Picture the scene: hampers and travel rugs, deckchairs and donkey rides and a long bank holiday weekend bathed — with a bit of luck — in early summer sun.
But first you have to get there. However strong the allure of a long weekend break in the country or on the coast, the British motorist knows that for every hour spent in the sun there is another to be spent in the car stuck in a jam.
Is there a better way to get to your destination under your own steam? Last month on the Friday afternoon before the May Day bank holiday we tested the options.
The destination was Rock, Cornwall, and the three modes of transport from London were a helicopter, a motorbike and a VW camper van. On paper it should have been no contest. The helicopter can cruise at 140mph in congestion-free sky, but first the pilot had to get to the airfield using public transport. The bike can weave through traffic jams but must stop for rest and fuel. So would the camper van win?
Nicholas Rufford: VW Caravelle
Climbing into my camper van I prayed that a weather front moving in from Scandinavia would force helicopter pilot Pat Malone to postpone take-off, possibly indefinitely. It would also reduce Janie Omorogbe’s speed and give me a shot at winning the race. And despite the odds, Aesop’s fable about the hare and the tortoise kept springing to mind. Maybe, just maybe . . .
Heading out of London, a few spots of rain hit the windscreen and I found myself smiling. With a bit of luck Malone would be preparing to throw in the towel, fearing he might get lost in low cloud. Omorogbe would be weaving through the traffic somewhere in front of me, but I didn’t envy her. Having been a biker myself, I know a five-hour slog is no fun. I was still in the running, I reckoned, until I received a call from Malone — he was at the airfield. “The sky’s clear here,” he breezed.
But the weather has to be clear at both ends of a helicopter journey. There was still a chance Malone might run into cloud, forcing him to divert from the helipad at Rock and land at another airfield such as Exeter — or Moscow.
I was just easing onto the M3 when the phone rang again. I didn’t bother to answer. I had been driving for three hours and had completed only a quarter of the distance. The smug-sounding voice was clear enough when I picked up the voicemail at the next service station. “Are you anywhere nearby? Time for a quick brew here at Rock before we head back.”
The rain finally started coming down hard in Okehampton, Devon.
I was still an hour from my destination, Malone was safely back in London and Omorogbe well on her way back home to Portsmouth.
But that hare and tortoise parable wasn’t completely wrong. A tortoise carries its home on its back, right? Well I was in a VW Caravelle, equipped with everything I needed for a weekend away. In a helicopter and on a bike there is room only for a small holdall. I had body boards, folding chairs, picnic hamper, food for a small army and I could stretch out and sleep in the back. Just as well, really.
Janie Omorogbe: Honda VFR800
Filtering through traffic-clogged London, it was glaringly obvious that I had a distinct advantage over Rufford’s VW. But the helicopter . . . well I wasn’t so sure about that.
Once on the motorway I could pick up the pace but it wasn’t until I turned onto the twistier A303 that I started to have some fun. When planning my route, fun was as high on my list as beating Rufford, so I chose to go cross country rather than take the faster M4 and M5 three-lanes-all-the-way option. On a bike, the journey should be as much of an adventure as the destination.
There were still jams but I sailed through them, frequently catching the jealous eyes of motorists tapping their steering wheels. I am always amazed there are not more bikes on the road — and it seems odd that most folk would rather sit stationary in a car than have a bit of fun and make progress at the same time.
Then, abruptly, I was reminded of one of the reasons. One of the jams led directly to an accident. A motorcycle lay in an unrecognisable heap. A car was resting on the central reservation and as the police taped around the accident, I reminded myself that I wasn’t taking part in a race, just an experiment.
With two hours to go, I’d filled up with fuel once, the sunshine was a distant memory and the weather was closing in. I was tempted to stop, have a bite to eat and put a warmer jacket on, but images of Rufford in his mile-munching, bottomless pit of a petrol tank on wheels spurred me on.
All of a sudden out of the gloom rose the unmistakable silhouette of a helicopter, perched neatly on its pad. There, too, was Malone looking refreshed and slightly impatient. After a five-hour high-speed ride I was shattered. No matter how good the bike, riding for so long takes complete concentration and no matter how good the leathers you can’t help but seek the cosy comfort of shelter.
Malone showed little sympathy.
He said he had to make it back to London before tea time, and took off for the return journey. My heart sank. I’d come second, but it was 5pm, foggy and cold, and I was hungry. Portsmouth was a four-hour ride away.
Pat Malone: Robinson R44
Either I win this race or I don’t finish. That’s not petulance on my part — not this time, anyway. That’s the way of it with helicopters. Nothing that crawls on four wheels or two can stick with a vehicle that flies at 140mph in a straight line — once you get off the ground.
Bad weather is the biggest killer of pilots. Pressing on in cloud and rain, groping around in mist and fog among treetops and power lines, losing control when you can no longer work out which way is up — every helicopter pilot knows the risks.
So a pilot watches the weather like a mongoose watches a cobra. I’d been following the detailed forecasts on the Met Office’s aviation website for three days — and guess what? It being a bank holiday, there was a front coming in from the west, bearing all sorts of filth. And so, on the gorgeous sunny morning we left London the forecast for St Mawgan airfield, five miles from Rock, was for relentless deterioration. By 4pm there would be drizzle, low cloud and poor visibility; by 6pm the fog would be as thick as your arm.
Never mind outrunning my fellow racers — could I outrun the front? My secret weapon was Quentin Smith, one of Britain’s most experienced helicopter pilots, a dauntless chap who has flown a helicopter twice around the world and to both Poles and whose skill and judgment far exceed my own. Smith agreed to come along, but he was in charge of his three-year-old son Maximus for the day and he would have to come too.
First I had to get from Wapping, east London, to Denham airfield, west London, where Smith’s HeliAir company has its base. As part of some arbitrary handicapping exercise I had to take public transport, so while Omorogbe shot off on the bike and Rufford disappeared with the VW, I trudged off flapping at taxis.
Thanks to the congestion zone we made the airport in 70 minutes flat, where our Robinson R44 was ready for the off.
Flying a helicopter is a lot easier than driving a car. It has no brakes or gears, there are no bends, traffic lights, speed limits, contraflows, middle-lane hoggers or caravans. With a helicopter you just push the stick in whichever direction you want to go and look out the window. You never have as far to go, either. The straight-line distance from Denham to Rock is 191 miles, compared with 238 by road.
After lift-off, Heathrow refused us a direct track through its airspace — too busy — so I flew up to High Wycombe to get around it, then cut across to Marlow, where a farmer had carved the words “Vote Tory” in 50ft letters in his oilseed rape. According to the GPS, Rock was 160 nautical miles distant, bearing 254 degrees, but wisps of cirrus warned of the coming front.
Our track took us close to the edge of the military exclusion zone on Salisbury Plain, where soldiers rush about shooting things and the air is filled with lead. We could see a great gout of flame and smoke on the ranges to our left, and out to the right was the sinister profile of an Apache helicopter gunship. We were worried. Flying between an Apache and its target is like stepping between a rabid wolverine and its dinner. Nervously we radioed the military airfield at Boscombe Down, confirmed that they had us on radar, and knew that we came in peace.
By now it was a grey day, with lowering cloud and a marked decrease in visibility. Smith suggested we could fly to the coast where the weather would be more manageable, but we never came to the decision point; after 95 minutes in the air the twin peaks of Bodmin Moor swam out of the gloom, and seven minutes later we were on the ground at estate agent John Bray’s helipad overlooking the Camel Estuary at Rock.
It was 2.52pm. Elapsed time from Wapping was 2hr 52min; from Denham, 1hr 42min. Now we just had to wait for Omorogbe, get our picture taken and get back to London. I was busy in London the next day, but more importantly, on the orders of his mother, Maximus Smith absolutely had to be home by his bedtime.
But Omorogbe did not come. Gloomier and gloomier became the day. Could she have met with a mishap? The air ambulance had been called to a motorcycle accident on the A30 . . . it couldn’t be . . .
And it wasn’t. At 4.47pm, five minutes short of two hours after we’d landed, she roared up, chilly, tired and traffic-weary. We stayed only long enough for a brief gloat, then fired up and ran like rabbits. Back in London, with Maximus tucked up in bed, I called Rufford. He was at a petrol station in Okehampton. It was getting a bit foggy.
WINNING AT ALL COSTS
The helicopter: Robinson R44 Astro
Time to Rock: 2hr 52min. To buy: £185,000. To insure: £8,000-£9,000 p/a. To service: £2,500. Cost to Rock: £100 in fuel plus £15 landing fee
The bike: Honda VFR 800 VTEC with ABS
Time to Rock: 5hr. To buy: £8,499. Insurance: £693. Servicing: £90. Cost to Rock: £29.07 (fuel economy: 33mpg @ 84p per litre)
The camper: VW Caravelle 2.5 SE TDI
Time to Rock: 8hr. To buy: £27,250. To insure: £630. To service: £195.52. Cost to Rock £29.21 (Fuel economy: 34.4mpg @ 88p per litre diesel)
Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd.