BLACKPOOL ADVENTURE
Photograph Of Blackpool Tower
Once
upon a time there was a blind guy who loved flying, so he bought his own aircraft and got
his girlfriend to learn to fly against her will. Now
after 140 hours in the air Debbie is beginning to enjoy the challenge, although her horses
will always come first, naturally.
This
is the story of Andrew Komosa, his now fiancé Debbie Plumb and their PA28 G-ATOO
nicknamed “Sneezy” for obvious reasons, and their first long distance trip from
Goodwood in Sussex to Blackpool on the Lancashire coast, a distance of about 230 miles by
air, about 2.2 hours of flying time at 105 mph… or 320 miles by road and anything up
to 7.5 hours in the car, depending upon how many roads are “snarled up” with one
sort of traffic jam or another.
I
bought Sneezy from Blackpool Air Centre in October 2002, before Debbie had even begun her
flying lessons! We had looked around for a
group share, but didn’t find anyone who would take us on, a disabled owner and a
novice pilot, hence Sneezy joined the family.
My
mother lives in Lytham, a retirement oasis some 6 miles South of Blackpool.; so it seemed
a good idea, for me at least, to plan our first major cross country to visit her for a
couple of days. It also meant that we could
revisit Brian Bateson, the “down to earth” proprietor of B.A.C. and show Sneezy,
a pretty little 1966 Cherokee 140 his old hunting grounds.
Before
I describe our trip, I should explain that Debbie gained her PPL[A] in Florida and since
then we had only flown local trips from Goodwood to Shoreham, Sandown, Headcorn, Redhill,
Old Sarem, Bournemouth and Southend, although Sneezy was based at Biggin Hill for over a
year, where Singh of Falcon Flying Services had taken care of him until we moved to Ockley
near Dorking. We had never even used a flight
information service, although we were familiar with filing VFR flight plans as they use a
similar system in the States.
To
those none flying friends, it seemed simple, just fly North from Goodwood for a couple of
hours, avoiding the jumbo jets at Heathrow and when you see Blackpool Tower, you know
you've arrived! The C.A.A. charts adorned with
a multitude of blue and magenta lines, denoting air traffic zones, say otherwise and we
hence, enlisted the help of a couple of pilot friends, Mike Hallam, who owns Jackrells
Farm airstrip near Horsham and Martin Cundey who flies
a Beech craft Duchess from Redhill. I also
received suggestions from forum members on the UKGA.com website.
Since
Debbie and I only fly in strictly VFR conditions, that is until she’s persuaded that
an IMC rating would look pretty in her logbook, we had to keep a very careful eye on the
weather. As a visually impaired aviator, I use
a talking computer to navigate the internet, finding that the BBC weather website to be
the most accessible, but gaining valuable information from; pilotweb.co.uk, ukga.com
forecasts and putting it all together with the excellent fly.dsc.net online flight
planner.
Debbie and I had booked a couple of week’s
leave towards the end of September, which I thought may give us a couple of days “windows
of opportunity,”, and so it was, because the morning of Wednesday 22 September dawned
clear and bright. Debbie was due to go out
riding at 06:00, so I took advantage of the early start and began the final preparations
for the flight, not only checking the aforesaid websites for weather and notam’s, but
telephoning Liverpool automated ATIS on: 0870 7508484 [ext.5] and speaking to an ATC at Brize
who all confirmed that visibility was 10 km or more with few clouds at 5000 feet most of
the way up to Blackpool.
By
11:30 we had arrived at Goodwood and had loaded Sneezy with our luggage, performed all the
pre-flight checks and refuelled. However, we
made the mistake of filing the flight plan afterwards, which gave ATC insufficient time to
lodge it with London, so we were forced to wait a “nail biting” hour before we
could make our departure.
So it
was at 12:30 Sneezy, Debbie, Sean and I took to the skies on our first real adventure. “Who is Sean”, I hear you ask, “not
an instructor”, I hear you exclaim… “no”, Sean is my lazy black
Labrador guide dog, who sat on the rear seat quite happily.
I had attached a car safety belt to his harness, so he wasn’t going
anywhere in any case.
Our
first leg took us to Brize via Blackbushe using the Mayfield VOR and Farnborough FIS at
2100 feet all the way. All was great until the
Brize controller gave us instructions so lengthy, that they would surely have beaten the
skills of a professional airline pilot, I am sure the guy was having a laugh on what was
otherwise, a quiet mid week day in the tower!
Once
safely passed Brize, we flew North turning North North West at Kidderminster and retuning
to Shawbury FIS who told us to report at “Old Reaky”… “errr”! Debbie and I looked at each other and then Debbie
reverted to the chart. “Can’t see
any airfield by that name” she said, I kept calm and suggested we either kept going
or “ask a Policeman”… which didn’t go down too well! Not too worry, after a few minutes the kindly
controller asked if we were “familiar with the area”? You may be able to understand our consternation
that when I tell you, we shouldn’t have been looking downwards for the answer, but
upwards, as Old Reaky is a rather large mountain!
Next
we aimed for Wallasey VOR, transiting Liverpool airspace to the West, over the Mersey at
1200 feet. I was surprised how easy it was to
get transit approval, I couldn’t imagine getting the same at Heathrow or Gatwick, but
they are, of course, obviously far busier airports.
We
then followed Lancashire’s sandy coastline for 26 miles, calling up Woodvale, Warton
and then Blackpool… once Debbie had seen the tower, you understand. Actually, the three A.T.Z.s came up rather too
quickly, even at a humble 90 knots, and we were almost on top of our destination before we
knew it. The Blackpool controller may have
thought we were complete amateurs, but he was dealing with another, even more confused
pilot at the time of our approach, informing him to “turn 180 because Blackpool is to
the South of your position, not North”, and sarcastically “you may wish to land
on runway 26 as we don’t have a runway 29”!
Touch
down resulted in much jubilation in the cockpit, and taxing towards Blackpool Air Centre
we were met by Brian and my anxious mother with tears of joy in her eye’s and
recalling in her mind, the times she had been relieved to welcome home my late father upon
returning from another sortie; he had been a Mosquito pilot with 307 Polish squadron in
W.W. II, a sailplane pilot with Blackpool and Fylde gliding club until six months before
he sadly passed away in 1989, or her brother’s early demise in September 1942 over
the North Sea while piloting a stricken Beaufighter at the tender age of just 21 years. With Sneezy put safely to bed and given a hug, we
left Squires Gate aerodrome and made for mother’s home with many tales of the trip to
tell one and all.
As all
active aviators will know, the main problem with staying for any length of time at a
distant airfield is that the weather can turn nasty and foil your attempts of making the
return journey. It was for that reason that we
had planned to “borrow” one of Brian’s instructors to fly the return leg if
the weather looked as if it could “ruin our whole day”. However, we needn’t have worried for Friday
dawned bright and again, relatively cloudless, although a front was due to hit the North
West by early afternoon, which made a noon departure all the more important.
Debbie,
Sneezy and I had considered using the low level corridor between Liverpool and Manchester,
but eventually decided on travelling the reciprocal journey back to Goodwood. I seem to recall the reason being that Debbie wasn’t
too sure that she’d put the St Helen’s way point correctly into our Garmin 196,
but I think the real reason was that we both just wanted to get home, without any further
experimentation.
Indeed,
the return trip was surprisingly relaxed, and we made good progress South with the 25
knots tail wind. However, we had one thing on
our minds all the way home, i.e. that we would have to wait for a slot to land because it
was practice day for the Goodwood Revival; to those uninitiated, the Revival Meeting is a
weekend of motor sport at the once World famous Grand Prix circuit. What makes the weekend so very interesting, is that
all the cars were built between 1948 and 1966, most of the support vehicles date from the
1960’s, attendees are encouraged to don period dress and the airfield, which nestles
within the race track, is laid out as it would have looked forty years ago. I would encourage pilots to have lunch at the
lovely restaurant any time of the year, the aerodrome is so pretty with flower beds and
memorial gardens laid out commemorating it’s famous automotive and aeronautical
personalities of the past.
Again,
we needn’t have been concerned, because the ever friendly Goodwood controller said
that if we simply circled overhead at 2000 feet, then a landing slot would be available in
ten minutes. This gave Debbie a good chance to
take a look at the racing down below and just to prove how much confidence the flight had
given her, she put Sneezy into a gentle left bank and took photographs out of the Open DI
window! We made a perfect three point landing
just two hours twenty minutes after leaving Blackpool in front of the thousands of
spectators watching the thrills and spills going on all around.
I
believe the most important lessons to be learnt from the trip are that careful planning is
of paramount importance, and that taking on such an adventure, one that professional
pilots probably won’t understand, but low hour novices will, is that it has made a
pilot out of Debbie… rather like breaking in one of her young horses!
Finally,
from a purely personal standpoint, my last couple of years of aviation has proved to me
how brave those young aviators of the past were, considering all they had to navigate by
were star charts, dead reckoning, and often at night, in poor weather over the sea and
while being shot at; how so many managed to return to base is a mystery, or perhaps, a
miracle!
Photograph Overhead Goodwood
Photograph Of Andrew And Sean
[Copyright] Allied Law 2004