Date: 20/07/2013

Time: 13:55 - 14:50 (12:55 - 13:50 GMT) & 15:35 - 16:20 (14:35 - 15:20 GMT)

Aircraft: EuroFOX - G-UFOX

Sandown with Pete

Colin and Jac were going to look at a second hand Eurostar with a view to buying at Shobdon airfield. They were going to fly up in one of the club Eurostars - bit of a long first(ish) journey, but I decide to go up with them. However, unfortunately they can't have the plane all day and now have two aircraft to see, so are forced to go by road instead. I'm not so keen to go on such a long journey on my own, so decide to go to somewhere more familiar. Haven't been to Sandown since it has been taken over / rescued so this seems like a good target. It's also quite windy and reasonably inline with the runway.

I go to the airfield and whilst preparing the plane, Pete wanders over. He hasn't got anything else on, so agrees to come with me. After warmup we go to the bowser for fuel and soon we are off on 03. We head down to the south west and I give Pete a go. We drop down to about 1700' over the New Forest due to the airspace height restriction. The extra downward visibility through the EuroFOX doors still surprises me because it makes it feel like you are much lower than you really are. Once past Hurst Castle we can open the throttle a bit and climb. Over the west peninsular, we turn towards St Catherine's Point and it is quite smooth here. I think I had better take over to get some familiarity before we come in to land. After an overhead join and landing we are directed to some parking where we are marshalled into a parking spot. The marshal says "Haven't seen this one here before" - "That's because it hasn't been here before", I reply.

So the tower is now manned and they have marshalling - so far, so good. Despite the big C on the tower, we are invited to sign-in in the portacabin which is Carla's temporary tea room. We order the obligatory tea and bacon butties. It's pretty windy and we have to rescue our plates a couple of times as they blow away. It's also quite busy which is good to see, although we did learn that they had a barbecue planned for that evening, so maybe more than usual - this explained why the marshal asked if we were staying. Basically, the airfield is looking good and you get the usual good welcome.

Homebound, and I take off towards the north, cross the Solent and then over to Hayling Island. I point out where I used to live and where my family live. Then north to Petersfield and back to Popham.

A lovely flight and my second away landing in a taildragger.

 

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