I had plans to get to Stoke Golding for their annual stakeout - a great event with a BBQ, beer tent and live band with overnight camping. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay over, but planned to visit for the day and leave in the late afternoon.
The Met Office forecast was OK, although it did forecast heavy showers developing in the afternoon. Winds were to be 10knots up to 2,000' from 260deg. so I planned a route - Stoney to Studley South, to Draycot Water to Stoke Golding. It mean't keeping below 1,500' under Birmingham's stub to the south east until clear neer Coventry.
Lewis was to be P1 on the outward leg and I would fly the return, so my job was radio and navigation.
The take off was bumpy on the climbout and when we turned on track, it didn't get much better. Lewis had his hands full keeping the altimeter at 1,000' as the thermals would give us a big kick in the seat upwards, so Lewis had to keep the throttle moving to counter the thermal climb and the downdraft as we flew out of it.
We decided that the conditions weren't get any better so we diverted to Shotteswell to swap seats, turning south at Warwick and following the M40 south. Within a few minutes Shotteswell was in sight and the windsock was showing a stiff westerley as the airstrip is on the top of a ridge. Lewis decided to land on the westerley runway and did a great job getting us down.
We chatted to a resident pilot about the conditions and decided that I would take off on the much longer northerly runway. The idea was to get airborne early, but to keep in ground effect and accelerate to 70 knts before climbing our from below the trees, in the hope of getting through the worst of the effects of the crosswind and the rotor turbulence off the trees. Well the plan sounded good, but the rotor had the aircraft rolling left to right quite drastically and that is not good about 20' up, so I punched over the tree tops.
We climbed up to 1,500' and turned on track. The trip home took 40 minutes (usually 30) and the conditions didn't improve. As we approached Redditch, the usual bumps were more lively and the final approach to 26 was interesting. The aircraft was being flipped about as we decended on 'final', but the wind was straight down the runway, and as we got below the leve of the tree tops it wall went smooth and I made a 'greaser' of a landing, kissing the grass 20m in. Perfect!
Within a 20 minutes of landing the dark clouds approached over the field and within another 10 minutes it chucked it down!
Aircraft safely in the hangar, two pilots shaken but not stirred, and off home we go for tea and medals!
