get there but as we are restricted in height due to Solent’s Zone we end up going in and out of cloud.

Trying to keep a heading even with a working AH is hard work but great partial panel practice.

After a couple of minutes I realise I’ve got out of the habit if using the AH properly, this is certainly scrubbing some rust off.

So long as we don’t do the whole spiral dive thing we’re OK but Stu keeps having to prompt me to get back on course. The whisky compass isn’t much use either. SkyDemon keeps us legal even if it doesn’t all feel a bit Swiss cheesy…

Eventually as we clear the Solent Zone we can descend a little to get clear of the cloud and at 1800ft we’re in the clear.

It’s interesting the whole confirmation bias thing- I’m sure we’re picking up the A303 but no, it’s the A34 so swing right and slowly, in and out of bits of cloud, we can pick up a right hand circuit for Runway 21, realise we’ve flown the whole way with one stage of flap in, roll final and plop surprisingly smoothly on to the muddy slippery runway, which is canted to one side.

I’m worried about sliding off the side of the runway but in fact the aircraft tracks true and stops well short of the end of the runway.

“No sharp turns, please” says the Tower.

We are apparently their first visitor of the day and they are very quiet.

Stu is the café God: wherever he goes the café is shut, but not today. He opts for tea and a Full English, I’ll have Coffee and a bap.

Stu will fly us home. He’s recovering from a bronchial infection so not feeling 100% but we’ll give it a go, routing back North of Salisbury Plain in search of better weather.

Up the slippery taxiway, power check and roll on 21, right turn and climb in to the cloud. Like me, he finds it hard to hold a heading IMC but we’re in the open FIR so it doesn’t matter too much. At 3,500ft we finally break out on top and it’s beautifully sunny up here.

Having 4G in the aircraft is hugely useful: not only can we get Yeovil’s METAR but thanks to the new EGHS pilots web site we can see the cloud base live and watch the webcam, so we know it’s clear at our destination and in fact the weather clears as we fly West.

By the time we get back to Henstridge it’s just scattered bits and Stu, despite repeatedly referring to the active runway as 26 not 24 drops it on neatly, we can exit for fuel and taxy it back round for parking. The cover is wet and slippery, and keeps sliding off the aircraft. Yuk…

We both had a good partial panel work out today and had fun, but we do need a new DI: IMC is hard partial panel.

Oxford 23 Mar 26

The aircraft is just back from its Annual with a new DI that has no setting bug. It’s nice to see; it’s surprisingly hard to fly without one. We also have an actual, working stall Warner. Something of a novelty; I’ve rather grown used to not having one.

It’s hazy today. This is due to remain, but get no worse.

Oxford says it’s marginal VFR so we’ll keep the ILS plate up our sleeve.

I’ve not flown since January so we’ll do a couple of circuits to ensure I can land, then head North.

I don’t know if it’s the complete lack of wind or just a fluke but we manage a flawless approach and landing on R24, so we won’t bother with the second one.

Climbing out North from the overhead the haze is depressing so we’ll climb up on top. At 3,000ft it’s clear and we can see for ever. The ground is hazy and indistinct but forward viz is wonderful.

There are currently large American rumbly-thunder beasts at Fairford so we’ll steer well clear of them, but the ground is so indistinct we miss Swindon and the M4 entirely so we’ll drop back in to the murk for Oxford.

Oxford is utterly manic: both Approach and tower are at full stretch vectoring IFR and VFR traffic around; they’re using both left hand and right hand circuits for R19 at the same time, multiple helicopters are either taxying or training and it’s all done with calm and efficiency.

Mindful that, as always at Oxford, someone is rating your landing I always try for a greaser and today’s the day. The stall Warner flicks as the mains touch right on the centre line and maybe that’s the perfect landing just there.

Pilot Flight Training went into liquidation in January, so all the PA28s I learned on are sitting idle on the grass, presumably awaiting disposal. I don’t know the details, but it’s a sad end to a great flight training school, for sure.

Andy meets me and we Lunch in Woodstock before it’s back to Ops, pay up and mosey on back to my transport.

After the obligatory taxiway confusion and wait at the Hold we’re cleared outbound. Tower warn of big military traffic protruding from the Eastern end of the Brize Zone as they turn for their the ILS, an approach I have experience of. And sure enough, an A400M looms out of the clag, uncomfortably but not dangerously close. We’ll stay clear of his wake turbulence and climb outside the Brize Zone for clearer air.

Comfortably South now he appears again, but further away and then a second aircraft, a USAF C17 climbs out of the haze headed for Fairford a couple of miles to my right and parallel to my course. Hello, US Air Force.

It’s a lovely day on top so I bid farewell to Oxford who warn me of aerobatic traffic to my left, which duly appears far enough away not to bother too much about.

Swapping to Henstridge Traffic, it’s amazing how far away one can hear radios, I’m North of Swindon and they’re clear as a bell. The pressure is high today, maybe that’s why.

It’s bumpy as we drop back down in to the haze a few miles North of the airfield for an overhead join. Given the light traffic I probably could have just done a straight in for R24 but where’s the fun in that?

I need to stop for the pumps, so will really concentrate on getting speed, rate of descent and flare location right. As grass turns to tarmac the wheels feel for the ground, the stall Warner bleeps and we’re down. Gentle braking and we’re off for the fuel pump. Fill up, taxy the aircraft back, put it to bed and leave for Monday yoga.

All very calm and controlled, except I leave the key sitting in the door under the cover and have to rescue it three days later….