Date: 2/2/2014
Time: 15:35 - 16:15 (GMT)
Aircraft: EuroFOX - G-UFOX
A Slow Quickie
Today I have had to come to the airfield for maintenance, to check on a few things. To be honest, the forecast up to today has not been looking so good (windy), so I didn't imaging I would get a flight. However, it is dry, so I get to ride my motorbike to Popham. By the time I'm finished, the wind isn't so strong and relatively in line with the runway, so I think I will have a quick flight.
After checkover and warmup, I make my way to the fuel pump - unfortunately the UL91 pump is broken to I elect to have just 10l of 100LL - I don't want to use any more leaded than I need to. We now have a fuel account which makes things a little easier. Soon I'm heading back to the threshold of 26 and I'm away. I climb towards the north - It has become a bit hazy, so not brilliant visibility, but safe.
At Greenham Common I call Popham for a radio check - still working fine. However, it has failed once since last time (with Tom), so we don't believe it is fixed. That's the trouble with intermittent faults.
Heading west, I decide to try some slow flight, whilst flying into the wind. I manage to get down to a groundspeed of below 20 knots easily - I could have gone slower, but didn't want to push it.
I then head south back towards the airfield with a brief interlude of a tight turn for entertainment. I approach Popham from the west and join overhead. The approach is good, but the initial landing phase isn't great, so I apply some power and turn it into a low hop. Balancing the power, I bring it into a nice touchdown which I'm quite pleased with.
Great!