North Weald airfield was established in 1916 to protect London during the First World War and prides itself for being a frontline airfield in the Battle of Britain in 1940. The military abandoned the airfield in 1964 but the Essex Gliding Club has kept the now unlicensed airfield active since the 1970’s.

My quick reference notes:

EGSX North Weald
Arriving 12 May 2008
PPR: 01992 524510
Hours: 09:00-19:00 or sunset
Sunset: 19:45
Website: North Weald Airfield
Useful: Airfield layout
Runway: 02/20 1920×45 asphalt (unlicensed)
and 13/31 - 916 × 45m asphalt (unlicensed)
Circuit height: 800′ QFE / 1200′ QNH
Divert: Stapleford
Location:Google Maps

Note: Do not rely on other people to gather information for you - and for the love of safety don’t rely on my notes being correct for your flight! Always verify all details yourself.

Arriving by car, you are advised to give way to aircraft at all times, a frightening thought. The airfield is a confusing mishmash of unlicensed asphalt runways and roads. Runway 13 is closed on Saturdays so as to host the local market but 31 remains in use. My copy of the plate has “do not go here on a market day” scrawled upon it, the idea of flying into a runway have covered with cars and market stalls is frightening.

However, North Weald also has some great advantages. The main runway (02/20) is 1,920 metres long and easily spotted - especially as you have to remain under 1,500 feet to keep out of of London Stansted’s Class D airspace. It is one of the friendliest airfields I’ve been to, with pilots, mechanics and students all smiling hello and often stopping to get a better look in the plane. And the Squadron has one of the best fried breakfasts in Essex.

The Saratoga is currently parked there, having undergone minor maintenance, leaving us to fly commercial in the meantime. I’m sure it’s lonely and dying to get off the ground and I want some practice before attempting the downsloping runway at Lausanne! I’ll be meeting up with Lee, one of my original instructors. Lee flies jets these days but fancies a bit of a spin in the Saratoga and wants to see how I’m flying these days. Masochist.

Barely home again before it’s time to go. Assuming the weather plays along, we’ll be taking the Saratoga out for an extended trip. We were initially planning an initial stop (well, if you don’t count refuelling) in Dublin, where my mother is at a conference. But having been away last weekend, things have backed up a bit so we’re going to miss Dublin this time around unfortunately. After all this time in the British Isles, I’ve never been to Ireland! I definitely need to get that sorted.

Instead, we’ll fly into North Weald and then meet my mother at Gatwick. We’re going to pick up my son and then all of us are going to spend the weekend at Birling Gap in East Sussex.

Birling Gap is a hamlet on the Seven Sisters cliffs on the South Downs. It consists of a single road ending in a parking lot, where you’ll find half a dozen fishing cottages, a hotel and a lifeguard station.

The Birling Gap Hotel describes itself as "a Victorian colonial style villa with its interior furnished in a 1930’s style". The walls are covered with a textured rose and cream wallpaper scattered with black and white photographs of beach goers, covered from their necks to their knees, frolicking on the beach. Dried flowers adorn the corners adding to the feeling of genteel decline.

We stayed there a few months ago on a whim, simply following the road from Beachy Head. A middle-aged woman sat at the front desk as we walked into the building. I imagined that when no one was looking she would stare gloomily at the doorway, muttering about outsiders causing havoc in their small inn. Her bright smile as she greeted us belied my fantasies but still, I couldn’t shake the feeling of DuMaurier’s Cornish inn, the men meeting late at night to drive the ships onto the rocks and keep the bounty.

We stayed in the room on the right in this photograph, overlooking the cliff, winter winds driving spray against our windows all night long. It was great. The next morning I went down the rickety stairs to the beach and walked for an hour.

The cliffs are eroding, a noticeable amount every year. The initial row of fishing cottages has already been removed to stop them slipping into the sea. From Birling Gap you are just in view of the Belle Tout lighthouse (now a private residence) whichwas moved back in 1999 to keep it from falling into the sea. A large information plaque informs visitors that the lighthouse will need moving again within the next hundred years, a rather unfortunate circumstance considering this information is right next to the For Sale sign.

I loved everything about the place. If ever I had to meet a stranger with only a moment to judge his character, I would arrange that meeting at the Thatched Bar to watch his reaction to Birling Gap.

Ben, who was going to be flying with me, contacted me on Sunday to say that he was stuck in Copenhagen with a jet whose wheels would not retract.

A nice young man named Alistair agreed to adopt me for a few days, so we flew out to Shobdon yesterday where we got stuck on in the mud of the grass runway and needed 4 strong blokes and a Landrover to tow us back out. The propellor has frightening green streaks on the edges of the blades but luckily only tickled the grass and didn’t run into the ground.
Today has been better, to be fair, I’ve done some decent flying and been given a grand tour of Enstone which has a great club although the runway is somewhat bizarre.

No idea what the plan for the rest of the week is although I am trying to find some brave young pilot who will join me on some cross-country flights for practice (read: keep me from getting lost). At least the weather is good.

I can’t complain really, at least there are plenty of stories to tell.

I spoke to Ben yesterday and so my trip to the “British Mainland” is now confirmed.

I’ll start in Oxford and do circuits there until I’m dizzy (circuit: take off, fly in a circle, “touch” the run way and “go” again, ad infinitum) and then head off to local airfields and do the same there.
Ben will make me go to Enstone, his home airport, and no flight training from Oxford is complete without Hinton in the Hedges, a small airfield now full of gliders and parachuters, just to keep things interesting.

One reason (as I understand it, I better go research this) that there are so many airfields in Southern England is that the military requisitioned a lot of farm land during World War 2 to make landing strips for the RAF. These airfields were in heavy use for four or five years and then abandoned. Some of these got picked up by the local council or even privately and remain in use: Hinton in the Hedges with its original Control Tower in ruins is one of these.
With the exception of Oxford, I know nothing of any of these places except their runways. When possible, you book over the phone to avoid having to stop your training and land to pay fees etc. This time, though, I will try to convince Ben to do a photograph and coffee tour, stopping at each one to test out their cafes (where possible) and get a look around.

We’ll also be doing some navigation to a destination which will no doubt be sprung on me the night before, leaving me sleepless in a small hotel poring over maps wondering if I can find my way without the aid of the GPS. If Ben is feeling confident, we’ll carry on to do shortfield landings. Last time we went to Stapleford, where I smiled as I landed with runway to spare and Ben shivered as he told me he’d never been that close to the hedges before.
I’m not sure if he’ll take me there again.

Then there’s the standard refreshers: recovering from a stall, practice forced landings, steep turns. We can’t do spins in the Saratoga, thank goodness.

I’m nervous now.