We’ll be heading off in the Saratoga on Sunday morning, taking off from Málaga (IFR as it’s the weekend) and flying 3.5 hours to in France. Just a quick break there for fuel and what my son calls “personal business” and then straight through from there to Shoreham.

View Malaga to Shoreham in a larger map

I wrote about Shoreham before but it could do with an update and maybe some photographs.

Destination: Shoreham

I’ll try to collect some interesting stories and photos for you while I’m away (but not TOO interesting, I hope!).

Newcastle Airport has offered offered package holidays since the 1950s, with planes going to such exotic locations as Isle of Man and Isle of Wight. In 1954, there were 35 scheduled services per week carrying 5,500 passengers a year. By 1980, the airport was carrying a million passengers a year and now the figure is over five million. All of this is on a single runway – so it’s just a wee bit busy!

Last year, the airport reaquired the original 1930s airport terminal which they are going to open up as a visitor centre – I’m really hoping it’s in a state that I can visit it.

I want to do circuits over the weekend but I don’t think think I want to compete with all those jets. I have a pilot friend who lives up that way and I’m relying on him to come up with some recommendations although I’m taking the details of Carlisle and Eshott which both look interesting. I could really use some recommendations for a nice airfield to take everyone for lunch on Saturday if anyone knows the local area.

So right now, hopefully I am coming in safely (and competently!) on this 2,329m runway. I just hope I don’t get squashed by one of the big planes.

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Location: Newcastle
Date: 17 April 2009
Sunset: 20:15

Airfield: EGNT Newcastle
Website: http://www.newcastleairport.com/
Phone Number: 0191-214 3207 Airport Authority
Samson Jet Centre (General Aviation handling): 0191 286 4156 or out of hours 0191 214 5916
email: ops@samsonaviation.com
Hours: H24
Frequencies:
App/Rad 124.375
TWR: 119.700
RAD: 125.825
ATIS: 118.375
Runways: 07/25 2329x46m Asphalt
Airfield Height: 266′
Circuit Height: Variable
Weather Info: http://www.northumbria-flying-school.co.uk/weather

Note: Training flights require prior arrangement with ATC and only within Mon-Sat 0730-2300 Sun 1000-2300

Misc:
Nearby Pub

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We’ll be flying from Málaga to Strasbourg first. As we’re coming in from Spain, we don’t need customs so we can fly directly into Neuhof (LFGC). It’s a small airfield with 819 metres of grass and the radio is in French – I’m glad that Cliff is the one doing the flying!

Then I get to do the tourist thing while Cliff takes the Saratoga to England to pick up his family at North Weald and bring them back for a long weekend in Strasbourg. After we drop them back off, we’ll be flying to Newcastle where I’ll take over the controls and get back into shape. Sunday I am taking Cliff to York to meet a friend and then I’m going to London to meet up with a bunch of bloggers: I wouldn’t want to try to get everyone to the right place without the small plane! Monday morning we’ll head back to Newcastle and then from there we’ll head back home to Spain.

Hopefully I’ll get lots of great photos and new stories to share – at the very least, I should be able to tell you about a few more airfields and whether they are worth a visit!

See you in a fortnight!

One evening, we were coming in late. We’d left Málaga on time that morning but we were held up refuelling in France and then we had fierce headwinds all the way across France and the channel. I asked London Information to speak to Shoreham on our behalf: we had a passenger that needed dropping there and the taxi was already parked and waiting. Shoreham confirmed that they closed at 2000 which was approximately our ETA but that they would wait for us to get in. When I explained that we weren’t staying but wanted to taxi to the terminal and then go out again, the controller barely flinched. Everyone was watching the clock – we got in before closing but was a minute past closing time before I could get the plane in the rolling. The controller was patient and never pushy – he took his time without rushing me to switch to Farnborough so that he could shut down. Shoreham could have justified charging us through the nose for the extra five minutes of ATC but the controller was very friendly about the whole fiasco.

The end of last year the word was out that the Shoreham was in financial trouble – proposed expansion to the airfield was put on hold. Then on April 14th it seemed it was over: Shoreham Airport went bust with debts of over a quarter of a billion pounds. Stupidly I stopped paying attention at that point – and so did everyone on Wikipedia, which ends the story of Shoreham Airfield with all flights being blocked.

I know better than to use Wikipedia for research, dammit! In reality, the closure only lasted a single day and the airfield was immediately purchased and re-opened for business.

Certainly their their website makes it clear that it is business as usual, so my worrying was pointless. That’ll teach me!

So, my cheat sheet for the flight:

EGKA Shoreham
Date: 23 May 2008
Sunset: 19:55 GMT
Phone Number: General Enquiries: 01273 467373
Hours: Mon – Sat 0800 – 2000 (or sunset) Sun 0830-2000
Frequencies: APP/TWR 123.15, ATIS 125.30
Runway: 02/20 1036 x 18 Asphalt
Website: Shoreham Airport
Useful: Circuit Map
Divert: Biggin Hill

This’ll be a quick stop to pick up my son and then fly straight to Germany, where my presence has been requested at a family-get-together. So we’ll be flying to Mannheim City the same day and spending the weekend there. Wow, the Saratoga is seeing more action this month than it has all year!

The Altenrhein airfield was built in the years 1927-1928 by pumping mud from nearby Lake Constance (Bodensee) onto a swampy area close to the shore line. Almost in the middle of this area a turf runway of 600 x 100 meters was built, laterally marked on both sides by a ditch 240 cm wide and 80 cm deep, which was filled up with yellow gravel from the Jura (the mountain range bordering France in the west of Switzerland). The grass taxiway areas were on both sides of the runway. As the airfield was certified for light single engine aircraft only, it was not capable of heavy bomber aircraft operations.

It doesn’t exactly inspire one with confidence to hear that the airfield is based on mud piled onto swamp! Luckily I’ve been to Altenrhein before and I know it’s a wonderfully simple approach and at 1,500 metres the runway is more than enough for me to feel comfortable.

My quick reference notes:

LSZR St Gallen (Altenrhein)
Date: 16 May 2008
Sunset: 18:54 GMT
Phone Number: +41 71 858 51 65, +41 71 858 51 44
Hours: Montag – Freitag 06.30 – 12.00 / 13.30 – 21.00 Uhr
Samstag 07.30 – 12.00 / 13.30 – 20.00 Uhr
Sonntag 10.00 – 12.00 / 13.30 – 20.00 Uhr
Frequencies: Tower 118.65 MHz (119.7 MHz), ATIS 123.775 MHz
Runway: 10/28 1500m x 30m
Website: Airport St. Gallen – Altenrhein

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.

St Gallen actually has live webcams so I’m thinking that I might twitter my estimated time of arrival and see if anyone can spot us coming in!

My quick reference notes:

LSGL – Lausanne
Date: 14 May 2008
Sunset: 19:00 GMT
Phone Number: Phone +41 21 646 15 51, Fax +41 21 646 15 91
Hours: 0800 am to 0800 pm
Frequencies: ATIS 118.82, AFIS 123.20
Website: Lausanne airport (moves your browser, ugh!)
Useful: Circuit Details
Runways: 18 / 36

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.

One of my favourite bloggers, Plastic Pilot, used to be based in Lausanne. He has a video of the approach on his site so I almost feel as if I’ve been already.

I wondered which runway to expect and he told me the following:

Runway 18 has power lines on short final and a downslope. Be ready to go-around. Runway 36 is a bit tricky as you come in from the lake as the terrain on final slopes up. Preferential for no wind is RWY 36.

I can’t say that I prefer either of those approaches but I’m sure it’ll look less disconcerting when I’m coming in. Well, I hope so anyway.

I’m hoping to end up with some extra time in Lausanne to explore. Plastic Pilot was good enough to send me recommendations and a list of interesting places to fly to including what looks like a somewhat exciting approach at Saanen which he recommends trying out, with an instructor, simply for the experience.

Riss gave me a more down-to-earth recommendation:

The Musee l’Art de Brut is worth it, if strange. It’s not your typical museum.

The Museum is focused on a Japanese exhibition at the moment so I’m really hoping we’ll get a chance to see it.

Hopefully I’ll have interesting photographs (and boring stories about my landing) to share with you all soon!

Then we’ll load up the plane and head home to Málaga via a quick overnight stop at Bordeaux for refuelling. Whew!

I’ve drawn it on Google Maps but that really just makes it clear how inefficiently we’ve made our plans – great zigzags! View the larger map for a more detailed view of our stops.

View Larger Map

This is from my initial draft. I can’t help but feel that the family flying magazine that the final article is aimed at would not appreciate this.

Every time I thought about it, I ended up with my heart in my throat. My mother and my son in the back of the light aircraft. If I mess up, it isn’t just me. They are trusting me to fly the plane – this plane that still scares the bejeebus out of me. What if I lose concentration and twiddle the vertical speed knob counter-clockwise instead of clockwise and the plane starts to dive dive dive down into the ground and we end up a fiery inferno on some Tuscan farm, last words of what-the-fuck?

I know this is ludicrous. I have, on one occasion, twiddled that very knob the wrong way. The moment the nose tilted down, I disengaged the auto-pilot and tilted it back up. No drama, we lost no more than fifty feet of height. I know the fear isn’t rational. But still. Are they out of their minds?!

So, it’s cut for now, although I might try to rewrite it in a more gentle fashion and re-insert it. First I need to go find out what a bejeebus actually is!

Roma Urbe on Google maps

Click and then zoom out to see the location. It’s amazing, right on the northern side of Rome! That river is handy too, that’ll make the airfield loads easier to spot.

A few days in Rome (yay!) and then we will bundle my mother into the plane and I’ll fly us to Mannheim. Cliff thinks we can route right over my cousins house in Bavaria on the Austrian border, which will be neat. We’ll be high (argh, Alps!) but if it’s clear weather it should still be some pretty spectacular views.

It’s a three-hour flight, which compares really well to a commercial flight: the time you spend queuing and getting your luggage checked in and yourself through security adds up fast so I suspect we’ll make better time than my mother would have with a Lufthansa flight. Certainly more interesting!

I spent formative years in Mannheim and so although I’ve never landed at the airfield, I don’t think I’ll have any trouble finding the airfield from the sky.

See if you can spot it.

See how Mannheim is nestled in between the Rhein and Neckar? The airfield is just south of the Neckar, which is the lighter, smaller river on the north east. Now you don’t plonk runways in between houses so forget about any built up areas and look for a clear field that could fit an east-west runway.

Found it? Hopefully you’ve zoomed in close and ended up at this lovely airfield.

If you zoomed out and got lost and ended up in Coleman, the US military is likely to want a word with you. So don’t do that. And lets hope that I don’t!

I then managed to get a flight in just the nick of time: there’s a three-month deadline for taking passengers and, god forgive me, but I still hate the thought of flying that plane solo.

We flew to Angouleme where I made a complete and utter hash of joining the circuit and then overcompensated for the weight of the plane by coming in way too fast. On the bright-side, I have now come up with a cheatsheet of things to review after an extended amount of time without flying. As I get more experienced I’m sure this will become redundant, but at the moment I think it makes a real difference.

• The order of a standard radio call

Silly, but there’s a hideous blank moment the first time I’m asked to pass my message where I think, “I have no idea what to say” and end up stuttering lots. A quick refresher would avoid one stomach cramp per flight, always a good thing.

• Diagram of a standard join

I always end up twisting and turning a plate to work out the angle I need to join the circuit. The problem is that I assume I know what the join will be like and think that one through without considering the other options. I just need to plan in a few minutes of staring at it, test myself on joins in various configurations using both circuit directions and taking into account coming in from an odd angle. I’m just not quick enough to think this through in the air while I’m desperately trying to get the plane to slow the hell down.

• Review emergency procedures on the ground!

It’s all well and good testing myself in the air, quiet moments filled with considerations of what would I do if …. But when I’ve not flown for weeks, it’s a bit of a jump to assume that nothing will go wrong until I’ve achieved radio silence and had a chance to review. I should be testing myself on the ground first.

• Visualise

I learned this in the PPL and somewhere along the line forgot. Visualise the processes needed. Stepping through the planned flight serves as a refresher and more importantly nudges me on the ground about the things that are a bit hazy in my mind.

The Saratoga is sitting in Elstree, we cancelled our flight home when it began to snow. We’ll pick it up in a few weeks — meanwhile I keep saying I want to re-read my coursework from the PPL. No time like the present!