Date: 01/01/2013
Time: 14:10 - 14:40 (GMT) & 15:15 - 15:45 (GMT)
Aircraft: Ikarus C42 - G-CFHP
New Years Chilbolton
The weather has been rubbish recently (or possibly forever) - plenty of wind and rain. However, I have a plane booked for New Years Day and it looks OK - yipee! When I get to the airfield, I go into the main clubhouse and pay my annual membership fees.
When the plane I have booked returns, I'm told there is a problem with one of the magnetos. I jump in and give it a try - switching off mag 1 drops the speed by 700rpm. Switching off mag 2 is OK. There is no point doing these tests if your not going to take notice of the results, so I go and see if there is another plane available soon. I'm in luck - G-HP is just coming back - I go down to the rear parking and my hunch is correct - it is just being parked. Even more luck - it has 30l of fuel in it - plenty for my planned quick flight.
I go and get my things and after checkover, I head straight to the runway. I'm soon taking off on 26. The visibility isn't brilliant; particularly looking through the haze into the low sun is reasonably difficult. I climb up to have a look at the clouds (I seem to have a bit of a fascination for them recently) and then enjoy a few steep banked turns. I then head south west to Chibolton and join overhead. There is a Thruster just landing, which I follow round and land on 24.
I go to the caravan to sign in and it turns out the Thruster pilot is Sean who used to fly from Popham, and has now moved to Chilbolton. We have a bit of a chat along with another couple who are outside the caravan. It turns out that Sean also has a Kitfox which is from the same family/predecessor to the EuroFox.
After a while, it's time to go home. A quick checkover and I'm off again. It's still very windy above 2000' so I try a little practice orbiting Bullington cross interchange, which goes well. Then a quick nip up to Hannington, a little PFL over Watership Down and then back to Popham.
A nice little flight and the best landing of the year ;-)