30th April 1986. After a long car journey from Aberdeen I arrived in Haverfordwest, Taffland. I had been there before, a fleeting visit in 1944 when we joined my father when he was stationed at Brawdy flying Met recon. Halifaxs so I was quite au fait with the place. We were accommodated at the predecessor of Faulty Towers complete with a live in retired Colonel. Downtown was a pub that used to be the Abbey’s brewery and the rumour was that there was a long forgotten tunnel to the now defunct nunnery. However we were there to do a job and this was supporting a 30 day hole in the Bristol Channel from Haverford West International.
The chief pilot looked after his appearance and fitness to a very high degree. Always immaculately turned out he resembled the bearded version of a popular boys figurine of the time and had a nickname to suit. We operated from a hangar which was also occupied by a one man charter airline with a Dornier that seemed to have the engines permanently mounted on stands either side of the fuselage and it also flew in that configuration. The rig was about thirty-five minutes each way and as we would get our passengers when a charter aircraft arrived from Aberdeen so breakfast was fairly leisurely. The next day I flew with him on a rig trip and after that I was on my own.
Stay in the hotel until you are told the ETA of the charter, was the brief. The phone call came and I pitched up at our office an hour before planned takeoff. Over to the flight planning desk and there was my MSLS, completely filled in apart from my signature and it included the pax and baggage weight which had been transmitted from Aberdeen. Beside it was my flight log, also immaculately filled in leaving nothing to be done before I started the engines. I then had a personal met brief and a summary of how the whole operation was going.
Being a lazy sod I took this in my stride and at the bewitching hour I loaded the pax; the numbers were right, and off we went. I already knew the return load because it was written on the flight log so there was minimal scribbling on the way. The return manifest matched the flight log perfectly and I winged back to Haverfordwest.
The aircraft was serviceable; it hadn’t been airborne long enough to go U/S; and after the passengers were offloaded I shut it down. On returning to the office the flight log was removed from my possession and my return load was written on the MSLS on my behalf. I was allowed to fill in the Tech Log and then I was invited to go to the hotel for lunch as my chief pilot was also going to look after the engine wash.
This went on, on alternate days, for over two weeks and then the contract came to an end. The aircraft was a gash 76 so it had to be returned to Redhill. I was going to fly it there and then return by train to pick up my car. As the route was fairly close to my last RAF squadron at Odiham I wangled with their ops a zero charge land and chat and I also cleared it with Mike Norris. The company was short of pilots so I suggested it might be a good recruiting wheeze. During their sojourn the other line pilot and the engineer had formed an attachment to a couple of Welsh rarebits and it was arranged that they would also take these two in the back of the 76 for a dirty weekend in the Smoke, On that the five of us launched off towards Redhill.
I had a chat with Cardiff and then we came towards Bristol. I had been to Filton before when I was in Flying Training, the 188 project and Bomber Command. I called up Filton and gave them an overhead time and they seemed quite happy with no traffic. Just then a Shorts 330 passed about 500ft. below me followed immediately by a call from Filton telling me to call some airfield called Bristol Lulsgate. I turned over the page of my AERAD and there was Lulsgate—and the Bristol Control Zone. It did not take more than a fraction to calculate that Luslgate was behind me. Amateur pilots are well known for stumbling into Control Zones; I was a professional, I went through the whole thing---longways. I had a chat, offered my profuse apologies and left any further action to them.
When we arrived at Odiham by pure force of habit I came through my old squadron’s dispersal at about 100ft. followed by a 50 degree climbing break. I had forgotten about the girls in the back and judging by the noise it wasn’t quite the arrival they expected. However, they had quietened down when we taxiied in. I left them all in the crewroom hugging coffees whilst I showed the troops mysteries like weather radar, ILS, HSI, Attitude Indicators and other things unknown to British military helicopters.
Time passed too quickly and we continued to Redhill. There I left them to it and there then followed a miserable journey by British Rail back to Haverfordwest. AM had already rewritten all the detachment paperwork in copperplate so next morning when that was loaded I strapped on my trusty Ford Capri 2.8i and hurled back to Aberdeen.
Lulsgate MORed the incursion to the CAA. I got a letter from the CAA asking me to explain myself. Fortunately the CAA man I knew very well so it was sorted on the ‘old boy’ basis.
Last edited by Fareastdriver; 10th Oct 2016 at 20:49.