“There’s only about an hour and a half left” said Will glumly. He was referring to the amount of flight time left before Charlie had to go in for a routine service. This was on the Monday. We’d booked to go out on the following Saturday.
Unlike a car which is due for a service when it reaches a certain number of miles, a plane goes in after so many hours in flight. And also unlike a car which you can continue to drive whether or not the service has been done, there’s no leeway with a plane; if it runs out of hours before its service, that’s it, it’s grounded. The only way around it is to request an extension which is what the committee had done, even though the chances of actually getting it were quite small.
On the Thursday, another announcement: “Someone’s taken Charlie out!” followed a bit later by “There’s only 23 minutes left”.
Friday evening came and there was still no sign of the extension being granted, though Will, ever the optimistic, decided on a non-alcoholic beer “just in case”. At 9pm, the news came through. We had a 10-hour extension!
The next morning we were up early as we only had Charlie until 2pm. Will had already done a flight plan to Welshpool for a trip which didn’t happen, so just needed to check the local weather before we left home.
There were about five planes in the hangar that had to be moved before we could get Charlie onto the apron, but managed that in double-quick time with the help of someone who also needed to get his plane out. It was lovely not to feel rushed and the morning actually seemed quite leisurely. More good news came in just as Will was about to start the engines when we learnt that the booking after us had been cancelled. We could spend longer down route and not have to rush back.
It was a warm day, though hazy. From our cruising height of 4500ft, there was very little definition to the contours of the mountains and the colours were somewhat dulled but, nevertheless, visibility was excellent. With a strong headwind – at one point flying at a ground speed of just 63 knots, or 72mph – it took just over an hour to get there. During our flight, we passed through London control and it made me smile to hear pilots checking in for Farnborough and Blackbushe airports – the local geography of my childhood.
Welshpool Mid Wales Airport sits in the Severn Valley, surrounded by mountains with a long, asphalt runway within a few feet of, and perpendicular to, the A490. With a circuit height of 1500ft above ground level (the standard being 1000ft), and a relatively short approach to the runway, Will cut the power to the engine for a quicker descent and did a glide approach before doing a planned touch and go. By the second time around he’d sussed out the approach and, helped by the headwind, we had such a smooth landing I barely noticed that we’d touched ground. What I did notice, though, was that when Will reeled off the landing procedure as we were coming in, the list included “landing gear down”. The PA-28 has a non-retractable landing gear!! Old habits die hard!
After paying the landing fee (£15), we went to the airport’s Fuel Stop Cafe. Two coffees ended up costing over £8 as I couldn’t resist picking up a jar of local Jam Mafonen (raspberry jam) to take home as well. The cafe was busy but we managed to get seats outside and ordered lunch. Whizzard Helicopters was doing a roaring trade in sightseeing trips that day and their landing site was right next to the terrace. Every few minutes, a heli would land, swap passengers around front to back or load on the next party, then take off again. The food was delicious, but the novelty of seeing (and especially hearing) the helicopter so close soon wore off.
Going back was a lot quicker with a brisk tailwind. Approximately 30 minutes quicker! Altitude was 3500 ft with an uplift of around 200ft every time we went over a mountain.
As we were heading off, Will mentioned that he’d landed at Welshpool during his commercial flight training, but though he’d looked at his logbook during lunch, hadn’t been able to find a record of it.
Later that evening having checked his electronic logbook, he remembered that not only had he never landed there as a pilot flying, he hadn’t even been there as a passenger. What he’d actually done was sit in the jumpseat as one of his fellow trainees flew over it. It had obviously made quite an impression.
A Pilot's Companion 