A bright day in February [one of the very rare ones, this winter!]. The club aircraft [known to us all as Deo] has been away all winter for a respray and a new engine and we’ve been using a hired plane. Now our own aircraft was ready and we had to return the hired one to Biggin Hill in Kent. Some complex logistics were needed! After discussion and research involving railways, cars, and flying, the CFI came up with the following solution:
- We both fly from Perranporth [in Cornwall] to Dunkeswell [on the Devon/Somerset border] in the borrowed machine.
- At Dunkeswell we collect our newly rebuilt aircraft DEO, and then fly the two aeroplanes to Kent.
- We return the hired plane to the owner at Biggin Hill and fly back together to Perranporth in Deo.
Sounds easy! And so it was, although after almost 6 hours in the air we both felt rather stiff. Here’s the outbound route we chose, around 220 miles each way:
It’s almost the longest possible West-to-East flight possible in Britain!
Anyway, we left Perranporth at 10 and I flew us both to Dunkeswell. No problems, it was a beautiful, calm frosty morning with no wind. Some milky white ground-mist was lying in the valleys, otherwise we could see for miles. No wind to speak of and the smoke from chimneys and bonfires rose straight up. At 5000 feet we seemed alone in the sky.
We made a quick turnaround at Dunkeswell. Our “old” aircraft looked beautiful after a respray, new seats, new windows, and a new engine. She did smell strongly of paint though!
I departed first leaving, Ben to refuel Deo and settle up for our landing at Dunkeswell. I should have arrived at Biggin Hill well before him: but as it turned out we arrived 5 minutes apart. Read on to find why.
I took off alone from Dunkeswell for the long leg to Biggin Hill. The cloud was thickening by now so I climbed to 4000’ and cruised along above it, saying “hello” as I passed to the radar stations at Exeter and Yeovilton, Compton Abbas airfield, and the RAF radar service at Boscombe Down. In most cases it was just a “hallo, I’m here, is there anyone nearby?” call. I also needed to talk to RAF Boscombe to ask for clearance through the military zone by Salisbury plain.
As you get closer to London there iss a lot of controlled airspace [no-go for little planes!] above, used by airliners going in and out of Heathrow and Gatwick. I also had to avoid the very busy Farnborough airport just to the north of my route. If you look at the map earlier you can see the red and blue lines surrounding controlled airspace, which gets lower the closer you go to London. Think of it as being like steps down into an amphitheatre, with London at the centre. I had to descend beneath all the steps, and by the time I passed Farnborough was at 1800 feet: safely below all the controlled stuff. If you look at the diagram below you can see how the [red] controlled airspace around London paces down lower and lower, making non-scheduled aircraft like me descend to pass beneath all the commercial traffic. The pink line is me, and the yellow exclamation-mark triangles are no-go zones:
By the time I passed Guildford the commercial traffic was passing quite close above me.
Biggin Hill was easy to find, a big runway more than a mile long on top of a low hill. First I had to look out for and avoid another ex-wartime airfield at Kenley, a few miles to the west of Biggin. Kenley is used for gliding and there are regular winch-launches there, with cables running from the ground up to 1000 feet or more.
It was interesting to visit Biggin Hill: it’s probably one of the most famous airfields in England. It was in the front-line during the Battle of Britain. Fighters based at Biggin Hill destroyed around 1,400 enemy aircraft at the cost of over 450 aircrew. Because of its importance to the defence of London the airfield itself was attacked many times, the worst of which killed 40 people on the ground. The airfield’s location on a low hill south of London led to its being nicknamed “Biggin on the Bump” by the RAF. Anyway, back to my visit.
I’d finished my detour round the north of Kenley [to avoid gliders] and called Biggin Approach on the radio. Whilst I was waiting for an answer, someone else broke in with a “Pan, Pan” call!
Pan calls are for use in emergencies, when something has happened requiring immediate action. A Pan is lightly less urgent than a Mayday, but not by much. Strictly speaking Mayday is used for emergencies, and Pan for so-called “urgencies”: which have the potential to become emergencies if something isn’t done quickly. This Pan was from the pilot of a twin-engined aircraft who had lost the cap from an engine oil-filler in flight. He could see the oil being sucked out from the engine by the airflow over the hole. Without oil, engines quickly stop working. So he had to land quickly.
Biggin cleared him straight back into the airfield and told me to remain north of the airfield traffic zone [the ATZ]. You can see what happened from the blue line: I had to fly race-track patterns just outside the ATZ for 10 minutes while the defective aircraft landed.
Eventually it was my turn to land and I was told “join right base and cleared to land, 21”.
They even turned on the approach lights [it was a bit murky when I arrived]. The gentle wind was from the SW so they were using runway 21.
Ben arrived 10 minutes after me. All the circling had allowed him to catch up with me [also, his aircraft – Deo – was faster than mine]! We said goodbye to our borrowed aircraft [Tango Romeo] and set off together in Deo – me flying. The trip back was the reverse of the outbound one, except with no need to stop at Dunkeswell.
The cloud had thickened as the day wore on. After Guildford we climbed steadily until we were in clear air above the clouds at 5000 feet with no sight of the ground. There was little traffic about and we droned on through a deserted sky, passing Andover and Yeovilton, then over the sea just south of Exeter. There was still no sight of the ground. Without GPS and the comforting voices on the radio we could have been anywhere. Here’s a picture taken as we passed Plymouth: it’s down there somewhere!
Two hours and twenty minutes after leaving Biggin we started to let down through the clouds towards Perranporth. Car headlights were stringing the roads as we arrived, it was 5:30 and well into a February dusk. A memorable flight, and a Grand Day Out.
Lovely!