The Squiggle

It was no surprise that as soon as Will had his licence signed off, he was on the syndicate’s booking app looking for Charlie’s next available slot.

Just before lockdown lifted it had been agreed to limit the number of hours each syndicate member could book Charlie out for, so this made it relatively easy to find an afternoon that same week.  As it was Will’s first time in years as pilot with a passenger on board (POB in radio-speak), he decided to go somewhere familiar and not too far away so Shobdon it was!  The plan was to arrive at the airport by 1pm, ready to take off around an hour later and then get back by 5pm.  What we hadn’t planned on was the quick hellos, introductions and other distractions from the friendly people in the flying club, the extra time needed for all the checks and the wait at the fuel pumps.

Our intended hour at Shobdon, where we had been looking forward to a cup of tea and cake, turned into a quick turnaround with just enough time for Will to pay his landing fees.  We did get some lovely views over the Black Mountains though and the weather was lovely and calm, albeit with a few dark clouds over the mountains which we had to avoid. 

Having just come out of lockdown and with perfect flying weather, it was inevitable that our home airport would be busy, but just how much became increasingly obvious as we got nearer to it.  At about 12 miles out, Will decided to do a couple of circuits around a local landmark – not to have a better look, but to wait for a bit of radio silence so that he could report in.  At the 3-mile point when he’d been asked to update, it was almost impossible to get a word in edgeways. It turned out that Covid restrictions had meant that only one person could be in the air-traffic tower at that time and the person whose turn it was, was having to manage both tower and approach. 

With multiple aircraft already in the circuit, non-standard instructions and a sudden change in runway just as we were about to line up, I’m sure any pilot would have been challenged.  Talk about a steep learning curve, Will must have been sweating once we’d landed!  I have to admire the guy in air-traffic too as it must have seemed relentless with everyone trying to get in before the airport closed. 

I actually didn’t have a clue of the route we’d had to do coming in so looked at the plot on Flight Radar afterwards.  The orange is the Airport Traffic Zone and the blue, which looks like someone’s picked up a crayon and made some random squiggles, is our track coming in from the north-west and landing from the west.