The plan was for my wife and I to fly ourselves down to Jersey for a week. She was happy to get a few days off work, and I was happy about getting some flying in. Having sold my Bolkow last October in order to fly something more reckless (and only one seat!), I needed to prise a set of Bolkow keys from my Dad for a couple of weeks. This involved getting a flight across to Rotterdam where G-BSME is based, and from where my trip would begin. Kathryn, my wife, decided not to accompany me across to Rotterdam. She is not an avid aviator, and was not really (if I'm honest) realishing the prospect of the flying part of the holiday. No real problem, West Sussex is pretty much in between Rotterdam and Jersey (close enough anyway).
Arriving in Rotterdam on the Friday, the weather was grim, and the forecast for the weekend wasn't much better. 'Hmmm, who's idea was this?' I thought as we planned, and replanned my trip back to the U.K. 'Well, it was my idea, and a good one at that! The weather will improve, it always does...eventually', I thought. A Sunday return was out of the question. High winds, low cloud, horizontal rain, the lot! However, the forecast for Monday was better.
Monday morning; The weather was good in Rotterdam, and good in the U.K. The Belgian coast looked less than ideal, but flyable. And so it proved to be. Departing Rotterdam I was able to climb to 2500ft and tracked the coast south-west towards Midden-Zeeland. So far, so good. Geographical borders (certainly in Western Europe) are largely political. Not so on this Monday morning approaching the Belgian one. Mother Nature had decided to encamp on the border itself and I was met with a wall of cloud. I decended to 1200ft to dip under the cloud. The visibility under the cloud was pretty good (certainly close to 10K), definately good enough to keep going. An updated weather check from Ostend confirmed my suspicions - a base of patchy cloud at 1200ft and 8km vis. Ostend approved a zone transit following the coast, and the ride was silky smooth. Just before the handoff to Koksijde, Ostend told me that Koksijde wanted me to climb to 2500ft to transit their zone, if not I would have to go around their zone (not good). Just as I was recalculating my route and about to key the mic, the cloud lifted!
Almost spookily, the cloud disintergrated to reveal a bright blue sky. I took the climb to 2500ft and said farewell to Ostend. Coasting out at Dunkirque to avoid the power station at Gravelines, the weather was now glorious. I climbed to 3000ft for the Channel crossing, and left the French coast at Sangatte making direct for Lydd. Ground speed at this point, due to the strong westerly wind, was atrocious. The GPS was giving 75-80kts, but the air was beautifully smooth and I was in no real rush.
Making landfall at Lydd and tracking West to pass North abeam Deanland and Shoreham, I finally sighted home territory and began a gradual cruise descent towards Goodwood. Landing after a flying time of 2hrs 55 minutes I was ready for a cup of tea. Kathryn was waiting for me, and looking displeased. My pondering progress had meant that I was a good 30 minutes past my ETA. A bit of grovelling and shifting the blame onto my Dad for giving 'shoddy information' and all was forgiven.
So, Jersey...what happened to that then? Well, we went back to the house to check the weather. The forecast for the South-West was terrible. Bright intervals, but early morning fog was going to linger for a good part of each day. In fact, Helen Willets informed us that it would be Thursday afternoon before we might be in a position to head in that direction. We needed a Plan B!
The rest of the country appeared to be o.k, in fact better than o.k. ''Look, its nice all week up North, lets go and see your parents.'' Kathryn's parents live in Lytham, just outside of Blackpool - ideal. Now, I'd heard horror stories about flying into such airports (ones with 'Big Airport syndrome'). You can usually tell these apart as they'll have names like London Little Bibbington Regional International Business Spaceport. They're large enough to attract the one or two low-cost commercial movements per week but have a nasty habit of charging 'the Earth' for GA traffic to infringe upon their apron. These tales proved to be just that - tales. More on this later.
The route was to take us from Goodwood, north-west to Popham, then north to Oxford, Banbury and Coventry. From Nuneaton we would turn north-west again towards Stoke and Crewe, and then north between the Liverpool and Manchester CTAs. From Wigan it's north-west direct to Blackpool.
Decending to remain below 1250ft to route through the Manchester low-level corridor, we got a good view of urban Warrington! Haydock Park racecourse and Wigan's JJB football stadium also passed under our wing. Leaving the corridor, we gave Warton Radar a call for the transit and initial approach into Blackpool. Warton will typically give you a squawk and (if routing from the South) will ask you to route via Southport Pier. We could see Blackpool's Pleasure Beach from a good distance out as we crossed the Ribble Estuary.
We decided to uplift our return fuel there and then, rather than try to do it when we wanted to leave. Again, the fuellers were particularly helpful and did everything for us. High-vis jackets are mandatory at Blackpool, which is common sense when you consider how busy the apron is. We secured the aeroplane in the grass parking area (Fylde Park) and were let out at a security gate. We arrived on a Tuesday and left on Saturday and were charged just £27 for the landing and parking, which I consider to be very good value.
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