Date: 9/8/2014
Time: 14:55 - 15:50 (13:55 - 14:50 GMT)
Aircraft: EuroFOX - G-UFOX
Redhill
Ian and I are going to Redhill today. Neither of us have been there before and Ian has a free landing voucher.
After our usual preparations, we are off on runway
21 with Ian in the left seat. We climb into the overhead and then head down
to the south east to go around the Oakhangar HIRTA zone. Approaching Liss, we
can now turn back to the north east towards Guildford, so that we can go to
the north of the Gatwick zone. 
To
the left we can see the city, with all the sticky-up buildings. We have been
told to report at the VRP at the junction of the M25 and M23 - unfortunately,
when we reach this point there is so much radio traffic that we cannot get our
call in, so Ian does an orbit to delay turning south to the airfield. 
Once
we have made contact and have our instructions, we can track the M23 south (to
the east of it) and then straight onto final.
Once down, we are told to park in front of Hangar 9 - as if we know where that is. On further direction, it turns out that this is "The Pilots Hub" cafe. We park-up outside, don our high-viz jackets and go in. At the cafe, we attempt to sign in and hand over our precious voucher - apparently it is the chef we need to see and they are too busy at the moment. We order some tea and some burgers and went outside and waited. Eventually, the tea arrived, but we had to wait for the waitress to go and get some milk - never did get any sugar. After a further while we get bored of waiting, believing that we must have been forgotten - we hadn't; they are just really really slow.
After
we had eventually got our food and also had a little look around the
hangar, we prepare to leave - this time with me as pilot. Departure is from
runway 26 and head straight out to the west, before turning north by the woods.
For some inexplicable reason, I misread the altimeter and believe that I have
climbed too high into the Gatwick zone and start to descend. Then a sanity check
kicks in, realising that I am quite low and I now correctly read my height and
recommence the climb.
The return journey is the reverse of the outbound, except that I follow the A3 a bit to have a look at the tunnel, and then near Liphook I decide to go and have a look at Hollycombe and the Steam Fair that is permanently based there (always enjoy visiting there, even if the fumes seem to make me feel ill by the end of the day). Then back to Popham and join for 21.
A nice day, despite the wait.
