A Tale of Two Trippies Mike Batchelor
I thought that I might as well relate the stories of
two recent trips. Although there is very little in the literal sense to compare
this article with the novel, the second trip did involve England and France and
was a ‘Dickens’ of a lot of flying. The link to the first trip is even more
tenuous except that it was across water. So in detail:
Back in July I got a call from John Hunt saying that
there was to be a PFA fly-in on Lundy on the weekend of 13/14th and would I fancy going. He said that he had
always wanted to fly out there and it was only a short crossing anyway – hah!
We therefore arranged that John would pick me up in his BMW powered
Huntwing/Blade trike from Wickwar International on Saturday afternoon. We duly
set off complete with EFDs(Pax)- passenger emergency flotation devices-
(lifejackets) and EFDs(aircraft) ( lilos in the wings to you and me) sundry
camping equipment, tools, clothes etc, etc.
It is surprising what can be crammed into a trike and still leave it
able to take off.
We had arranged to head straight for the second
Severn Bridge and from there, more or less, straight down the Severn and along
the N Devon Coast. Everything went swimmingly – not literally- and we
progressively got handed over from Bristol ATC, to Cardiff and then St Mawgan
It is reassuring when undertaking a water crossing to have someone know where
you are. We gave Hinckley Point a wide berth by flying well out to sea – just
practicing you understand. The flight along the N Devon coast was spectacular;
the weather was good, the conditions calm and the visibility brilliant. North
Hill and Bossington – our old hang gliding venues- came and went soon followed
by Porlock, Lynton, Combe Martin and Ilfracombe, all looking serene in the
sunshine.
Approaching Woolacombe we could just see Lundy as a smudge with a layer of cloud in the distance. It was with surprise that John said “ I thought the crossing to Lundy was only 11 miles over the water”. “Yes”, I said “it is but only if you fly another 30 miles around Bideford Bay to Hartland Point first. Otherwise its around 18 miles out from here.” Needless to say we flew straight out without incident.
The landing on Lundy is interesting. The strip close
to the old lighthouse is approached over the cliffs - from either end!, is not overlong, rather bumpy with a hump in
the middle. There was only one aircraft there – a Vans RV- when we landed which
was rather strange for a PFA rally I thought. The only other witness of our landing
was a herd of deer. It transpired that the rally proper was actually the next
day. We arranged to pitch our tent by
the aircraft – a bit of a concession on a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific
Interest!), as they prefer visitors to use the regular, very sloping, campsite.
Then we hotfooted it to the one and only pub. This served good beer and food at
very reasonable rates. A good evening was had by all. All, in this context,
being us, the Vans owner & wife plus a quite of lot of grockles- easily recognised
by being middle aged, bearded, with shorts, binoculars and hiking boots etc.
The remainder were the permanent staff, who were great, a shoal? of divers and
various others including a media person who aimed an enormous video camera at
all and sundry!.
The next day the weather remained good and the
island saw an unprecedented 50+ aircraft arrive including a selection of
microlights and the Eurostar from Hereford. It was quite surprising how many
aircraft, probably around 50%, were forced to carry out go-arounds; usually as
a result of landing too long, bouncing on the hump and finding too little
runway remaining. I am, sure that the North Devon PFA strut who organised the
event were delighted with the record turn out and our thanks go out to them.
After the
obligatory repairs – wire reinforcing- to the BMW exhaust we repacked the trike
and departed The return trip was rather
a rerun out the outbound leg except that we flew a ‘lap of honour’ round the
island after we took off to gain a little height before pointing out across the
water. The only relief during the crossing was a huge solitary car transporter
boat on route up channel. We speculated whether it was large enough to land on
in an emergency. Thankfully we had no need to test the theories. It was a good
trip back along the coast and interesting to see the change from clean Atlantic
water to the muddy Severn outflow between Lynton and Porlock.
In all we clocked around fours hours of near perfect
flying. A good trip indeed!
The Blois Trip.
The fly-in and ‘trade fair’ at Blois in the Loire
valley south of Paris is becoming somewhat of a pilgrimage for quite a number
of British pilots. Although I have done the trip before, when John Hunt asked
me to fly with him this year I had no hesitation in agreeing. We arranged that
John would fly down from Hereford to Clench Common on Wednesday evening 28th
August and that I would join him to set off proper on Thursday morning,
hopefully in the company of various aircraft from Clench and Harry Cooke from
Hereford. If anyone has ever attempted
to arrange mass flights you will know that it is nearly impossible and this
trip was no different. John and I left Clench for Lydd fairly early in the
morning in very overcast conditions with Harry Cooke preparing to leave and
knowing the rest would follow in due course. Most of the trip to Lydd via the
southerly route avoiding Gatwick was accomplished at low level. In the interests of legality we shall say
that it was 500 feet! Although we both commented that it was surprising how few
people or horses looked up as we passed.
Lydd was interesting. The landing approach was over
a pair of giant concrete ears that had featured on a television programme the
previous evening. These were pre radar listening devices aimed at detecting
approaching enemy aircraft. We never saw Harry Cooke again he suffered firstly
a radio failure, and then a fan belt failure and an outlanding. Eventually he
made Headcorn to await a new belt from Skydrive. Most of the gaggle from Clench
straggled in and were also joined by Gavin Quick who had flown in from
Plaistows. It was time to refuel, file the flight plan and customs form and
wait the regulation time for the flight plan to be approved. Once again John
and I prepared to leave as soon as possible knowing it is all too easy to waste
an enormous amount of time talking with other pilots. So complete with EFDs
again plus two extra ones in the wings we taxied out in a rather stiff breeze
to take off. Gavin was actually in front having decided to ignore the waiting
time for flight plan clearance in the interests on staying in company with
someone during the crossing. For whatever reason we passed him on the taxiway
as he seemed bent on collected samples of Dengie Marsh vegetation. You get no
opportunity of climbing out from Lydd to any significant height before
launching out over the water. Fortunately the stiff breeze was a tailwind and
the longer crossing from Lydd to Cap Gris Nez was in fact shorter timewise than
flogging up to Dover and crossing from there. The crossing was uneventful
except from about mid channel there was a thick layer of cloud above which we
elected to climb. French ATC became interesting once we had crossed the coast –
known only from the GPS as is could not be seen. Lille handed us on the Le
Touquet when we told them that we needed to find a cloud break to descend and
Le Touquet appeared puzzled and
requested our altitude several times before muttering something like ‘ULM
Anglais Perdu’!!. We weren’t – we new exactly where we were. Anyway we made
Abbeville with no problem closed the flight plan, refuelled aircraft and crew
and awaited the rest. Gavin duly arrived (sans GPS) followed gradually by all
except one of the others. The one who failed to make it did arrive later. It transpired
that he had an engine failure on take off from Lydd and landed back on. It must
have been has lucky day and the story might have been much different had the
stoppage occurred a couple of minutes later. The reason for the stoppage was
simple. The pilot had added neat oil after filling with Avgas at Lydd. Of
course it had failed to mix and had been drawn into the carburettor eventually
stopping the engine.
It was now Thursday afternoon and we decided that
there was no point in going directly to Blois since there was unlikely to be
much happening there. And so we decided to head for Reg Whittals airfield at La
Fleche some 50 miles west of Blois. Once again we pressed on and took off
knowing that time was not on our side and that we would be hard pressed to
reach La Fleche before dark. This was a long haul and with the help of a modest
tailwind it looked as if we would make it. With Le Mans coming up John phoned
Reg using the mobile from the air to say we were coming. He could hear us but
we could not hear him. We then got a text message saying ‘how long till we
arrived’ and John texted back ‘50 minutes’. We landed 50 minutes later to the
second just as Reg drove into the field. The elapsed time was around 11 hours
for the trip with nearly seven hours flying. Interestingly for the final 3¼
hour leg one of the chokes on the engine was stuck on resulting in a very rough
idling and some very strange temperatures.
The evening at Reg’s partly restored hunting lodge
was great; good food and wine and a comfortable bed. After breakfast we decided
to fix the errant chokes on the engine and then take a leisurely flight to
Blois to see what was going on. This we did, flying over acres of Loire valley
net covered vineyards and several sites of the early troglodyte caves. Reg even
has one of these in his woodland which, like one of his sealed up cellars, he
has not yet explored!. Blois was a bit of a disappointment. Since it was still
only Friday there was only a handful of Brits there, a line of empty exhibitors
tents and very few aircraft. Still it gave us the opportunity to log in and get
the necessary passes etc without the interminable queuing that we would have
had the next day. There we saw one
interesting trike – French or German we think with a diesel engine. This may
not seem too remarkable except that it was the complete powerplant from a
Mercedes including the alternator, starter, king sized mounts, turbo charger
etc. The gearbox had been removed and replaced by a huge belt drive to the
propeller. I could see no battery and presumably it was jump-started. Reputedly
it was seen to fly – just! The take off
for the flight back to La Fleche was a bit exciting. We elected to use the
entire runway since as anyone who has been to Blois knows, there are two
runways one for landing and one for take off but they only tend to use half the
length of each. Anyway, it was hot, the trike was heavy, the engine power was
down and the runway is uphill and we were well past halfway having narrowly
missed the marshals before lift off.
We spent another good evening at Reg’s mansion where
we eventually learned the truth behind the mysterious radio traffic we could
hear on the flight back. Snatches like ‘I’ve got half a litre’, ‘I’ve got a
litre’ and ‘I reckon I can drop it on target’ could be heard in 129.825. It
transpired that one on the Jabiru aircraft en route to La Fleche had suffered
an oil cooler pipe failure and landed in a smallish field – miniscule by normal
French standards. His mates who could not land were dropping spare oil to
replenish the engine after the owner had used the remaining good pipe to
by-pass the cooler. The best bit was that when the farmer arrived they drove
round on his quad retrieving the oil and then when ready to leave the farmer
blocked off the nearby road with a tractor and his quad, took down the road
signs leaving it clear for the Jabiru to use it as a runway.
Once more to Blois but this time things were really
humming. Some of the newer aircraft are unbelievable – flying around at
Spitfire speed with retractable undercarriages etc. The new Pegasus Quik was
there but was unimpressive since it attempted to take off for a demo when about
100 other aircraft were leaving to go home – nice timing!!
That evening we left Blois and flew the 85 miles or so
south to Grahams Slaters new airfield at St Secondin, Very nice – an impressive
hangar complete with apparently abandoned good condition Piper Cub. We dined
out at the local creperie and ate brilliantly for a total of 150 e for 6 of us
ie £15 each including aperitifs,
steaks, salad, wine and crepes to finish. After a night in Grahams chalets at
10e each we repaired to the airfield for a mid day mini barbie. The full blown
Barbie was arranged for the evening when the mayor etc was coming for the
formal opening ceremony. Mindful of the long trek home and the fact that there
was a strong NE wing blowing John and I decided that we would have to leave
towards late afternoon in order to get some homeward bound miles under our
belt. This sector was perhaps the most difficult off the whole trip. We aimed
to get to Chartres some 170+ miles north
if we could. After take off we found that we were just about making 40
miles an hour over the ground although the airspeed was 55+ mph. On the basis
that the prevailing wind veers clockwise with increasing altitude we decided we
would have to fly higher to lessen the headwind component. However climbing
slows you down and uses fuel and so it became a difficult trade off.
Nevertheless by judicious use of thermal we eventually made 4000+ feet. Here
the groundspeed increased to about 45 mph but because it was very cold and the
ambient pressure was lower we could lean the engine off -driving on a 1400° EGT- and thereby reduce
the fuel consumption to around 12 li/hour.
Nevertheless as the hours went by there was never any time when it
became apparent that there would be enough fuel and even worse there were now
no diversion airfields within range distance to run. Gradually Chartres came
into view and agonisingly slowly we crept up to it actively watching for
emergency field. Strange how they aren’t there when you need them. Part of the
problem was that we believed the fuel used totalisator to be pessimistic but
were not sure by how much and neither were we sure of the absolute capacity of
the fuel tank. With a feeling of relief we slid across the north corner off the
town and arrived overhead the airfield at 4000 feet. The rest is history.
Chartres has a very pleasant airport; wonderfully informal after we taxied to
the fuel pumps we uploaded 48 ½ litres of Avgas. That’s cutting it fine for a
50 Li tank even if John believes it actually holds 56 li.
It took a drink or two in the local Novotel to get
over the Numb bum from over 3 ¾ hours in the saddle on that flight. The next
morning the wing had swung more easterly and we actually had a slight tailwind
component. Since we also had a shorter distance to run, to either Abbeville or
Le Touquet, than the previous day we
could afford to burn off fuel to gain height. Conditions were so much
different, we climbed above the inversion into clear blue sky and air so smooth
that we velcroed the bar to the front strut for a period and flew hands off for
a while gradually climbing into warmer air. We decided to by‑pass
Abbeville and fly straight to Le Touquet as John believed, quite rightly, that,
as it was Monday, they would not be open for processing flight plans. I prefer
to forget the low level bit and up the coast and the landing at Le Touquet – it
was horrid. Extremely rough and windy with a nasty cross wind landing. Still
there is always a bright side. Whilst waiting at Le Touquet for the flight plan
etc. I talked to an English pilot who had just come across from the UK into a
40 Kt headwind. Hopefully we would have a tailwind for the crossing and flight
back to Headcorn. And so it was, even if Johns approach to crossing from Gris
Nez to Lydd is to fly towards Gris Nez and when some miles off start curving
out over the water. The same at the other side turns a straight line crossing
into something of an S shape. Some day I will calculate the Sea-miles and
overwater time amassed by this. You will probably find that as it matters
little whether you are 1 mile out of 10 miles out over the water then you might
as well fly direct from the Isle of Wight!!
The final cross channel bit was a bit of an
anticlimax - it always is if nothing goes wrong although during the time we
were parked at Le Touquet the lilos in the left wing had become wedged under
the cross bar producing a nasty right turn which rather upset John who had to
fly it in very rough conditions. The trip from Headcorn back to Clench with a
tailwind was more relaxing and interesting as we took the short route past
Biggin Hill and over Farnborough and Blackbushe etc. Eventually we arrived back
at Clench on Monday evening having completed around 22 hours in the saddle.
Looking back the most memorable parts of this trip
were the flight over the channel clouds on the way out, Reg’s hunting lodge and
grounds, Grahams new airfield and the local meals and the long haul back to
Chartres