Date: 15/8/2009
Time: 15:10 - 16:30
Aircraft: Ikarus C42 - G-CDHR
Bimble
No agenda and no flight planned today - just to go for a bimble. Weather isn't as good as it could be - bit windy and relatively low cloud base, but rising a bit now.
Made a bit of a cock-up at first, by forgetting to put the flaps on before take off - oops! Felt quite wrong. Flew up north to Hannington Mast, then along the ridge to Watership Down to have a look at Andrew Lloyd Webber's house (*). The over to Greenham Common to see what's left of the old air base.
Try a bit of low flying but I'm still not comfortable with it. Then a loop round Highclere Castle and back down towards Andover. Rejoin and land on 21.
I then do a couple of low-hops, which I haven't done for ages - first one a bit short, but otherwise good. Then a final circuit or good measure. There's an aircraft at the threshold pointing up the runway, so I do some s-bends on the base leg to delay, but he's still there as I turn final. Then he turns around on the taxiway, so I continue my approach. I guess he either changed his mind, or had been doing his run-up checks virtually on the active runway.
Nice little bimble.
* - Apparantly, Lloyd Webber wrote a letter to the Times (or Telegraph) complaining about microlights. The following Sunday, there was a continuous precession of microlights circling his house. What a shame!