The Saturday of the Stapleford fly-out dawned a little grey and damp, so things didn't look immediately promising for the trip. Still, you have to be an optimist to fly in England in the winter, so six of us met up at Cloudbase at 9am - me, Ashley Pottier, Steve Middleton, Howard Rose, Keith Penfold and John Meldrum.
We'd booked two Shadows and the Jabiru for the journey so the first thing to do was to start doing the pre-flight checks and untying all the aircraft. Ben was there to supervise, almost entirely coated in mud even by then.
The cloud over Redhill was taking a little while to lift, so we had plenty of time to compare plans for the route. Stapleford is a pretty straightforward journey from Redhill - navigation consists of following the M25 counter-clockwise until you pass Brentwood. After that, turn left and land.
Howard gets ready to polish the prop for those vital
extra few knots
By 10:30 the clouds had lifted far enough for us to set off. We enjoyed a brief comedy interlude as Steve, not a small lad, struggled to insert himself into the rear seat of UA. After a bit of help to remove the stick from up his trouser leg (shades of "Is that a joystick up your trousers, or are you just pleased to see me") he was in. We looked forward to the reverse procedure on arrival.
In one side and out the other is the trick
There was an bit of an unexpected delay when a Cessna got stuck in the mud at the end of 26L which kept the tower busy, but we all wanted taxiway takeoffs anyway so it wasn't in our way.
We took turns to backtrack the taxiway, turn around, then open the throttle and take off over the top of Cloudbase HQ. We set off in reverse order of likely speed with Uniform Alpha going first, November Hotel next and finally the Jabiru.
John gets strapped in
Keith flew us out in the Jabiru and we headed up to the Junction VRP which was our outbound reporting point. Unusually, we found that the weather was much better once we were up than it had looked from the ground. It had actually turned out to be a nice morning, with a reasonable amount of blue sky around.
We followed the motorway, turning northwards at Sevenoaks. On the way up towards Dartford we spotted and passed November Hotel. After we crossed the estuary we spotted Uniform Alpha in the distance. Before long the Jabiru overtook them too and soon we were on the finishing stretch towards Stapleford.
UA en route
We spotted the field just after we'd passed Brentwood and gave them a call on the radio. They asked us to do a standard overhead join. We did the best we could, although the clouds wouldn't permit us to get the full 2,000'. Before long we were on final approach for the tarmac runway 22 and then safely down and taxiing across the grass to the parking area. As we were getting out John and Steve pulled up alongside shortly followed by Ashley and Howard in November Hotel.
Steve did not disappoint with his exit routine from the back of UA, watched by a small but appreciative crowd!
We all went over to the clubhouse to pay our landing fees and then to the cafe for some coffees and snacks. As we approached the clubhouse we were surprised to see a group of women running towards us. We of course assumed that we were the focus of their enthusiasm and that they were both impressed and excited by the arrival of six microlight heroes all at once. Sadly shyness must have overcome them at the last moment since they turned off before they got to us.
We were forced to console ourselves in the cafe. Stapleford has a good set-up and we all enjoyed the table in the sun outside watching the passing parade of aircraft.
We checked the latest TAFs which told us that the expected rain had been delayed, so we decided that rather than go straight back to Redhill we'd make a little diversion out to the east and have a look at the microlight strip at Stoke on the way. With that in mind we got ourselves back into the aircraft and back into the air.
This time we headed south east, passing Thurrock before crossing the estuary and flying over the flat marshlands on the other side. There is a big power station with a distinctive chimney not far from the Stoke strip so it's quite easy to find. That, and the fact that between us we had more GPS receivers than aircraft.
We were all on the microlight common frequency for this leg and so were able to co-ordinate our positions and have NH and the Jabiru join up into a little formation for a while.
Stoke was soon in sight. It's not immediately obvious because it's right on the edge of the mudflats, although once you know where to look it isn't too hard to spot.
The Stoke strip is in the centre of this shot, next
to the mud flats
We weren't stopping there on this trip, so we just did a high orbit of the field and then set course for home. The next task was a call to Rochester to tell them we were around. They didn't seem to have anybody else in the area so we carried on with the sky to ourselves. The Brands Hatch circuit is a good landmark on the way back and we headed for that before turning towards Sevenoaks and then the familiar Oxted and Godstone route home.
After landing on runway 19 at Redhill it was back to the south east corner to unpack, tie down the aircraft and compare notes.
We all agreed it had been a great outing and great fun. It wasn't a marathon, which meant that there were no worries about running out of time to get home. It also meant that the Shadow rear-seat passengers didn't suffer for too long. I don't think that any of us had visited Stapleford by air before, so that was interesting and it's always more fun to have a group of friends to share the experience with.
A very successful fly-out all round - we can all recommend that everybody should try it. We have one scheduled for the third Saturday of each month throughout the year. Details are on the "Coming Events" and the bulletin board pages and on the notice board in the club.
See you next time perhaps?
Alasdair Arthur
March 2002
Right-click here to download a short video of the trip