Local to Sandown

Is Shanklin worth visiting?

Not really. I was there in early June. The old part of town consists of a handful of thatched houses and that‘s it. Plus there is the Chine.. The beach is the same as in Sandown.

Thank you for this. Is Shanklin worth visiting? We’re thinking about getting the bus there next time we go to Bembridge.

I enjoyed reading the original report from 9 years ago. Are @CKN and @geekyflyer still around?

Rather glorious thread resurrection, am wondering how close to the founding of EuroGA this was?

Just returned from EGHN where the owner has made it a popular destination with community events and a popular restaurant. The runway is turf with supporting mesh and can be quite undulating, so recommend soft field take off. While the surface may not suffer from extreme water logging, I understand parking can be limited if there has been rain. They get visited by PC-12 airplanes, and have an LofA from Border Control. The airfield is uncontrolled/unlicensed but the radio was manned when we used it. While the overhead join is recommended, other airplanes were joining straight to downwind, and there is a need to build situational awareness as circuit etiquette appeared to be first come first served.

Ground staff very helpful and friendly, and landing fee and overnight came to £32. AvGas was £2.69p/litre.

We stayed at Haven Hotel, five minutes away by taxi. A lot of money has been spent on landscaping and refurbishing the hotel, which has swimming pool, extensive grounds and excellent views, but no restaurant (breakfast yes). Shanklin and Sandown not that well served by restaurants, and getting around without a car means mini cabs.

My wife enjoyed the trip as door to door from IoW to Oxford was under an hour, with only 30 minutes airborne. We came back threading our way OCAS (Solent and Odiham), although outbound we used Bournemouth who are reliable in providing a service, and also arrange a service to cross Solent.

The other lesson for us all (whatever our level of experience) is that everything is daunting until you try it

Second that.

I was lucky that I had instructors that pushed me and not just taught me to pass an exam. I have learned more from shared experiences than I could ever learn on my own. Plan the Flight and Fly the Plan! Keep the reports coming.

P.s. God that sounds like BS Bingo… but I assure you it isnt.

The other lesson for us all (whatever our level of experience) is that everything is daunting until you try it. Sure prepare well and take precautions, but equally get out and fly. It is even easier the second time!

Another excellent report and I second the comment made earlier that it’s nice to read VFR reports – and especially from less experienced pilots too. These type of trips seem much more within my grasp at my current ability level, so do keep them coming!

Thanks guys! Beautiful pictures. These trip reports are always very inspiring!

CKN, good report! thanks for posting.
A quick note about the nav software I was using:

I had purchased air nav pro prior the flight with the UK 500k maps, all for only around £30 on nexus 7(they have a discount going on). Feeling really confident that I could pin point our exact location on the map, I decided to squeeze through the gap between Wycombe ATZ and Heathrow CTA.

As soon as we took off the air nav pro app decided to kill the GPS. At that moment I thought ‘I should have spent that £30 on beer’. Without the gps working I decided to go around to the west of Wycombe as suggested by one of the instructors. When we leveled up, i turned off air nav pro and switched on UK AirspaceAVOID (the free app). GPS regained the signal back in about 10 seconds and continued working flawlessly throughout the entire trip.

Later I experimented with air nav pro on the ground and noticed that as soon as you start moving it looses the GPS signal. This was happening only with this app (gps works fine with any other app). I contacted the developer company and it seems they are aware of this issue and they’re fixing it in the next release. They also gave me a link to install the previous version which doesn’t seem to suffer from this. I tried this on the ground and it does seem to work ok. But It does feel like air nav pro was rushed to get it to work with Andriod. The company is saying they have hired new developers and they expecting a release end of June with lots of bug fixes.