Caernarfon...

Flying… Again… For the second time in one weekend! Wow! After the success of yesterday’s flight, I was eager to get back into the saddle and fly again. Rising early at eight o’clock, I was down heartened to see the usual story with the weather, which threatened a wet and gloomy day. Luckily for me, as the morning wore on, the blue skies rolled on in… Driving to Barton like a madman, I decided to route over to Caernarfon, on the North West coast of Wales. VA was still gleaming from its check and just as eager as me to get up. Even with ¾ tanks of AVGAS but once again flying on my own, VA took off like a rocket, utilising less than half of Barton’s unusually (lol I wish!) 530m RWY 27R. Although it would actually be nice to have someone who wanted to come flying, I don’t mind going on my own. Before I got my licence I always thought that I would have que’s of people who deeply lusted to come with me, but surprisingly this is not the case…

Departing the CCT I headed for Wigan, then over to Woodvale before shooting across Liverpool Bay at 1200ft amsl. Due to the high levels of visibility on the day, I decided to fly across Colwyn Bay rather than to hug the coast. Although this put my track well over open water it seemed like a good idea, albeit probably not the most sensible without a life jacket! R/T was the highlight of the day. To be honest, I can’t remember a period of longer than three minutes when I didn’t speak to a new or a pre-existing ground station. The list which included Barton, Blackpool App, Woodvale, Liverpool App, Valley MATZ, London FIR, Caernarfon, Hawarden App and finally Manchester App just seemed to keep on growing… In reality this made the flight go extremely quickly and helped my communication skills greatly.

Being the first landing on tarmac since I was last at Caernarfon in early December, and only one of a handful since the days at KSEE, it was a greaser. Landing on the hard stuff is something I miss and it is nice to brush up my skills once in a while. The main point was that due to Barton requiring short field approaches, I had VA stopped on the deck within 400m, which led to a very long taxi down the length of the active! The return leg saw a speedy takeoff into a developing mist. Rather than sit on the ground I felt it best to do a CCT and assess the conditions before deciding whether to turn back and land or press home to Barton. In the end I choose the later option and although the conditions did deteriorate further until Bangor, where Vis was well down below what I prefer, it rapidly increased over Colwyn Bay to well over 9999 with crystal blue skies. The only other adverse weather I experienced was severe turbulence approaching Hawarden overhead. Could well be explained due to the presence of the power stations cooling towers close to Chester?

It was lovely to see Chester from the air, being a city I recently visited and enjoyed. A short leg over to Oulton Park racecourse and then up the low level corridor led me back onto the home straight. After announcing my presence to Man App, I kept a listening watch on the freq to hear that they had an emergency and that the active would be shut for at least quarter of an hour. I have spent most of today wondering what this emergency actually was! All in all, a fantastic flight. Although my head was still racing all night due to the sheer workload of the flight, it was undoubtedly one of my best ever flights. On an aviation level, it could not have gone more according to plan. On a personal level, I just wish that I had someone who was close to me that I could share all the joys and experiences with…