Saturday, July 26, 2008
Saturday 26th July
sometimes you just have to wait...
Sea of Cloud:
Airborne shortly after 8am, we were confronted by a sea of mist in the valley to the West of Dunkeswell (see pic!). After heading east for 20 mins, it became apparent that although the mist was beginning to burn off the ground with the heat of the sun, the resulting low cloud would mean that there was no way we could get to Compton Abbas with assurance of remaining visual. Not wanting to end up stuck above a cloud blanket, we returned to Dunkeswell where we ordered brekky, jettisoned some weight and took on another 10 litres of fuel to ensure that we could make Redhill in one hop once conditions would allow.
Home:
At 10am, despite marginal reports, we decided to head for Abbas. The low cloud was now only scattered and during the final sector toward Abbas we could climb above 2000' for the first time in days. The now familiar route Abbas-Redhill was a pleasure, with ever improving conditions (go the South East!) and the Redhill circuit felt just like London again - getting a transmission in acting as a reactions test and having to zip off the runway for the people following us down final. Busy Saturday morning back at home base. After pillaging the farm shop at Godstone looking like two people that had been lost in the woods for 4 days, we set cruise on the M25, tuned BBC4 and zoned out for a typically stress level escalating trip back into London.
Apologies to Lawson for getting the plane back 80 mins late and a doubtless unheard thanks to everyone we met who helped us and made the trip fun all along the way!
Friday 25th July
Return to Redhill abandoned - remained at Dunkeswell for the night
when the fine line between excitement and fear is crossed...
Awaking in IMC: With the whole of Lands End in raining cloud, the commercial operators offered their passengers a shuttle bus to Penzance to catch a ferry across to Scillies. Needless to say we jumped on to take the chance to walk through St Michael's Mount. Wonderful castle. Amazing. H wants one now.
Departure: After a slightly freaky departure from Lands End above cloud scattered at 600', we cruised up past the Eden Project to Plymouth. The sight of cloud rolling down the hills of Dartmore toward us made the blood run cold. With the cloud base at about 1800' amsl, crossing Dartmoor (1700') wasn't going to be possible. In orbit, burning through our reserve and with visions of a forced night at Plymouth, we decided to fly south toward the coast and low land in the hope that there was a clear way through. It turned out that there way, and we skirted the hills on our way to Exmouth. Feeling pretty freaked out even now that some of the cold sweat had evaporated, we bombed into Dunkeswell at 700', just under the cloud base covering the hill range. Just like the several dozen parachutists partaking in a week long jump fest there, we weren't going anywhere for a while.
Holing up for the night: Unable to go any further until the weather improved, we hatched a plan to get airbornd at 8am to have the plane back for the rest of the group by 10.30am, pitched tent and ordered 14oz steaks and a bottle of gronky house red. Dunkeswell has the largest and most comfortable flight school building that I've seen and they don't wear tabbards - not even the owner who was thrashing a Caterham around the peri track when we arrived. Top stuff.
Thursday 24th July Lands End via Bodmin
When the trusty swiss army knife comes to the rescue and cloud prevents a flight out to Scillies...
Hangar: We were surprised to see the engineer who we had been working until 10pm return before our departure - he was undertaking a C of A inspection on a Luscombe and showed us the Pitts, Tiger Moth, Chipmunk and Lancair that he flies. Cool hangar - he is putting together a crazy Eindecker in the back shed.
Wind: Everything was pretty quiet out in Cornwall airspace. Although the wind was only a 5kt westerly at ground level at Eaglescott, by the time we had wound down the coast to Padstow, we were getting more than 20 degrees of drift and the GPS allowed us to confirm a 40 kt steady wind. Despite this, the flight was dead smooth at 2000'. On first contact Bodmin advised that they had a strong wind warning. I'm glad he didn't tell me at the time, but the guy on Radio went out and got into the fire truck for our arrival. No dramas at all though - after the wing raising incident the previous landing, I wasn't having any trouble from this one and so I bullied it all the way down (what felt like a vertical) descent onto the grass for about a 50m roll out. Funny stuff now, though I was certainly pretty focused at the time. Cornwall is just another world in terms of weather. I need some way to extract the relevant weather data so that I can access it on the web browser on my phone. Calling the airfields and asking them what is happening there doesn't seem to tell even 5% of the relevant story. Again, thought would be appreciated on this issue!
Swedish Physicists: Bodmin was playing host to a Swedish/English family with 5 children taking joy flights one after the other. The pilot taking them was an ex navy old dog in an aerobatic Vans. He didn't seemed bothered about the conditions. I, on the other hand, had RR tied down within about 30 seconds of having jumped out. We pulled out the pic nic rug, made a few cups of tea and vegge out for an hour or so before deciding to push on down the penninsula. We had to bypass the cable junction box to join the perpetually troublesome yellow ignition wire to get the left circuit to work which was no problem. Big thanks to Dave for talking us through the operation and chalk up another victory to the mighty swiss army knife!
Any Runway you Like - Lands End: With 4 runways, and a totally serviceable grass service between them, landing at Lands End is pretty much like landing on a footy oval. ATC are lovely and relaxed down there and the flying club was very hospitable - telling us in the same breath that we were going to have to be locked in at night, and where to climb through the fence to get back in after the pub closes. The commercial operations to Scilly Isles weren't that impressed at me standing on the apron in my board shorts, refueling while they boarded pax and pets right in front of me. I think they need to get over themselves a little. Especially with regard to high vis tabbards. I can't complain about the shower situation though - each of the three places that we stayed on the trip had hot showers that we could use which we weren't expecting. We worked out a non soap cleaner (Cetaphil) that can be used to good effect with a tiny amount of water. Hot showers were a bonus!
St Just: What started as a little walk into town turned into a massive hike up and down the rugged coastline. We were forced to gather carrots for sustenance and were almost in a state of collapse when we finally arrived at the town square of St Just and lined ourselves up some Fish and Chips. Such a good holiday place. I wasn't allowed to buy any of the four magasine titles on offer on the subject of "Cornish Life".
Scillies: Although I was mega keen to don the life vests and head out to the Isles, I had to admit that it wasn't a smart idea when the IMCR rated pilot that was also there decided against it. It would have been a good progression from the Isle of Wight the other week, but will have to wait for another day! We are going to return with time to spend a few days out there.
Wednesday 23rd July
Redhill Surrey to Eaglescott Devon
(via refuel at Compton Abbas)
Leg 1: After a quick squizz at the London motorshow, we were underway from Redhill early afternoon. The GPS acted as a good check for some of the tight airspace between Southampton and Wallop. Odiham requested that we not make a MATZ penetration and since NOTAMs showed that there were heli aeros training there, we though it best to oblige. Compton Abbas proved good for fuel and ice creams before continuing West to Cerne Abbas to view the massive chalk... dude...
Performance: Having consulted a guru on the issue, I made a spread sheet to show the practical range and diversion reserve for a range of cruise speeds and tail/head wind conditions. I had been weighing the equipment as I packed it to ensure that we remained under the 15kg limit. This was just possible due to light weight tent, sleeping bags and mats and MSR petrol stove. Clothes were the biggest casualty (along with reading material) of the W&B cull and we ended up with just a few light vapour layers and a single jumper each. The Beacon and life vests were also significant component of the load. With the exception of a fresh stir fry for the first evening, we packed only dehydrated food and jettisoned drinking water before closing the hatches for departure on each stage. The necessary diversion range (or return to departure point distance) was found for each destination and legs were kept at under an hour to allow for a range of possible wind conditions aloft.
Eaglescott: I missed the airfield on initial approach and was altered to the fact by the 'back stop' radio mast to the north west and Helen (who was in charge of the GPS) looking over my shoulder in search of the airfield. Shocker of a landing in a 10 knot gusty cross wind - caught by a gust in the flare which lifted a wing up. Barry, the main man of Eaglescott (lovely club airfield incidentally, highly recommended as a preferable alternative to Bodmin ) sounded as though he had a bazillion hours on their club Eurostar and he offered a few valid tips. He has noticed on several occasions that in a closed throttle cross wind landing, the nose can blank flow over one wing and as the nose comes up in the flare, recovery from a gusted up wing can be tricky due to lack of aileron authority. His technique is to trawl in under power (with 3 stages if need be) and clamp it down with a sizable margin between touchdown speed and stall speed, CPL style. I tried this out for the remainder of the trip but haven't really had a serious crosswind approach to test it on yet. Thought/comments from the group would be appreciated.
Sheep: A few escapees from the adjoining paddock munched grass right next to the tent loudly during the night. At the time this seemed notable but now pales into insignificance when compared to the hard drinking parachutists at Dunkeswell last night!
Labels: Cornwall Summer 2008
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