Well I hope everyone managed to enjoy Sunday's conditions as much as I did! With my brother John over here visiting from Australia, we had planned a west-country trip for Saturday - down to Land's End was the goal... but was many of you will know, Saturday featured low cloud and drizzle thanks to the two occlusions passing over southern England from north to south, so I called up BAFC at Wycombe to cancel the aircraft - bummer.
Not to worry, Sunday looked good - but alas no aircraft available for Sunday from BA at Wycombe, so I checked the online bookings website for my other favourite club, RAF Benson, and as luch would have it a Warrior was available! I should have realised something was amiss, with an aircraft available for the whole day, and good weather forecast...
We arrived at Benson on Sunday around lunchtime as the early low cloudbase was forecast to lift around then. Conditions were looking promising, visibility good. Imagine my horror when - after collecting the keys from the clubhouse and heading to the hangar - I discovered the aircraft was not there!!! It turns out that it was over at Wycombe for maintenance, and I hadn't got the message. Double bummer!
What to do? The sky was beckoning, and my brother and I *needed* to fly! I called Wycombe and - glory of glories - there's been a cancellation and G-ODAK (an excellent 135kt P28B Dakota) was available for the afternoon! So we raced up to Wycombe and got into the a/c ASAP... only then did I realise that in my haste I'd left my kneeboard with plates, PLOG etc. all attached over in the club-house at Benson...! So I called Benson ATC and asked if I could land there in G-ODAK, which is not usually easily agreed without booking with Ops in advance, but they know me as a local club member and so agreed: So we flew 11NM back to Benson, picked up the kneeboard and AT LAST set out on our trip around 2:30pm!
We had near perfect conditions for most of the day. As I departed Benson there was a thin layer at ~2200' and it was hazy below. I called Lyneham for a RIS to break cloud, but whilst waiting to come within his secondary radar range, I spotted a blue hole big enough and just shot up through it to FL040, flying above the 6/8 broken layer below in absolutely beautiful clear blue skies! John & I tracked over Devizes, and for once managed to spot the eponymous horse at the "Vale of the White Horse" there.
We then flew over the Glastonbury festival site, by now the cloud was breaking up and was probably 4/8ths by then. By the time we landed at Dunkeswell we had clear skies, and beautiful scenery to match! Dunkeswell is very nice - we must go there again - it has a great little canteen, a bar, nice waitresses, and plenty of flying activity including meat-bombers!
We departed Dunkeswell towards Lyme bay, then via the man with the big willy (Cerne Abbas giant) and landed at Compton Abbas, which turns out to have a sloped runway and is perched high on a hilltop - fun! I was a bit worried when it came to depart that I wouldn't get airborne early enough to clear the trees due to the uphill, but I shouldn't have worried as with two-stages of flap the mighty Dakota roared into the air in about half the required distance...
We cruised home over Boscombe, FL050 with a service from Farnborough, scarcely a cloud in the sky and perfect visibility above the inversion, just north of Thruxton a bloke in a beautiful little red bi-plane performed a display between 2,000 & 4,000' - we watched in amazement from 1000' above and about a mile away, and it just looked perfect :-) So, to that guy in the red biplane - thanks for the show!
So that was a good end to what started out as a frustrating weekend... and two new (to me) airfields as well!
Pics to be posted shortly... I hope everyone else also enjoyed their weekend!
Andy
