Shotteswell and Goodwood

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" background="045085a3.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>Golf Mike Bravo going around...</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Golf Mike Bravo going around..."><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Golf Mike Bravo going around..."><U><B><IMG SRC="03b0e0e0.png" border=0 width="14" height="14" ALT="up" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A><B>   </B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="14" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="14"><B>     </B><A HREF="id153.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Kemble"><U><B><IMG SRC="02f0e0e0.png" border=0 width="14" height="14" ALT="previous" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A><B>  </B><A HREF="id156.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Night Training 1"><U><B><IMG SRC="0300e0e0.png" border=0 width="14" height="14" ALT="next" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" background="046d2e83.jpg"> <div> <IMG SRC="73fa0780.jpg" border=0 width="160" height="120" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id116.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Bembridge"><U>Bembridge</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id117.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Isle of Man"><U>Isle of Man</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id139.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Check outs and Bimbles"><U>Check outs and Bimbles</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id150.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shobdon"><U>Shobdon</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id151.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="First Passenger"><U>First Passenger</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id154.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Back in the 40"><U>Back in the '40</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id152.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Flyer Magazine Bash"><U>Flyer Magazine Bash</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id153.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Kemble"><U>Kemble</U></A></div> <div> <B>Shotteswell and Goodwood</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id156.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Night Training 1"><U>Night Training - 1</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id157.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Night Training 2"><U>Night Training - 2</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id158.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="A Touch of HEVN"><U>A Touch of HEVN</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id159.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Night Training 3"><U>Night Training - 3</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id160.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="On to the 10"><U>On to the '10'</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id161.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Getting used to the 10"><U>Getting used to the '10'</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id162.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Abbeville"><U>Abbeville</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id163.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Duxford"><U>Duxford</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id164.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Hazy Sunday Afternoon"><U>Hazy Sunday Afternoon</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id165.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Avranches"><U>Avranches</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id166.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="A little Jodeling"><U>A little Jodel-ing</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id203.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sywell"><U>Sywell</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id204.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Compton Abbas"><U>Compton Abbas</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id205.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Back to Bembridge"><U>Back to Bembridge</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id206.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Rochester"><U>Rochester</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id207.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sleap"><U>Sleap</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id208.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="A look at Leicester, more Jodelling and "><U>A look at Leicester, more Jodelling and back to Sleap!</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id210.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="A Bonus Bimble"><U>A Bonus Bimble</U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#CCCCE4" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>Shotteswell and Goodwood</I></div> <bR> <div> <I>In which we don't get in to Shotteswell, but we try a little formating instead</I></div> <bR> <div> Saturday 3rd September 2005</div> <div> After a pretty horrendous Saturday spent queueing round the M25 (including complete road closure at Potters Bar), I popped in to Enstone to try and catch the end of the barbecue, and unwind a bit. Most weekend evenings you'll find a bunch of microlighters going off somewhere and today was no exception. Their destination this evening was Shotteswell, a farm strip on the Northern edge of Banbury.</div> <bR> <div> It was Alistair's idea that we take the DA40 and join them, and since I'd never gone in to a farm strip before, I agreed. Shotteswell is a grass strip, with two runways, a short (400m x 18m) 09-27 which is marked 'microlights only' in the book, and a longer (853mx18m) 15-33, for which we were going to try. In context, although grass, the runway is longer than Shobdon, and the same width.</div> <bR> <div> It was a fairly short flight, and we kept to Enstone's QFE, since Shotteswell's elevation is only 20ft lower than ours, and we routed South and East around the town. The strip was easy to spot, sandwiched between the A41 and M40, and pretty soon we were overhead, checking out the windsock. Our initial assumption had been that 15 would be the preferable runway, and this was borne out by the windsock. Three microlights were already down, parked by the 08 threshold, but there was also a glider parked at the edge of the main runway, about halfway down.</div> <bR> <div> My immediate thought, endorsed by Alistair was that the glider was parked in exactly the wrong place. Not actually on the runway, but so close that, considering its narrowness we thought that there was a strong chance of hitting it. Had it been at either end we could have landed long or short, but right in the middle was just about the worst possible place.</div> <bR> <div> We descended to circuit height and made a pass along the runway. Going around, we then descended to 500 ft for a second pass, in the hope that the glider pilot would take a hint and move the plane. A third pass, in landing configuration, and we saw no movement on the ground (except for Tony, one of the microlight pilots, showing some bare faced cheek!). Deciding to abandon the prospect of landing, we climbed out of the circuit and headed back towards Enstone.</div> <bR> <div> Paul was hoping to join us in his Beagle Pup, G-JIMB, so we called on the radio to let him know the situation. It turned out that he was currently over Barford St John, and headed our way. "Fancy trying some formation flying?" "Sure, why not!" Seeing that we were in the faster plane, Alistair suggested to Paul that he turn East and we'd catch him up.</div> <bR> <div> Once we had him in sight, we both changed heading to West. This would take us towards the normal local training area. With Alistair instructing me, a zoom climb got me to the same height as Paul, as well as bleeding off excess speed. Then the task was to match speeds and inch closer until we were just a few feet away. Well, it's easy to write, but pretty difficult to do! Matching speeds and keeping position was okay, but I made a complete hash of inching closer. Then Alistair showed me how it should be done, making it seem so easy. We came up on the left side, and then dropped back, passing behind and moving over to the right side. There was a pronounced bump as we went through Paul's prop wash! The great shame was I didn't have my camera!</div> <bR> <div> By now we were over Moreton in Marsh and the sun was going down, so we decided to break formation and head back to base. The microlighters were also coming back, and the circuit busy, so we elected to land on the grass, better to fit in with the traffic. As we crossed the boundary we saw a large black patch on the runway - rooks, and lots of them. Land or go around, we'd be in the middle of them, so a very last minute decision and we swerved onto the main runway (sorry Ivan).</div> <bR> <div> <I>Goodwood</I></div> <bR> <div> Sunday 4th September 2005</div> <bR> <div> I'd like to say the day dawned bright and sunny, but that would be misleading. There was the early morning fog that so typifies this time of year, which cleared fairly quickly to a persistent dense haze. I had the plane booked from eleven, and spent some time planning the trip. With the flight planned and visibility improving, the club phone rang. It was Pat Pearse, wanting to book Echo Delta. So I suggested why didn't he come along with me? Pat has recently got his PPL (you'll remember him from the Norwich trip earlier).</div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="750c22e0.jpg" border=0 width="450" height="558" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="10" VSPACE="0">By the time I'd phoned Goodwood for PPR (viz 7km, runway 14 active), Pat had arrived and we went out and pre-flighted the plane. Since it was my booking, we agreed that I would fly down and Pat would fly back, then we'd split the cost. The route was straightforward: South through Brize Zone and continue as far as Welford disused. This should put us on the 120 degree radial for the Goodwood VOR, which we'd follow the rest of the way.</div> <bR> <div> Taxying out, there was nobody on the radio, but other traffic indicated runway 08 in use, the windsock showed about 120 and we estimated QNH based on the airfield's published altitude. Both Alistair and Richard were doing touch and goes, and so we had to hold for a while at Echo before scuttling down the runway to Bravo and holding again. Once we got the runway to ourselves, there was a flexwing scuttling down to Bravo in our tracks. </div> <bR> <div> Finally we got off the ground, and followed the circuit around, climbing into the overhead at 3000 ft. As we left the circuit, we had a critical look at the visibility and made a decision whether to continue. Downward visibility was okay, and horizontal about 4 miles. Not great, but with two pairs of eyes we thought it would be okay. Brize gave us a squawk and cleared us through the zone at 3000.</div> <bR> <div> Passing Wantage, Brize passed us off to Farnborough, and we switched frequencies. Compared to Brize, they were very busy and it took a while for us to get our initioal call in. nWe were told to standby number 3. Eventually we got a FIS and a squawk. As we approached Welford, we were expecting the  VOR needle to start centring, but it was still at full scale deflection. Pat double checked the frequency and ident; both correct. Hmm. A further scan of tghe panel showed what the problem was - the Nav/GPS button was set to GPS, so the CDI was showing deviation from the route programmed in the GPS (a simple 'Direct To') rather than deviation from the VOR radial. D'oh!</div> <bR> <div> The remainder of the trip was uneventful. As we went further South, the visibility did improve slightly. The air was a bit bumpy - choppy even in places. At one point we caught a glimpse of a glider, but it disappeared into the mist. A bit worrying really. The few other aircraft we spotted were well off our track and level. At Petersfield we changed frequencies to Goodwood Information and set up for an overhead join. Wind was straight down the runway at 15 knots. </div> <bR> <div> On the ground there was no taxiway, so we just turned off the runway, and the AFISO directed us to parking. There were some interesting aircraft parked up, including an SR20 and a Harvard. It took us a little while to find the flying club building, as it was conveniently hidden behind a marquee. But find it we did, and we paid up and sat for a while on the verandah enjoying the scenery and a snack.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="75158fb0.jpg" border=0 width="600" height="251" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="752902c0.jpg" border=0 width="400" height="300" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"> </div> <bR> <div> For the return trip it was Pat's turn to fly. We taxied across the grass to the runup point. Again there was no taxiway, we just followed the tyre tracks. Ready for departure we were asked to hold for a spitfire on final. Turned out it was the Grace Spitfire. Once it was clear, we lined up and were given the wind - 110 degrees, 15 knots gusting 20. Interesting. We climbed out of the circuit, passing the race course on our right. The trip was the reciprocal of the outward journey, faster with the tail wind and noticeably smoother. The haze had also lessened. At one point we saw a pair of fast jets, below us and heading East. Possibly they were part of the Shoreham or Biggin Hill air shows. Cleared back through Brize, we joined crosswind for 08, and were home in time for tea and medals.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>