Leicester was my last "foreign" visit so wouldn't clock up a new airfield for me. I've never landed at Duxford ... but it's so close one would hardly have time to get above circuit height from here!!

Heading a bit further north now, but what about Gamston/Retford?

Nice long runway, VOR, and maybe if we ask nice a trip around all those new Diamond aircraft :ok:

Geez

Never been there so would be keen to go to GAM; take it they do have a decent caf?

FD

Gamston or Shobdon would be new ones for me - if it's not on a Sunday, I'll try to be there!

Lifts available from EGMC...

What about Cranfield or Peterborough ?

Peterborough Conington or Sibson?

Either one fine by me although I have never been to Sibson and believe it can get waterlogged so we'll have to take the time of year in account.

Conington has no grass (AFAIK) but a nice cafe and very friendly folk.

Cranfield is among the less cheap GA fields and not sure if they have all year grass but am sure that one of the locals can inform us.

FD

Leicester, Old Warden, or Shobdon are my favorites so far.

If we decided on Shobdon, perhaps a few of you could drop into our place on the way back - it's not far...

I am going to introduce another option which may not be suitable for the big one but would be a great destination for the more adventurous another time ... How about Lundy?

Kingy

I would love to go to Lundy at some point.

I know I guy who went in a C172 so should be ago in my Condor, but the state of the Lundy RWY is a bit of a legend or so I have been lead to believe.

QDM has been there.

FD

PS: where is your place?

Coventry
 

If you guys want to come to CVT I'll try and sort out a landing deal. We can also arrange a walking tour of the classics. The place is dug up at the moment ahead of the launch of commercial services so I think April onwards would work.

Marc Bond
Skypartners

FD,

Eastbach, Forest of Dean.

Short, hilly and tricky on the wrong day, but beautiful!

Kingy

I'd be up for Gamston: Done Leicester/Duxford / Cranfield too many times. Gamston has VOR/DME on site:- couldn't be easier!

Has anybody considered Sandtoft EGCF: went there for another forum fly-in once: !!!!! weather: only one other pilot made it: from Leicester I think.

Only prob is that us southerners will have to buy a Northern map.

Sandtoft has a nice hard runway, excellent caff (at least it did 3 years ago) and shed loads of nice RAF controllers nearby to help you if you get lost.

I'm restricted to weekends at present 'cos of the day job but with sufficient notice(at least 8 weeks ) I can take a weekday leave.

Looking forward to it.

BTW F. Dutch: how's the FAA/IR going: can't post on the other list as it rejects my HTML.

Safe flying

Cusco

I'm a regular at Gamston, and nice, friendly and easy as it is, I wouldn't have thought it'd make a particularly good fly-in venue. It's a bit 'commercially oriented' - loads of Diamond stuff and a couple of biz-jets based there too, but not much else of particular interest. £10 landning fee and I don't think they'd be particularly keen to allow multiple landings for that either. There's a nice coffee shop upstars inside the Diamond offices (open to the public), but you can't see the apron or runway from there.

I think Sandtoft would make a better venue than Gamston - much more of a GA field with a bit more going on.

Then there's Wickenby, just a bit further south on the edge of the Scampton MATZ, which is an ex WW II base with a small museum upstars in the old control tower, and a nice homely cafe/bar downstairs. Again, not much else going on though. Reasonably length (and quite bumpy) hard runways, and a nice grass parking area with picnic tables etc. (it WILL be sunny, it WILL be sunny...)

Or how about Skegness. Unlicensed, and no cafe on site, but there are several nice chippy's (Chip SHOPS, not chipMONKS) 10 minutes away and we could all crash out on the beach! 750M of grass in the middle of a caravan park with a nice hill to sit on and watch/jude each others landings. It might be a bit nearer for the southerners too.

My vote would go for Gamston or Coventry.

(Not concerned about proximity of chip shops ....!)

Any day would be OK, though Saturday or Sunday would need a goodly bit of notice.

I was going to take the Chippy to Lundy last summer; I already had me doubts, and was finally talked out of it by someone who has been.

I don't mind the short rough strip, but to avoid a long over-water sector means a big detour south for us northerners with fuelling stops both ways - and the overwater bit is still considerable. Main consideration was that if anything went wrong (we were suffering some rough running and occasion 'missing' at the time as those who witnessed our departure from G-VFWE will testify) on Lundy there are NO facilities. Could be an expensive retrieve.

Still fancy it, though :)

SSD

Nah:

I think we southerners should come norf:

Well, norf if you call the midlands norf; kinda norf, not real norf.

None of this airy- fairy pink aviator highlands cr*p: I can't afford two new maps.

Any way I haven't got a kilt.

My vote's for Sandtoft, but I'll go with the (norf) swell.

Safe flying

Cusco

Hey Kingy:

How long is your strip?

Have you ever had any Arrers in?

Sounds like a challenge/kiss of death.

Cusco

Hey Cusco,

Sorry mate it's certainly not Pa28r friendly, we have two runways 250ish and 350ish metres. They are one way strips too - one end of the 250m run is 85ft lower than the other for example!

A C172 will just about go in and out if very light and I've watched, heart in mouth, a laden C150 just about make it over the fence - never again!

It's all in the AFE guide if you want to have a look.

If you can blag something more suitable (Cub, Maule, Harrier etc) you are very welcome to visit but PM me first for PPR and a brief because being surrounded by valleys on three sides often creates some weird local curl-over effects.

Kingy

PS lets not make it too far north - my fastest plane is slower than your approach speed - It'll take me two days to get there!

Very busy at the moment but will be back to normal tomorrow. I will then post a poll for you lot to vote on. Should be on about 3pm-ish. Then we should start looking at setting a date for this.

To start with though, how about the first week in April?