As totality chased us in - we could see an artificial sunset taking place behind us.
An eery silence fell over all of us as we turned 040° 2 minutes before totality - captured here on the iPhone for effect!
I tried to capture as much as my hands would permit. I had my GoPro on the gimbal between my legs and then trying to get closeups and then some wide angle shots to show the effect over the cloud
Moment of totality captured on the GoPro.
Just after beading and the diamond ring effect
Here was the moment captured on my GoPro Hero 4 in 4K of totality. Ray banked to the right so he could also get a view - sadly it started to bead thus he had to turn back to 040.
As soon as the majority had passed, we returned to Stornoway with a 60kt tailwind in just over an hour! We were all buzzing from the experience - but we still had a lot of flying to do!
We got on the deck, quickly reviewed our pictures and video, fuelled up and shuffled seats around. For the last leg, I was to fly back and , having never explored the Western Isles before setup a route to take us to the Stornoway VOR, over the Isle of Skye, Glenforsa, Oban, MAC VOR, DCS, a run down Windermere then over to Harrogate before a final buzz of my home airfield (Sherburn) before returning to Gamston. Ray being an IR pilot (and spends all of his time in the airways - and not flown true VFR for many years) was looking forward to seeing this from the right seat too. We had to climb to 5500ft initially due to a restricted area but as soon as we had cleared that, we descended down to 1500ft and flew down the valleys / Loch's, Jura etc all low level and taking in the breathtaking views.
I was also enjoying my time hand flying the Seneca (the flight director and auto-pilot had gone US on the way up to Stornaway on the first day, so it was all hand flown).
As we approached land near DCS, it was evident (as forecast) the the weather wouldn't play ball and I had to hand fly the remainder of the route in IMC till we got to Sherburn's overhead. They reported 2400ft cloud so we descended, gave them a fly past then made a transit of Doncaster Class D to Gamston.
All in all an AMAZING trip, some 1000nm in 2 days covered and quite frankly, some of most breathtaking scenes I have ever witnessed.
The planning all worked out - we all enjoyed the trip and now planning a trip to the US in the Seneca!!!!
Hope you enjoy the photographs and the video clip