Well I came, I stopped in Ireland, and I got back with me and the aeroplane intact, so broadly speaking - a success.
Detail: planning first of all. Things I didn't organise in sufficient time: Irish airfields guide, and VFR Chart. The former I solved by downloading pages from the IAIP and the latter by buying it from Haverfordwest en-route. Both worked fine although on another occasion I'd order Pooleys Ireland, and the chart, well in advance.
Planning a departure on Sunday afternoon, and having to file details 24 hours in advance I phoned Special Branch on Saturday morning to discover that they don't work weekends (presumably terrorists are only expected to work office hours). Fortunately, a bit of digging around found me a number for a duty inspector who I called, he got his local expert to phone me up, and I filed my intentions over the phone. That worked fine.
Filing a flightplan was my first encounter with the new online booking system (warning - if you want to do it yourself, you need to apply for a login, so can't do it immediately - get a login and have a play with it in advance). This I did via the airfield's own login. It worked - but was slow and I did need a bit of help getting it right.
Okay, then flying. Easy route: Booker, CPT, Cricklade, Severn Bridge, BCN, Carnarfon, Haverfordwest. Nice flying, good views, easy navigation - took me about 2 hours. We arrived at Haverfordwest just in time to get a cup of tea, then bought the chart I needed (yes, I had arranged this in advance), and refuelled from automatic pumps. General views on Haverfordwest - quiet, well managed, reasonable value (£10 landing fee), friendly helpful people. Not a lot to do there, but a perfectly good en-route airfield.
En-route RT was initially with London Information, who then passed me over to Shannon at the FIR boundary. Hint: be prepared in both directions to give your time estimate for the FIR boundary because you will be asked. Both were thoroughly helpful.
Then had planned a route which was direct(ish) to Galway - about another 2 hours. This worked fine until I got towards the Irish coast when forecast lowish cloud and ok-ish visibility turned out to be deteriorating badly and the cloud had dropped onto the 2000ish foot hills in the middle of Ireland - not viable VFR. I discussed this with Shannon who were fine about it and we agreed a provisional diversion to Waterford - so I turned left and followed the coast to the Waterford overhead. This was all fine and visibility remained useable, if not good. However, overhead Waterford I asked for met at Shannon and Galway - it was completely unuseable for me.
Decision: divert to Waterford.
Tracking the met for a couple of hours it became clear that we weren't going to Galway that night, so arranged to tie down on the grass in front of the Aero Club, and the airport were great - arranging for a good price on a couple of hotel rooms in the middle of town.
So we had a pleasant evening in Waterford, and got back into the airport in the morning. The weather was clear, flyable, with wind down the runway, good visibility and a nice high cloudbase. Sadly TAFs and METARs didn't show this in Shannon or Galway. We sat through a couple of met re-issues but this didn't change and we actually did need to go to Galway
So, the airport were again great - they called up the local car hire chappie, who hired us a small car, and we drove ourselves up to Galway. I do not recommend this! 90nm in a straight line: 3:45 ! Irish roads are not designed for continuous flow of traffic, and the road signeage is not uniformly good!
Coming back 2 days later - we drove back again from Galway to Waterford. The roads were even slower - 4:45. I'd had a chat to ATC at Waterford however who gave me everything I needed to file a flight plan on the phone so whilst my colleague drove, I planned and phoned. I realised that with the diversion to Waterford and little wind (it was, unusually, easterly, but only around 5 knots), I could make it back to Booker in one hop.
Great. Planned that. Filed a flight plan. Phoned UK special branch to notify the change - no play. Under no circumstances would they consider a change in port of entry.
So, re-planned via Haverfordwest again, re-filed, and finally after a tortuous drive got airborne at 1620L (1520Z). Waterford were again brilliantly helpful, the charges very reasonable (E15 landing, fuel, no parking fees on the grass by the aero club) - just if you use the place be aware that you need to go through security to get to your aircraft, so no sharp objects.
Easy 1:10 hour flight to Haverfordwest - I'd phoned ahead to confirm that fuel would be available and it was. One quick note - you need a credit card for fuel, but cheque or cash for landing fees: it's just how the local system works. No sight of any police, customs, etc. anywhere - so what the hell were Special Branch getting so precious about.
Airborne again I was back at Booker in 2:00 by the same route I'd come out (before anybody asks, yes I do have an out of hours permit for Booker), landing after the airfield had closed, but about 15 minutes before legal night. Cutting it, frankly, rather tighter than I wanted to, but ultimately safe and legal and I'd planned an en-route diversion which would have been deeply inconvenient but still also safe and legal.
On the whole, good fun, flying in Ireland was very pleasant and I liked the very user-friendly attitude from everything in Ireland except for road traffic.
Lessons learned:
- Buy charts and airfield guide well in advance
- Try and do customs, flight plan and special branch notification a few days early to give time to sort any snags out.
- Don't try and change your special branch details the same day, however good your reasons.
- At all costs, try and avoid driving in the Republic of Ireland. It's not actually dangerous, just painfully unproductive.
- Don't be at-all surprised if nobody ever asks to see your passport, aircraft documentation, or anything else.
G