Cornwall again

Posting this a little after the event due to time constraints in the past couple of days. Monday was May day and therefore a public holiday, so we decided to head to Cornwall, this time to visit a WWII airfield called Perranporth which was hosting a fly-in and BBQ for pilots and the public.

The night before I carefully performed weight and balance calculations as we were flying with four of us, Tris & Vicky, Mike and me. Luckily the girls are both light! So we were within limits, I decided to reduce weight further by only taking 3/4's of fuel on board, giving us more margin. The plan was to depart around 9am, which would mean we would have lots of time in Perranporth, however in the morning the skies were overcast with a weather front moving accross the South East of England. The wait for the weather to pass gave me time to prepare the aircraft and the fuel and then we grabbed breakfast at Blackbushe.

We departed at around 11:40am with the plan to route accross to Bridport and from there follow the coastline all the way round to Cornwall. Once in the air it was pretty bumpy with a stiff headwind, I wondered if anyone was going to be ill, especially in the back. The visibility however was amazing, so was pretty nice flying aside from the rough air, I couldn't climb to find smoother air as by this time although the sky was now blue there were scattered clouds at 4000AMSL.

Nearly at Bridport we decided to stop for a break at Dunkeswell airfield, this was approximately half-way so planned and flew a diversion direct to Dunkeswell. This airfield is on a hill surrounded by woodlands and hills, with the strong wind it was obvious landing here would be challenging. We joined overhead and entered the circuit, one other aircraft was on her second attempt to land so we fell in behind her on downwind, at circuit height the air was very rough. There was a 25knt crosswind straight accross the runway which was gusty and the other aircraft had to go around again, she told ATC she would try one more time before departing for somewhere else.

I kept 10mph more speed than usual to counter the windsheer on final and followed a gusty descent towards the runway, only 10 degree of flap also and prepared myself to go around if needed. As expected windsheer caused us to drop which required a burst of full power, I managed to keep Lima Sierra on the centreline just and touched down on one wheel as a gust picked up the other wing, she soon settled onto both mains.. phew hard work.

We stopped here for an hour, and got a few teas, we watched other aircraft landing or going around again, everyone was having the same problems we did. The leg to Dunkeswell from Blackbushe had taken almost two hours flying time due to the headwind, I anticipated another hour and a half until we reached Cornwall. Take off was again challenging, and was pretty hard work as soon as we were airborne the wind was trying to push us way off the centreline.

We climbed to 3000ft and headed straight for the coast, over the water the air was smoother but still rough. The coastline looked spectacular in the sunshine so we followed that around. At Exeter I was asked to descend not above 2500AMSL due to inbound 737 for Exeter, I complied and before long we watched the 737 pass us at 3500AMSL on our left hand side. The Captain/FO was looking out for us but couldn't see us, so I called and mentioned I had him in sight.

The trip from this point went very quickly despite the slow groundspeed as there was a whole lot to look at. We crossed over the coastline again heading for Perranporth. Perranporth is right on the cliffs on the West coast of Cornwall and alot of other traffic was either inbound or outbound from there, we descended a touch and joined the circuit overhead. So far so good, however I missunderstood a simple instruction.. aircraft landing were to use runway 27 and aircraft taking off runway 23.. so I managed to line myself up for runway 23 doh! Another aircraft was lined up ready to take off as I turned onto final, I proceeded slowly until asked by the controller to confirm I was lined up for 27.. I apologised and went around. Then in a feat of amazing stupidity I managed to make the same mistake again! This time I realised my error as I turned final so called that I was going around again. Third time lucky I lined up correctly for 27 and heard a comment to other traffic from the controller "Take off blah blah blah.. look out for the Cessna 172 on final.. again!". The landing here was thankfully unchallenging.. so at least I didn't get the opportunity to embarrass myself further. As we taxied we noticed a small crowd of people (the public and other pilots) next to the tower, I asked Mike to don the hi-vis vest and carry the kneeboard hoping that they would think he was the insane pilot that had just been fooling around overhead. He laughed and declined so I kept my dark sunglasses on for the walk of shame towards the crowd.

We had missed the BBQ sadly as it was now late on, but managed to get burgers. We relaxed here for awhile in the sunshine before going for a walk towards the cliffs. The walk was past some old antiaircraft gun emplacements with bunkers just below, and along the cliffs the scenery was stunning, great way to relax.

After a time we walked back and I carried out the planning for the return to Blackbushe, as time was now getting late I decided to go direct to Blackbushe and we would now have a tailwind so the return home would be much quicker. I also took on more fuel here to be safe.

We departed at around 6:30pm having spent around two hours enjoying Cornwall, it really was a pity we couldn't have got here earlier in the day. The flight back was amazing, very few clouds were now evident and the air was totally smooth, allowing for hands off flying. I climbed to 5000AMSL to make better use of the tailwind and our progress was much improved. Very little other traffic was around also so the radio for the most part was silent.

There is something special about watching the sunset from a vantage point in the air, the sky was a mix of orange and pink shades. We landed back at Blackbushe at around 8:30pm, just before the last of the light disappeared.

Everyone enjoyed the flight, and we all agreed that this was an excellent way to spend a holiday Monday.