Trikepilot Social

In June 2009, I set off on the biggest flying adventure I had yet to experience, that would test this rookies both ability to fly and his commonsense i.e. Airmanship. My co-pilot/cameraman would  be Alex Craven who also passed his GST in December 2008, however, he has not done too much flying since then, as he now lives in Turkey. Nevertheless, I will have him up therem, where eagles dare, soon enough, and have him feeling right at home once again.

The Trip was in aid of a charity that supported Children with Leukaemia, Tom Dawson, a Shadow pilot from Plaistow's had put the FLY UK 09 together, and in fact, had completed this tour many times before, so I envisaged we would be in good hands.

Flying with us, in his Quantum, was John Waite. John is both a Fixed and Flexwing Pilot and has slightly more experience than Alex and I, and therefore it was great to be his wingman for the trip.

18^th June 09 Plaistow to Sywell

The day finally came and we all set about packing our planes. We all had far too much stuff, not enough room and basically did not know what to leave behind. My eldest son Chris (22) said, all you need dad, is a toothbrush and a credit card, just go, .. he may well be right I thought.

The actual start line was at Sywell, onthe 19th June. Sywell is a small airfield near Northampton, however if I were to do this again, I think I would have just flown from Plaistow’s on the Saturday Morning instead of flying up to Sywell on the Friday.

However, after losing 3 tonne of gear, we finally taxied off and took off to Sywell. Within 5 mins John in the Quantum had a problem with his SatNav, so he called me up and said, “GT, I am returning to Plaistow’s, as I have a problem with the SatNav, I will see you at Sywell”, with that he landed and we tracked off to Sywell.

We were fighting against a 25mph head wind and even though we climbed to 3000ft we were still being battered by the weather.  90 mins later we called up for joining instructions for Sywell, “Sywell Information, G-CFCT, Inbound request joining instructions” G-CFGT, Sywell Information, Wind 12knots,1015mb, right-hand circuit, runway 23, I read the message back “1015mb, Right-hand, runway 23, G-CFGT ”. we joined over head, and carried out our circuit, it was a very bumpy and turbulent affair, calling downwind and final, we made our approach, and with a few bumps we landed at Sywell, I contacted Tower, and requested directions to where we could park, “G-GT, just taxi off to the southwest corner, you should see a few others” thank you, I replied, and off we went.

Soon the tents were up, and Alex had been a star by furnishing me with a beer, oooh just what the doctor ordered.  a little while later i remarked "Where the fuck is john" to Alex………. With that my mobile rang and it was Rob Grimwood from Plaistow’s, saying that the SatNav problem had been sorted out and he was on his way, you should be there in, around an hour, with that me and Alex returned to the bar and swilled another two beers down our throats awaiting for the arrival of JW.

What only seemed like 2 beers, (which was in fact 4) and with the sun setting, from the south, a gaggle of flexies had appeared and one of them was john. Soon after landing and erecting his tent, it was off down to the local pub for some grub, more beers and retell the events of the day, with loads of extras, that made the journey more interesting (lol) to boot.

Once we had filled our rather large bellies, we all wobbled back to the tents, were all of a sudden it was morning and my head hurt…. Oooooh

19^th June 2009 Sywell to Netherthorpe

After a resolve, and a Joe (Coffee), I started to feel a lot better, and set about getting the weather report and sorting out the flight plan with John & Alex. Due to the pretty crap weather the day before, the weather had to some degree, calmed down somewhat, and we were able to keep to the original flight plan and head off to NETHERTHORPE, which is located near Doncaster, 2.5 WNW of Worksop. However, due to buggering around on the ground in the morning, we did not takeoff until 1030hrs, and therefore, had a bit of catch up to do, if we were to make our final destination of the day at STRATHAVEN near Glasgow. So off we flew, no sooner had we gone 50 odd miles the wind had got up again and the damb weather was against us with more horribly strong winds, my friggin arms were aching like fuck, johns in Quantum were falling off he said lol.

We landed at NETHERTHORPE around 12ish and refuelled the planes and off we went to find something to eat (another mistake), it took 90 mins for our grub to appear, putting us back again, (not going too good at the moment reader, is it).

19^th June 2009 Netherthorpe to Fishburn

By the time we had scoffed our grub down our necks, it was back in the air and back with the crappy weather. it had now started to rain, and the wind was getting rough. I was thinking to myself what the fuck am I doin…. Then all of a sudden the SatNav went blank  "Shit" (back to the map) and so did the on board bullet cameras, a fuse I thought, I will sort this out at FISHBURN. It was another two hours flight time, with a head wind and to be frank my arms were killing me now, John in the Quantum was also suffering, and trying to read a half mil map was proving to be difficult. At around 15 miles out John contacted  FISHBURN and ascertained the conditions there, the reply was “there is a bloody big storm coming from the south” I know I said, we are right in the middle of it!!!

Within 20 mins we could see FISHBURN, and we made our approach and landing as quickly as we could, just to get back on the ground. Once landed, we taxied off to the grassed apron, parked up and climbed out of our airborne Paddling pool, shit I was wet. We then made a run to the Club house where Beryl (the owner) made us a hot mug of joe, and invited us to take our gear off and warm up. Whilst sat there we spoke to a few of the other FLYUK'ers who said that they were going to make a run for STRATHAVEN, “ but the weather is pants I said”, no its fine above the clouds, not on your Nelly, I ant going out in that… shortly after that about 11 pilots dashed for their flying machines and flew off through the storm… what possess people I thought. Beryl invited the reaming 8 aircrew to use the club house if we wished to stay the night, which we accepted. 

20^th June 2009 Fishburn to East Fortune

In the morning after a cuppa, I found the old SatNav had burnt out, so no help from that gadget on this trip, I shall just have to rely on my new map reading skills…. Soon we were tracking off to the east. Our course would be taking us up the east coast passed Newcastle, Alnwick, Berwick, and stopping off at EAST FORTUNE, to refuel both our bellies and planes. The trip to our next refuelling stop was fantastic; I even flew over my mother-in-laws house in Alnwick, and around the castle, marvellous. We then tracked back up to the east coast and flew out to the Farne Islands. The sea is so blue here, and the Viz was excellent, after that we descended to about 250ft and flew for about 10 miles along a deserted beach, it was breath taking.. reader.

Soon we were back up at 2000ft flying above Berwick-upon-Tweed and over their old battlements, these walls are massive, and must have been a bloody nightmare raid.

The winds were in our favour, and soon we were overhead EAST FORTUNE and heading for runway 29. After landing Gordon and Jill (Owners) made us welcome and even allowed us to use their own car to do the fuel run, a lovely couple. Once refuelled, we set our next destination to INSCH, this strip is west of Aberdeen.

20^th June 2009 East Fortune to Insch

The trip to INSCH was another turbulent flight, and at one time if I had not been strapped into my seat, I think both Alex and I would have been thrown clear out of the plane, boy was it bumpy, and I must admit, I was happy to land at INSCH even though time was getting on and we needed to get to CULBOKIE. We paid our dues at the control room, grabbed a Joe and refuelled the planes, and was ready to go, we taxied off carried out our preflight checks and hit the metal, just as we lifted off there was a muffled bang, and over the intercom, Alex informed me that his glove had gone through the prop, ho fuck!, lets return and take a look at the plane I said before we go any further.

As we turned onto finals, I think the whole club was out to see us land, JW had taxied off back to the apron and had shut down also expecting the worse.

After landing and parked up the CFI came out and checked the prop with me and both agreed that there was no damage, then gave Alex a bollocking for hanging out of the pod taking pictures, and then told me off to for letting him to so …. Phew, lets get the fuck out of here before, he grounds us I said, with that, we were mac 2.2 down the runway and vertica, we rolled over at 35,000ft, looked down and headed towards CULBOKIE.

20^th June 2009 Insch to Culbukie

The old weather was starting to calm down a little, it was around 16:30hrs and my tummy was rumbling, I was also a little pissed at Alex, but shit happens! Our journey was a smooth old flight, as we passed above wind farms and scooted around RAF KINLOSS and RAF LOSSIEMOUTH on our way to the Black Isle. We crossed the stretch of water called the MORAY FIRTH between INVERNESS and CULBOKIE, and just as we got over land I saw the Quantum dive towards the ground, "SHIT" and then climb again, "OOOW"  “What’s up John, I enquired”, oh, my SatNav fell out of its bracket, and so I leant forward, and pulled the bar back at the same time and woooooow, wont do that again in a hurry he said”.

I called up CULBOKIE, and was told to carry out a overhead join at 2000ft and run a right hand circuit, and was to land on runway 21, and we should watch out for Paramotors,…. As we joined over head, looking for the Paramotors, Alex Screamed in my ear, GTTTTTT, PARAMOTOR 12 OCLOCK!, FUCK, FUCK, I brought the bar back into my chest, simultaneously throwing it to the right, we dropped out of the sky like a stone,… the radio crackled, oh would all microlight change to a left hand circuit the Paramotors have no radios, and they seem to be now landing on runway 27, my god I thought, were the fuck would I have put another passenger, I ant got the room lol.

After landing, the Paramotor Pilot, came over to me and apologised for  the near miss, I said it was OK but you need to be more vigilant in the air mate, yea, sorry jimmy said the jock!!! Mmmm.

We made camp, and wondered over to the Bar-B-Q, had a few burgers, a few beers and then booked into the B&B, for some dinner later that evening. It was during dinner that we had heard that one of the pilots had crashed on a beach on the most north westerly coast of Scotland; this was due to an engine failure so he told us... ooooh shit!!!!!

Standby for another instalment

GT