WELESBOURNE, NOW THERES A PLACE!
10540 says--That's what it is like at my two favourite examples of a free for all: Stapleford and Wellesbourne. The first one is particularly terrible and I have wondered whether some of the instructors even have a PPL.
WELESBOURNE, NOW THERES A PLACE
Funny that because the circuit at Wellesbourne is why I stopped instucting in 1986. At that time the airfield manger was an ex-bankrupt second hand car dealer, a man with a mouth disproportionate to his brain. One of flyings greatest self appointed experts.
there are two incidents that finally lead me to refuse to send anyone solo in this circuit and to stick to airline flying.
1. a local twin owner requested a dead side direct left base join in a busy weekend circuit. (There never had been a Lh base on the southely runway due to the village) The spotty teenager in the tower,(A/g at that time) who probably didnt even have a RT licence gave him clearance to join directly onto the dead side base leg. I was with a student on the correct RH base leg-we were now head on but my student turned onto final well ahead of the twin. The pilot of the twin insisted that we go around but i took no notice and the twin had to go around. He later came into the flying school shouting his mouth off saying he was doing everyting correctly and he had 700 hours and a twin rating and he was right and i was wrong-I tried to explain to him that only an ATC unit with an ATCO can issue a clearance and that A/G is advisory I even showed him the section in the ANO but you see he had a twin and 700 hours!!!!--all quite funny really but awhile later the same pilot in the same twin flew back from Europe and cleared customs at Birmingham--he elected not to refuel even though both tanks were showing close to empty. On take off the one engine stopped due to fuel starvation and the aircraft rolled right over on its back and arrived on the grass inverted, fortunately the self appointed expert survived.lookout for him i think he is still at Wellesbourne, Derek is his name and I belive he still thinks he is an ace!
2. And this was the final one for me. The parachute Islander from Long Marston joined dead side and flew underneath us on downwind missing us by about 50 feet--he never even saw us and even though there was someone in the tower, another teenager, there was no traffic information or not even any comment by anyone.
I realised then that I could no longer send students solo in the circuit safely and gave up.
I could write a book about incidents at this airfield but I will leave you with a more pleasant thought
Why would you continue to call an airfield Wellesbourne when the most well know town in the world is a few miles away?