The route
Mike Cowles and I decided we'd get back into flying the refurbished Jabiru by setting ourselves a late winter challenge. Mike has a sister in Yorkshire and I have friends there so we decided we would fly up to Hull for the day to visit them.
The route
We met up early at Redhill on the first Sunday in March and were calling the tower for taxi instructions by 9:30. Unfortunately the response was "Overcast at 500 feet, what are your intentions?" The only answer to this is "We'll turn around and park" so we then spent a while longer in the clubhouse before we finally got off just after 10am.
We flew out to Rochester under the cloud before turning north to cross the Thames estuary. As we headed up towards Stapleford we started to leave the front behind us and the weather improved. The corridor from Stapleford past Epping and Harlow which gets you up through the gap between the Luton and Stansted zones was surprisingly busy, so we kept a good lookout and saw quite a few other aircraft.
Things quietened down as we carried on north, although there was an interesting moment when Bourn radio warned traffic to avoid a particular village because they were firing rockets from there! We thought we'd better not get the Jabiru shot down so soon after its re-building so we stayed well clear.
We passed many airfields, both active and disused, and could imagine how busy this area must have been during the war when most of them would have been built. It was more difficult to imagine what it must have been like trying to find your base at night in the featureless terrain while nursing home a damaged aircraft. Even with our nice big GPS on the panel we found it impossible to spot some airfields which we were apparently quite close to.
Not long after passing to the east of Peterborough we called up Fenland. They were just in the process of changing runway, which suited us since it gave us a straight in approach. The strip wasn't easy to spot since it blends in with the miles of surrounding fields, but thanks to the GPS and two pairs of eyes we managed to find it and get the Jab down safely.
Fenland
We were pleased to find that the clubhouse was well heated, since by then we'd been in the air for about two hours with no cabin heat and were feeling a little chilly. A couple of coffees and twenty minutes sitting in the warmth got our circulation going again and Mike took the controls for the next leg up to Hull.
Humber Bridge
Our track took us straight up past another string of military fields - Conningsby, Cranwell, Waddington and Scampton, so we spent some time on the radio to the RAF before speaking to Humberside approach as we got close to Hull. We routed up to the west of the city, getting a great view of the Humber bridge as we crossed the river before swinging east and then briefly north again for the final approach into the field at Beverley.
Beverley is another small grass strip; a little easier to find this time since there are some power lines that run close by which we could follow. Our greeting party was there waiting, looking a little cold at the edge of the apron so we all went into the clubrooms which again were welcoming and warm for sandwiches and hot drinks.
Approach to Beverley
Time was getting on, so we couldn't stay for very long before we had to start
heading back to London. We took off and headed down to the east of Hull this
time, flying out over Spurn Head to cross the Humber estuary. By the time we
passed Waddington it was clear that the tailwinds we'd hoped would give us over
100knots of ground speed had turned to a headwind since we'd passed the other
way. It is curious how often this seems to happen! This meant that we'd be
pushing it to make it all the way back to Redhill before closing time, so we
made the decision to divert to Booker/Wycombe Air Park instead. RAF Waddington
kindly passed a message to Redhill ATC for us, and Mike and I managed to get
text messages from our mobiles through to Ashley Pottier and another friend of
mine, so Cloudbase ended up inundated with messages from us about where we were
going. Better too many than none at all I suppose.
Given the time, we had decided not to stop on the journey south so although we passed close to Fenland again, we didn't go in there. A good thing we weren't trying to, since neither of us could spot the airfield at all this time!
Our route this time took us down past Peterborough, Northampton and Milton Keynes and then down to the west of the Luton zone before tuning in to Booker for joining instructions for their field. A simple base-leg join from the north suited us well, though my landing was thrown out slightly when I throttled right back to idle on final only to have the engine stop altogether. Since I was already over the threshold this wasn't a big problem, but it was certainly a surprise. Fortunately, a touch on the starter button and the engine came back to life instantly, but the approach was rather a porpoising one. Apparently this engine stall was due to the stiffness of the new engine as it runs in, so it's not a permanent feature.
Booker was a handy spot for both Mike and me, since he lives not far away and I have a helicopter pilot friend in Marlow who I could stay with. She collected me from the airfield and Mike's wife Lori came for him, so we ended up better off than we'd have been at Redhill! Perhaps the Jabiru would like to move west a bit…
Jabiru parked at Booker
The next morning dawned with OK weather and we decided that it was a pity to do nothing more than the 30 or 40 minute flight straight back to Redhill so we'd take the scenic route home instead. With that in mind Mike took us out of Booker and kept heading west for Kemble.
Almost as soon as you go west from Booker you hit
the Benson MATZ and we had to do an orbit to stay clear of it while they dealt
with some other traffic before 
letting
us through. We then flew to south of Oxford, passing the distinctive cooling
towers of Didcot power station before we re-tuned to Brize Norton for clearance
through the Fairford MATZ. This trip was certainly turning out to be good
practice at getting clearances from the RAF.
As soon as we were through Fairford we started to prepare for arrival at Kemble. The landing wasn't a problem since they have a massive hard runway which can (and has) taken a 747 recently. Turning off the runway to taxi to the tower we found that the grass was a bit soft, so we decided to play it safe, switched off the engine and got out and pushed the Jabiru to its parking spot to make sure that the nice new prop stayed well clear of the ground.
The café at Kemble is halfway up the control tower, so we called in there for a good bacon roll and a coffee. When we'd finished that we took the Jabiru for an even longer walk, pushing it round to the microlight parking area where we'd spotted a CT2K which we wanted to have a look at. It looked very smart, especially the very light and spacious cockpit, but at about £44,000 it's certainly not cheap.
For our next stop we'd decided to go down to Henstridge, so it was back into the Jabiru and time to let it propel us rather than the other way around.
I took off with enough of the runway to spare to do a couple of touch-and-goes in the remaining length if I'd wanted to and headed south. We asked for and were given clearance though Lyneham's Class D CTR which let us use a direct track towards Henstridge. Soon we were talking to Yeovilton who simply gave us the QNH and told us to report leaving frequency - nice and easy.
We arrived at Henstridge and did an overhead join
there. They have a lot of noise-sensitive areas to avoid there and I kept my
circuit tight to avoid whatever houses I could see. Too tight as it turned out,
and I had to go around when I found I hadn't left myself enough room to get rid
of my height and speed, with the result that I arrived over the threshold much
too high. My second attempt got us in, though still a bit long. Getting used to
the slipperiness of the Jabiru after the last three months back on the Shadows
was taking a bit of practice.
Henstridge was all but deserted, with only a single flexwing in the air while we
were there. The radio had to be abandoned in order for the chap manning it to
come and put fuel in the Jabiru. There was a big café there though, so
obviously it's a popular place; not surprising perhaps that a late winter Monday
wasn't exactly rush hour.
With
a full tank we swapped seats again and Mike took us into the air heading for
Goodwood via the New Forest and the Isle of Wight. We passed Blandford Forum and
then tracked east for a while to avoid the Bournemouth zone before turning south
across the forest. There weren't a huge number of emergency landing sites below
us, but the new engine carried us onwards to the coast without missing a beat.
We were soon heading out across the Solent to Cowes, and from there along to
Ryde before crossing the water again to South Hayling. From there it was only a
few minutes in to Goodwood where we got a downwind join for a landing on runway
24.
We popped over to the clubhouse to pay the landing fee and to grab a quick coffee and snack. If you're ever there for lunch by the way, I can recommend the bangers and mash.
Having refuelled ourselves it was time for the final short leg back to Redhill. We took the direct route home this time, straight up past the Midhurst beacon and Dunsfold to Shere, talking to Farnborough until they handed us on to Redhill as we approached Dorking. Redhill were having an AFIS day rather than the normal full ATC so we were thrown back on our own resources for the rejoin, but that's not a problem at your home field. I was happy that I managed a decent landing this time, which left me happier than I'd have been if my Henstridge go-around had been the last one for the day.
All-in-all it had been a great trip. We'd got from Redhill to Yorkshire and back
in a day and proved that the Jabiru is quite capable of covering significant
distances, even with short winter days. I always enjoy visiting new airfields
too, and this trip added a crop of five of those to my logbook.
We'd had a good chance to get re-acquainted with the aircraft after its layoff and also to get a good deal more practice in getting clearances through controlled airspace of various sorts. I'd been interested to find that doing that is no more difficult during the week when the military is active than it is at the weekends. Having a co-pilot certainly helps a great deal with the workload of longer trips where you need to do a good deal of navigating, map folding, frequency changing and airfield spotting.
On top of all that of course it was a bit of an adventure too. I can thoroughly recommend extending your range as a way of extending your flying experiences and skills. If you'd like to do it in company why not join in one of this year's club fly outs?
Alasdair Arthur
March 2002