Today we completed the diversions exercise we had planned for yesterday. It was a late start again, since the early morning fog took an absolute age to lift. I called ahead to Sleap, in order to check their weather and book PPR, and they were reporting 15km with no cloud.

So we set off. We skipped the touch and go at Wellesbourne, since we were visiting two licensed airfields and we were confident that we'd get to them. For a while, we just played "go to here" until we got within range of the Shawbury VOR. Then having idented it, we homed in on the 325 radial and followed it. On the way we had flight information from Wolverhampton, and passed through their overhead. All the time we'd been verifying our position against the chart, taking care not to mis-identify features, since once away from familiar territory, it's very easy to talk yourself into believing you're where you think you are not where you actually are.

Beyond Wolverhampton the features became more sparse, but we could positively identify the river Severn passing through the valley South of Telford, and the power station there. We'd been told that Shawbury's MATZ was closed, but we still made three attemtps to contact them and then changed direct to Sleap. We couldn't raise anyone at Sleap, and double checked the frequency against the VFR flight guide, and also verified it with Wolverhampton. After a while we heard some other traffic, which appeared to be an aircraft on the ground, but who gave us the QFE and active runway. We passed overhead Shawbury (well clear of their ATZ), and then joined overhead at Sleap for runway 23, telling Sleap Traffic of our position and intentions.

Once we had landed and parked up on the grass apron, we booked in, paid the landing fee (£8), and went to the cafe/bar for a perfectly passable All Day Breakfast. While we were there, a familiar Cessna 172, G-GYAV turned up and parked next to Mike Bravo. This is often flown by Peter Dodds from the Cix VFR Club, although he wasn't flying it today. Once we'd finished lunch, we booked out and pre-flightd the plane for the trip to Shobdon. Sunset is very early this time of year and there wasn't time to hang around.

"Planning" for this leg was simply drawing a line on the chart between Sleap and Shobdon and estimating the heading. The track would be about 190 degrees, but the wind would be from our rear right quarter, and so add a bit, say 200 degrees. The runway in use had changed to 18, and so our departure was straight out. We headed South, past Shrewsbury and over the high ground, where there were few features. Consequently we managed to drift left of track, and when we arrived we were about two miles off, which actually set us up nicely for a left base join -- there being little other traffic about.

Now there was no time to hang about, since we had to be back at Enstone by sunset, so we paid the fee (£8 again) and were straight off. We worked out a rough heading to Great Malvern, and from there we were in familiar territory and so could pick our way with not too much trouble. This last leg was done at the 120kt Fast Cruise! Naturally we made it onto the ground exactly at sunset (give or take a minute or two)!