Summer trip to the Isle of Wight, Devon and Guernsey

To counter the current void of GA content here, one last trip report from this year. This was a flight undertaken in the middle of June, from Aschaffenburg (EDFC), near Frankfurt, to the south and southwest of England, and to Guernsey.

Everybody (except those who hardly fly or fly no more) can do these little trip reports; just compile a few photos and add in a few details of touristic of operational nature to inspire some interesting discussion and create learning points for others. Doesn’t have to be long.

This trip was planned to take four days. From the forecasts, me and my flying buddy we knew that the weather would be fantastic for the first two days, mediocre on the third day and iffy on the last day. Thinking that this is an acceptable mix for a flight to the west of England, we eventually gave it a go decision. Our first lunch stop would be Bembridge (EGHJ), on the Isle of Wight.

Here is the (autorouter) filed IFR routing, at FL100:

Refuelling the aircraft at Aschaffenburg here. Whilst we refuelled, a policeman arrived and checked our passports. This works really well at EDFC and doesn’t anything extra. The UK GAR was filed using OnlineGAR.

Nice weather all around.

Let’s go. The aircraft is a 2006 182T, with non-WAAS G1000 and KAP140.

After departure, Reinheim gliding airfield in sight. Look how dry it looked, even though it was only the middle of June! At that moment, were working on picking up the IFR clearance. In the south of Frankfurt, this sometimes leads to some detour or a few more minutes of low-level flying.

But minutes later, we were quickly cleared up to FL100. Hahn (EDFH):

Always a beautiful sight: River Mosel.

Büchel (ETSB).

And here we are overhead Brussels. Brussels is an interesting city; from the air, it looks huge. But actually, the city of Brussels is rather small… only 180.000 inhabitants – less than many other unknown European cities. Therefore, much of what you see in the photo will be neighbouring municipalities, which have grown into the Brussels metropolitan area (1.2 million inhabitants).

Reaching the coast, a little east of Dunkerque.

Routing via KONAN, as usual on these IFR crossings.

As I have reported previously, the cruise efficiency of these newer, fuel injected 182s is not all that bad: 140 KTAS on 11.8 GPH at this level.

The Cliffs of Dover. As we were maintaining FL100, this was not so good for sightseeing, but of course we enjoyed the calm, cool air and good performance up there.

The Seven Sisters.

By the way, a few minutes later, an interesting thing happened: we requested descent and were subsequently cleared. When passing FL80 or so, whilst still in class A, London Control handed us over to London Information, with the usual “squawk conspicuity”. We called London Information, who took us on, but a minute or so later, asked again about our position and level. After this was provided, the FISO noticed that we were still in class A, and handed us back over to Control, who then kept us on his frequency for a few more minutes until we were below 5500 feet and therefore definitely in class G. Then we were asked to go back to FIS.

The beautiful area just east of the Isle of Wight.

Approaching the Isle of Wight via White Cliff Bay. One of the most beautiful approaches Europe has on offer on a sunny summer day like that.

After landing, we parked next to this other Cessna. Its pilot was just returning to the aircraft, after having taken a swim in the sea. Since we still had an hour to spare before it was time for lunch, we did the same. The direct footpath towards the bay is over private lands (fields and a caravan park), but pilots are usually tolerated.

A lovely swim it was. We then headed back to the airfield for a light lunch at the Propeller Inn.

Our further plan was to spend two nights in Dorset, in the general Exeter / Torbay area. The problem in the planning phase was rental cars. This was particularly difficult and expensive in the summer of 2022. In the end, our best option was to fly to Dunkeswell (EGTU), where a small local car rental company (“To-An-Fro”) had offered to deliver a car to the airfield and offered a half-decent price. So that’s where we headed. A delightful VFR flight along the coast was in the cards. Obviously, no flightplan was necessary.

A nice Piper Aztec had arrived at Bembridge in the meantime, which just had to photograph.

Wheels off, and further west we go.

In fact, the first bit of the flight was challenging due to the all the controlled airspace in the Solent and Bournemouth areas. We then reached the first optical highlight, the Old Harry Rocks.

Poole Harbour, Sandbanks, and Poole. One of the most beautiful areas of southern England.

After Poole Harbour, one gets into what is called “The West Country” in England. People from the southeast tend to say it with a tone that makes it sound like something remote, far away and wild…. In any case, it is beautiful, particularly from 2000 feet in a 182, with endless beaches, cliffs and small towns in between.

Just east of Sidmouth, we turned inland for our landing at Dunkeswell. Here we are, crossing the beautiful Branscombe airfield.

Like virtually all British GA airfields with hard runways, Dunkeswell is ex-RAF, and therefore has the characteristic layout with three crossing runways (of which two remain in use today).

It has quite a lot of traffic, and almost as expected, the traffic preceeding us was flying one of those bomber type circuits well outside the ATZ, so we had to slow down and follow him, but it was not a big problem. Just need to be prepared for it.

We parked up on the spotless grass, unloaded and headed for the flying school’s reception, where the friendly people immediately handed us the key of our FIAT 500.

First, we made a short stop at Exeter (25 minutes drive from Dunkeswell). The Quayside is nice, as well as the Cathedral and its immediate surroundings. Otherwise, nothing too charming.

We then drove another 30 minutes to Torquay, on the “English Riviera”, where we had booked a hotel for the night. It’s a place that used to be a very popular holiday destination for the British starting in the 19th century, thanks to its mild climate, which allows even palm trees to exist. In fact it is a beautiful area there, but the town itself is slightly run down and it was difficult to find a decent restaurant for dinner.

The next day was supposed to be gorgeous summer day, with temperatures of almost 30 degrees. We started it by exporing the beautiful residential outskirts of Torquay…

… but then headed down south, towards our main destination for the day, Dartmouth. Dartmouth is a very picturesque town that is located – you guessed it – near the mouth of the River Dart. It is quintessential Devon. To get there coming from the north, one has to take cable ferry across the river.

We really liked it. Good restaurants available, too. It reminded me of Salcombe (which is another 30 miles south), but is bigger.

At the Dartmouth Castle.

Just a few more miles to the south, we found a beautiful big beach (Blackpool Beach).

This is as far south as we went, before turning around. In order to be close enough to Dunkeswell to be able to depart early the next morning, we had booked a hotel in Sidmouth, a few miles east of Exeter, and about 20 minutes south of Dunkeswell. So that is where he headed and eventually booked in at our hotel. After that, we headed to the beach for another swim (it was still almost 30 degrees) and a few well deserved late afternoon drinks. It must be said that while the coast itself is beautiful, the coastal towns to the east of Exeter appear to be much more basic and "fish and chips-like“ than those of the Torbay area to the west.

Anyway, we later had a good dinner at a nice old gastro-pub and that concluded the best day of the trip (despite, or because of being a non-flying day? ).

The next morning, we woke up to grey overcast skies and even a few drops of drizzle. But this was all as expected. Thanks to the excellent weather forecasts we have these days, we knew this would be the case that morning, even well before departing from home. It was coming from the northwest, however, there was no real “weather” to be expected yet. Plus, our plan was to head to Guernsey next, which was a bit further south, so we were hoping for at least a decent day over at the Channel Islands. This destination was chosen not only because the CIs are always nice, but of course also because of the cheap (relatively speaking) 100LL. It was the first time we would need fuel after leaving from the Frankfurt area.

What has to be noted is that Dunkeswell aerodrome sits at 839 feet MSL. So, the overcast at roughly 1000 feet that we had at Sidmouth meant that at the airfield, the clouds were almost “on the deck”. Hence, almost nothing was going on there that morning. But the nice thing in the UK is that no Flugleiter or BfL cares what the weather is. One just takes off. So, we left the keys of our rental car at the counter, paid our moderate landing and parking fees and started preparing the aircraft.

Our flightplan was filed as “I”, and we chose to route via Berry Head VOR (BHD, located just where we had been the day before) in order to stay clear of the Lyme Bay Danger Areas and also to remain in gliding distance of land for as long as possible.

After departure, we climbed to FL60. All uncontrolled airspace there below FL65. The flight was mostly on top of a more or less continuous cloud layer, so there was not so much to see. Still, a very pleasant, short and rewarding morning flight to get us out of the mucky weather.

Here is Dartmouth.

Approaching Guernsey, we entered their controlled airspace and flew the RNP approach to runway 09.

As predicted, the weather wasn’t really IFR, but there was still a little bit of low cloud around as we overflew the beaches on the western side of Guernsey, on a three mile final.

Guernsey still works very well for GA. ASG parks you somewhere convenient for them with their limited space and take care of all the rest, including the refuelling. Also, Guernsey accepts the GAR as you arrive. You just hand the paper to the ASG staff and they put in onto the old fax machine in their office – done. (Note: Jersey does NOT accept this; you have to send the GAR to the aeroclub before departure).

We then took a bus and headed to our hotel in St. Peter Port, which was slightly up the hill and delightful. It was also not expensive. It’s called “Les Cotils” and can be booked via booking.com. It also has a nice garden. Recommended.

We then strolled down into the town centre and walked about on High Street a bit, before having a late morning cappuccino at the Terrace Garden Cafe, which has nice views over the harbour and across to Herm and Sark.

Guernsey has excellent bus links all across the island. A car is really not needed. We took one of these buses to Fermain Bay, just a few miles south of St. Peter Port. Generally speaking, the undulating southeastern bit of Guernsey is the best part of the island. I previously went to Fermain Bay deep in the winter, and now it was time to go there in summer.

The enchanting Fermain Bay Hotel.

And a few meters further down, the Fermain Bay Cafe, where we had a nice little lunch alfresco.

This area of Guernsey also has very nice walks on offer. We decided to walk south, towards the very southeasterly tip of the island, St. Martin’s Point. Takes about 30-40 minutes, with beautiful views, and is not too demanding, so just right for me.

Afterwards, we headed back to St. Peter Port and first walked to the Castle, then eventually headed back to the hotel.

We then did the final planning and flightplanning for day 4, the last of our trip. We knew that some bad (convectivce) weather would be coming, and likely be lying somewhat across the Channel the next morning.

This wasn’t so good, as our flight home would hug the French coast for a while (to avoid Paris), before heading inland towards Belgium. Flying to the south of Paris would have been a big detour, and likely would not have solved all our weather problems. We also decided that any intermediate lunch stop along the way wouldn’t make much sense. After all, we would need a port of entry coming from the CI, and we all know that this is a problem in France these days (at least without PNs). We also didn’t fancy a stop in Belgium (plus there are no GA-friendly ports of entry in southern Belgium anyway). So, we decided to make the flight back to Frankfurt in one go. Thanks to a good tailwind, it wouldn’t take much longer than three hours after all. We therefore decided to take a leisurely breakfast the next morning, check the weather again and depart by about 10:00.

Here is the routing we filed:

Waking up the next morning, I checked the weather immediately and, much as expected, saw that it had already arrived over the Channel Islands and the French coast. This was confirmed by a look outside the hotel window. It was grey, it was howling and it was raining.

However, was really not sure where and how the weather was effectively moving, and whether it would be intensifying or not. After consulting with my flying buddy, as a matter of prudence, we decided to skip breakfast (we wouldn’t really be relaxed anyway) and take a taxi to the airport as soon as possible, to have as many options as possible. However, we had another problem: we had a CTOT (due to the weather, of course) which would effectively delay us to our originally planned departure time. Anyway, we were hoping for slot improvements and headed out. Again, ASG was great. They had moved the aircraft as close to their hangar as possible, so that we wouldn’t get all too wet. As you may imagine, our walkaround was kept short („oil and fuel checked, let’s hop in“). We were sat in the aircraft 50 minutes before our CTOT and called the tower with a ready message. But a bit as expected, nothing ever happened with our slot. So in the end, we sat there for almost an hour, which was doubly regretted, because we feared this could make us lose an important time advantage with the weather. However, as we the had time, we checked the weather again in the cockpit several times, and after all, it did not look so bad. The showers/CBs were rather isolated, and outside of these, we would likely be able to fly between layers, and therefore have no icing risk.

Eventually, we were able to take off and soon after departure, at FL90, we were in between these layers and able to see any weather ahead. Our filed route was the usual one and took us via Caen, Dieppe and Abbeville. Hardly any routing changes were required for weather. Still, it was a bit of work for the first hour or so.

But after passing Abbeville, we were eventually clear of all the weather, and it was only supposed to become better and warmer ahead as we „overtook“ the front again and flew towards the remaining high pressure area that was now centered over Germany. Plus, we had that nice tailwind to boot, which pushed us through towards Belgium in no time.

Here is a pic of the nice town of Namur.

Nothing much else happened on the remainder of the flight. We landed uneventfully in 36 degrees heat (one of hottest days in Germany this summer), feeling a sense of accomplishment and being happy about this trip.

We washed the aircraft, had a cold drink at the airfield restaurant at EDFC and called it a day.