Flying in the Highlands and Islands

[Whirlybird]

Ah well, pink one , I'll be at the Cosford picnic in October hopefully, and I think you said you would, so see you there instead.

[kabz]

I may well be at Inverness on Wed ... maybe flying if they will let me ...

[Whirlybird]

kabz,
Great!!!! Love to meet you if we both happen to be there.

However, schedule is not fixed, and unlikely to be till the last moment. Anyone who wants to meet, give me a call on 07813 651722, or text me, from Monday onwards. The weather forecast is looking fantastic, and we keep adding to our plans...Western Isles, North Coast, Orkneys, Great Glen....I even wanted to go to Shetland, but I think there's a limit to what we can do in five days without getting totally exhausted...and this is supposed to be a holiday. But it would be really nice to meet some prooners too!

[QNH 1013]

Sally and I can recommend the Orkneys, having had a great anniversary time last week.
Some up-to-date info about Wick: One of the posts above suggested there was a minimum fuel uplift but I didn't have any difficulty getting 20 litres last week to top up before flying around the islands.
Flying around the Orkneys was some of the most relaxing flying we have ever done and Far North Aviation at Wick will make the phone call if you want to land on Lamb Holm (which is privately owned; fortunately by an aircraft owner) - the Italian Chapel built by Italian POWs from a Nissan Hut is well worth seeing.
We flew the length of the Great Glen on the way back and then dropped into Oban for fuel and afternoon tea. It doesn't get better than that.
We will certainly be back

[Whirlybird]

Well, everything's packed (including a printed copy of this thread!) and we're off tomorrow morning. The weather's looking great! My co-pilot's picking me up at Sleap, and we're off to Cumbernauld, then hopefully Oban for the night (hotel booked). After that...not sure. We both want to go to Barra, Plockton sounds nice, Inverness via the Great Glen is on the agenda, and maybe Glenrothes on the way back (we've been there, and like the restaurant!). My grandiose schemes to land at every airfield I can manage have been curbed by the common sense of my co-pilot and some PPRuNers (thanks, Charlie ), and we plan to fly a bit, look, take photos, chill out, and have fun. And maybe see some of you; feel free to call on my mobile, or text me, if you'd like to try and meet up.

Thanks to everyone for your advice and comments. I'll let you know how it went in a week or so.

[Keef]

Hey KnobbyGB - liked your pix!

I was delighted to see you've flown N970AC - I did my IR checkride in that in Feb 2002. Those pix of APF brought back memories of sweaty time under the hood.

A great flying school, though. Seems to be getting quite a bit of traffic from UK-based pilots these days.


Whirly - I think your decision to reduce the number of airfields is the right one. From what I've heard of Benpeculiar, it's not a place to visit if you don't have to.

Oban is the opposite - been there a few times, and been overwhelmed each time by the hospitality of the place. I'm still trying to persuade M that the two of us should do a tour of the highlands in G-UTSY...

[Circuit Basher]

Whirly - Progress Report

I spoke to Whirly this morning (warning her of a 'haar' over the eastern side of Scotland) and she's in Oban, looking to do a day trip to Barra or Stornoway today, returning to Oban tonight as they really like it there and the hotel's good.

Aircraft (a C150) has a new engine which doesn't sound to be producing quite as much power as one would hope - Whirly's a bit wary of taking on any short runways / obstacle ridden locations, so she was a bit concerned about Plockton. The last time I flew from Plockton was around 10 yrs ago and I have no memories of any obstacles (other than the fence / stone wall!) and know that it's surrounded by falling land, but couldn't recall the height of any trees at the end of the runway.

She's going to be headed south at the very latest by Fri morning, so my offer of a meet-up in Perth / Fife on Friday lunchtime wasn't feasible. However, if anyone else wants a quick sortie out of Perth (or maybe Fife) early Friday afternoon, I'll see what I can do!

[Whirlybird]

Just back! Fantastic time - landed at Cumbernauld, Oban (lots of times), Tiree, Barra, Inverness, Carlisle. Flew over Mull and Plockton, and all the way down the Great Glen - a highlight of my flying career. Talked to Circuit Basher on the phone, met kabz and Flying School Sec at Inverness - and heard all about pink aviator and mad jock. Ate lots of Paul's jammy dodgers at Oban, and he criticised all my landings except the near perfect one, which he wasn't watching!!! Admired the best scenery in the world. Wx amazingly good till Thurs, then fogbound at Oban, eventually made it to Carlisle, and back to Sleap today in marginal, safe, but basically crap vis. Hence knackered but happy, so no more now, details when I've had a bath, rest, etc.

But anyway, we fulfilled a long term ambition; we landed on the beach at Barra!!!!!

[Whirlybird]

PIREP

Mon 4th Aug

Unable to believe our luck with the weather! It looks wonderful, and we aim to make Oban in one day if possible. Tricia is picking me up at Sleap, leaving from Gloucester in the flying school C152 that we have for five days.

She is tired, as she was instructing all day yesterday, and Gloucester has poor vis in the morning. So she doesn't get to Sleap till around midday. I have planned a long leg straight to Cumbernauld, to give her a chance to have a rest. I fly while she navigates and does the radio, the usual way we fly together. Straight to Winsford, through the Low Level route, then due north to Penrith, then a line which more or less follows the M74 to avoid the high ground. The weather is lovely, though high pressure haze is already starting. But vis at Oban wasn't that good earlier, so we'll need to call them later. I gradually get used to flying these funny machines with non-whirly wings, and I'm relaxed and enjoying it within half an hour or so. My landing at Cumbernauld is so good I can't believe it...turns out to be my best landing of the week. We try to get a very late lunch, having been living on muesli bars all day, but the cafe is closing so we drink tea and coffee and eat more junk...keeps us going anyway. We phone Paul and Brian at Oban; fourth phone call I've made to them, to check on wx - this time they say it's lovely! Tricia is recovered, and does the flight to Oban - at 4500ft over the mountains, with some of the most stupendous views I've ever seen. We can see for miles, and it's wonderful. When I realise we're flying over Loch Lomond I break into song: "By yon bonny banks and by yon bonny braes", and Tricia joins in...it's that kind of day.

We get to Oban early evening - lovely strip with views to the Hebrides, and we can see for miles. As ppruners have said, warm welcome from Paul, with tea and coffee and jammy dodgers. I'd booked us into the hotel in North Connel about ten minutes walk from the airfield. Just as well, as almost all accommodation in Oban is booked up. We eat, then try to make plans...which islands shall we fly to? Tricia is worried; Mike Tango (G-BIMT) is needing a longer takeoff run than usual, either due to the heat or her new engine. She does some calculations, and Plockton seems like a bad idea. Anyway, we can decide in the morning.

Tues 5th Aug

Another lovely day; can hardly believe our luck. Early morning phone conversation with Circuit Basher , who warns us of a haar over the east coast. We don't mind for now; we want to go to Barra while we can. We've tried to check the tides and when they're open, but heard conflicting stories, and now there's no-one there. Anyway, with help and suggestions from Paul, we decide to go to Tiree, ask them to phone Barra for us, then fly the 30 miles across the water to Barra, then a circuitous route back to Oban, via South Uist, Skye, Rhum, Eigg etc. Oh yes, we'd decided that since we'll keep having to go back to Oban to refuel, and we like it there anyway, and the hotel is really nice, we'll base ourselves there and do day trips. It also means we have a little less weight, so can maybe manage a short strip or two if the wx isn't too hot for Mike Tango.

I fly us to Tiree, an idyllic flight down a chain of islands, photographing the strip at Mull on the way. The ATCO there tries to rouse Barra for us; they should be open, but he can't get hold of anyone. We decide to go anyway, but he calls us on the radio just before we leave to say he's got them and we're booked in.

We've planned to fly the shortest crossing, to a little island south of Barra, the southernmost point of the Hebrides. However, it's now a bit hazy, and we can't see the islands, so we make sure we're slightly to the right of track if anything, so that we reach the Hebrides somewhere, not miss them and end up in America! Anyway, Scottish Info want our estimate for Barra, which I'm not sure of, but it ends up being exactly the same time as the one scheduled flight - the Twin Otter which lands on Barra. The Otter pilot asks Scottish Info for our position, and they ask us. At this point we're approaching some tiny islands in the haze, and I really don't know where we are...I think it's the south end of Barra, but I can't be sure, and the distance across the water??? I tell Scottish Info that I think we're about 5 miles from the south end of Barra, but I'm not sure - and everyone seems happy enough with that. Soon we contact Barra, who tell us to "report beach in sight". I so enjoy calling them a little later: "This is G-MT; we have the beach in sight". They've already given us the runway in use, and told us there are pools of standing water. However, from 2500 ft the beach looks like one massive pool of water!!! Tricia looks worried. I ask her what she thinks, and she says: "I don't know. I've never landed on a beach before". We ask if we can do a low pass to take a look at the beach, and are told we can, so we fly very low over it. We realise it's actually OK; wet, but not under water as it had looked from higher up. However the runway in use is 11, heading straight out to sea, and we don't know what Mike Tango will think of wet sand. I suggest we ask to use runway 15, which is straight across the beach, and dry; there's hardly any wind anyway. We get permission for this, and say we'll land after the Twin Otter so as not to hold up the scheduled flight; translation - we'd like to see how he does it.

Anyway, after all that it was a bit of a non event. We landed exactly as we would anywhere else, and Tricia said the only problem was slight difficulty in judging the height. We parked next to the Otter, which looks very like a big C152, looking like it had hatched a chick or something! We had a massive audience, probably the whole population of the island; whether because they turn out for every flight, or because GA arrivals are pretty rare, we didn't know.

We had coffee, bought T-shirts saying "Life's a beach; land on the sand" and wished we could stay as it's a lovely place. We watched the Otter leave, and decided we could use runway 11 now, as the tide was further out and the sand drier. Actually, there are no runways anyway; there are posts marking where they should be, if you can recognise them, but it's just a massive...beach. But the ATCO (or is he a FISO, can't remember) took great care to show us exactly where the "runways" were supposed to be, so it seemed nice to try to use them.

I got to do the short field takeoff, heading straight out to sea and skimming low over the waves; great fun. Then we headed north to South Uist, then across to Skye and the Coolins. We were both in celebratory mode as we'd wanted to land on Barra for years...and we'd done it! We flew over Rhum and Eigg; I'd walked the coastline some years earlier, and wanted to visit them; flying over them was the next best thing. Then back to Oban, for Paul to welcome us "home" and criticise my less than perfect landing.

More later.

[Whirlybird]

Wed 6th Aug

So many nice places to go, so little time. And still we're incredibly lucky with the wx; bright sunshine, not too hot, and good vis - though hazier than it was. And although south-east Scotland still has the haar, Inverness is clear. Where to go?

We calculate the takeoff distance for Plockton, and if we go in there with full fuel, if the temp goes above 20 degrees - which it probably will - we probably won't get out. If we take half fuel, we'll have enough fuel to get to Inverness, but not to divert back to Oban - and Inverness' TAF has a 30% prob of TEMPO fog. And there's nowhere else with fuel, so we can't risk it. If we go back to Oban after Plockton, for fuel, it'll be a really long day if we go to Inverness afterwards - and this IS supposed to be a holiday. And I really really want to fly down the Great Glen, and I'd like to meet kabz, who's in Inverness, and the Highland Flying School contingent.

So we decide to overfly Plockton, then go to Inverness via the valley with Achnasheen in the middle (the Scottish ppruners will know what it's called), and come back via the Great Glen. However, Paul has an idea. Why don't we drop into Dornoch first, he asks. It's longer than Plockton, with no obstacles, and we'll have used up lots of fuel by then. So we decide to do that.

Tricia flies us along the coast of Skye, and when we pass the Skye Bridge I break into song aagain: "Speed bonny boat like a bird on the wing". I don't know why Scotland has this effect on me - but it is all so incredibly beautiful. We have a look at Plockton, and try to see the palm trees which I assure Tricia line the main street, or did when I was there many years ago. We have a fantastic flight up the wonderfully desolate valley, losing Scottish Info halfway up - as they told us woul;d happen. We contact Inverness, then Tain Range for crossing to Dornoch. They give us a route different from what I'd planned, and I'm feeling a bit overloaded with the nav and radio, when Tricia says: "Is that mist out there". At that point we remember the PROB 30 BR in the Inverness TAF. Tricia asks me if we have the fuel to land at Dornoch, and rush home without stopping for fuel at INV if necessary; I work it out and it's pretty marginal. I don't think it looks like mist, but she does. I ask her what she wants to do; she says she doesn't know. I'm still trying to talk to Tain and navigate, but I manage to have room in my overloaded brain to realise - we can't go to Dornoch! We can't risk it. Forecast as TEMPO or not, east coast fog can hang on indefinitely, and Dornoch is an isolated strip. At least at INV we have facilities if we get stuck. I tell Tain we've had a change of plan, and we regretfully head straight for INV.

It actually all worked out for the best. We dropped into the flying club, and after chatting toflying school sec for about two minutes, she says: "You're Whirlybird". Sometimes I think I might as well just introduce myself as Whirly. We get a lunch break and food (rare for us when flying; always seems to be the odd snack), and have a long chat with kabz. Then I fly us down the Great Glen. We fly at 2000 ft, with much higher mountains very close to us, and the air is so still I can fly hands off, unbelievable to close to mountains. The view is wonderful - Loch Ness, other lochs whose names I've forgotten, Ben Nevis; it ranks as one of the best flights I can remember, and halfway down I semi-seriously ask Tricia if I can do it all over again. And we get back to Oban early enough to manage to go into the town, look around, and eat fish and chips feeding the gulls in the sunshine. I even manage a good landing - which of course Paul doesn't see.

Sometimes it's better to do less flying, land at less places, and appreciate what you do - as many of you told me.

More tomorrow.

[knobbygb]

Pirep up to your usual high standard. Keep it up Whirly, I'm not jealous, honest!

Am familiar with the Achnasheen route - tried to get from INV to Plockton with Mad_Jock last month but the ground gradually climbs as you go west, and the cloudbase just wasn't going to allow us through. How did you manage to pick the right week for the weather?

[Evo]

Yes, very much appreciated Whirly. Sadly Mrs. Evo saw through my plan for a summer holiday in the Highlands, after I mentioned that I wouldn't mind getting a few hours in from Inverness. Next year, hopefully...

[Whirlybird]

knobby,

We didn't know how we'd managed the weather either. But....read on....

Thurs 7th Aug

By Wednesday evening, even Tricia, who is usually the cautious and sensible one who tells over-enthusiastic me that we can't land at every airfield from Gretna to Shetland, was making grandiose plans. Phone calls down south had suggested that the weather there would be fine, and the vis not too bad, for getting back on Friday. We planned to be prudent and sort of head south on Thursday, but not that far. Tricia was trying to work out how we could land at Mull, then Islay, then.... Eventually we settled on Islay, Campbeltown (3km runway in the middle of nowhere), then round Arran and over to Carlisle, giving us a pleasant day, and an easy trip back on Friday. Little did we know. We didn't even guess when the BBC predicted mist in the morning....well, Tricia was mildly concerned, but I didn't believe it.

We woke up on Thursday morning to fog. Not poor vis, not mist, but genuine, can't-see-the-trees-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden FOG. We ate a leisurely breakfast, slightly cheered by the fact that it seemed to be slowly but surely improving. Our planned flights were only 3 hours or less; we could do it all in an afternoon easily. We paid our hotel bill and walked down to the airfield. There, to cut a longish story short, we joined a largish group of people who stared at the fog, willing it to go. We cheered up when we could see Lismore Island, then it disappeared again. Ditto with hilltops, the caravan site on final, and so on. I chatted to a bracken spraying R22 pilot who was waiting for the low cloud to clear the hilltop so that he could make it to his site, which was said to be clear...apparently if I get an Ag rating I could be doing that too. Another new career for Whirly?


The TAFs didn't help. Everywhere was socked in, without much change due. I copied down the Campbeltown one in sheer disbelief:

EGEC 070805Z 070816 29007kt 0300 FG VV//// TEMPO 0816 1000 BR BK003 PROB30 TEMPO 0816 07000 NSW SCT 005

I mean, have you ever seen a TAF that length, where the best you can hope for is 7km vis, with cloud at 500 ft?

Anyway, there was nothing we could do. Fretting at the inactivity, I phoned all the airfields I could think of, but it didn't help. Campbeltown, Prestwick, Blackpool - everywhere low level was socked in, and we didn't dare risk the mountains in low cloud and poor vis. One or two pilots with lots of suitable ratings and suitably equipped aircraft managed to leave, but most of us sat around doing what one does in bad wx at airfields...and eating lots of jammy dodgers of course.

Suddenly, in early afternoon, there was a glimmer of hope. A helicopter pilot flew in, and said it was clear to the east, over the mountains. We hadn't even considered that route, since the mountains are well over 3000 ft, but he said it was fine. I phoned Cumbernauld and Glasgow; their wx was good. I phoned Carlisle; that seemed OK too. We decided to try it. having rebooked our hotel room late that morning, we phoned and cancelled it; amazingly, they didn't seem to mind. Tricia checked out Mike Tango, while I booked us in at Cumbernauld, telling them we'd call on the radio if we decided to carry on to Carlisle. I told Carlisle we were coming, and would call again if we weren't. With unreliable wx, and airfields getting close to closing, we wanted everyone to know what we were doing - this wasn't the time for my common habit of going where I feel like and not bothering to talk on the radio. And with Paul telling us to be careful, and come back if we needed to, we were off!

It turned out to be a surprisingly nice flight. it was hazy, but there was no low cloud inland, and Tricia took us up to over 5000 ft. This meant I had problems navigating, as I've rarely been that high...we helo pilots get vertigo up there! But we were retracing our steps from Monday, so we recognised some of it. When we got to Cumbernauld it looked OK further south, so we called and told them we were carrying on to Carlisle, and followed the motorway nearly all the way. We were worried about mist as we approached the Solway Firth, but it was reasonably OK all the way, and we landed at Carlisle around 17.30. We sved money on the landing fee by rememberiong to weart our high vis jackets (it costs more if you forget, be warned!!!), and they got us a taxi into Brampton, where we found a B & B, and enjoyed a nice meal and a walk up the hill to look down at the town. Our only concern was the lake district mountains next day; after that it should be relatively easy flying to Sleap and Gloucester.

Again, little did we know....

Friday 8th Aug

We were delighted to wake up to reasonable vis; a bit of wind seemed to have cleared the haze. We got a taxi back to the airfield with high hopes of getting home early, which seemed a good idea now that we were nearly there. One look at the TAFs put that idea out of our heads. The local area was fine, but Manchester had about 7km vis, everywhere near the coast had fog, and Shawbury (ie Sleap) was well below VFR limits. A few phone calls confirmed all this - Sleap had very poor vis and low cloud too, the low level route was below legal limits, Blackpool and Liverpool had fog, Gloucester was pretty bad - we were stuck!

The constant planning, phoning, and wondering what to do had been tiring the day before; we decided not to do it again. We got coffee, read the papers, looked at lots of interesting microlights and gyros in the hangar (Roger Savage's gyro school is based at Carlisle), and deecided to check it all again early afternoon. By that point it was improving, and we decided that if it got a little better, and possible diversion airfields were clear, we would leave. Eventually, with the low level route legal, Shawbury giving 8km and no really low cloud, and Hawarden clear as a possible diversion, we decided to go. I would fly the first bit, as it was my turn. We would swap, part way, as Tricia has more experience of low level marginal wx flying, whereas I know that area well so could navigate more easily. But we had enough radio aids, plus my GPS, that it shouldn't be a problem anyway.

And it wasn't a problem. I was flying right seat for the first time, which was surprisingly difficult, but otherwise it was fine - about 7-8km vis, which is not ideal, but definitely flyable. Tricia took over halfway at Preston, and Warton gave us a FIS all the way to the low level route, with the cloudbase lowering, and the vis getting steadily worse, though still legal. I called Manchester for the QNH and a FIS; they told us the QNH but said brusquely that we could have got it from the ATIS...and that was it!!!! We were unimpressed, to say the least. The mark one eyeball in the low level route is fine usually, but not with 5-6km vis. And we were not the only aircraft in there. I feel like complaining to someone about that, but who?

Once we'd cleared the low level route we got on to Shawbury, who gave us a squawk and warned about parachuting at Tilstock - reassuring to have someone caring about us again. Sleap had closed, but had told us it was fine to come in, and for Tricia to leave if she could. Despite the fairly featureless Shropshire Plain, I recognised Whitchurch, then Wem, and there was Sleap on the nose. No-one else was flying, and Tricia landed with one of her usual near-perfect landings.

We had a break and a drink, and phoned Gloucester, whose wx was about the same as Sleap's. But Tricia knows the area well, so had no qualms about flying there, and it's not far anyway. I waved her off, chatted to anyone who'd listen about landing on Barra, and drove home - to a warm welcome from my six cats.

It was a fantastic trip, and I'd love to go up there again. A shame about the last day, but actually I learned a tremendous amount from that, so it can't be bad.

Now...where next time?....

[Tinstaafl]

Unst & Sumburgh with stops in Fair Isle, Foula, Papa Stour, Out Skerries...

[Circuit Basher]

Good news - glad you had a good week, Whirly and sorry I didn't get a chance to do part of the tour with you.

You've decided me - whilst I'm up here, I really must do the Great Glen trip and get in to Oban - the 2 attempts I've had have been abandoned due to low cloud over Glencoe.

The scud running of Thu / Fri sounds a bit like my trip down to Sherburn for the fly in - constantly re-planning on the hoof. Carlisle's a good facility and very helpful (I have actually got a contact who owns a Europa there, so he was very helpful when I stopped off) - interesting what you said about fees at Carlisle. ISTR it was around £17 (and I did have a hi-vis with me!).

[witchdoctor]

Wow!!! What a PIREP - cheers Whirly. As a Scot in exile (fortunately close to the border and getting closer ) I can't wait to get back home and get some flying done up in the Highlands/Islands. You're right, it is a truly beautiful place, but I've yet to experience it from the air as so far I've not been further than Perth. Keep promising the missus we'll get up to Inverness sometime and go stay at the old clan HQ at Tulloch Castle.

You have whetted my appetite for later in the year when the boss and I have some work to do up round the islands, so now I really can't wait.

We're based out of Carlisle, so must have missed you on the way up as we were over on Tyneside, and haven't flown since then this week. Roger's stuff is great isn't it, and he's a real character to boot. Glad you enjoyed your visit.