The purpose of this trip was purely about the flying and getting some hours on the twin, but trying to visit some more interesting airfields that wouldn’t be too expensive and we’d be able to do some different instrument approaches.
The aircraft is a 2008 DA42 Twinstar and has the FIKI TKS system, auxiliary tanks (not needed by us) and GFC700 autopilot as well as the normal G1000 avionics suite.
Our route was adapted by the weather as on the morning of departure there was some significant weather/CB’s over the north east of Scotland and Orkney islands, but predicted to move further east during the day. Originally we had planned to get the long leg to Inverness out of the way, but instead opted to reverse our plan and head to Blackpool, Islay and Dundee.
We departed Gloucester IFR into a low cloud base and rain, but quickly got up on top without needing to deploy the TKS yet. Initially we were sent to TELBA and then offered a shortcut direct WAL at FL100, however since the purpose was of the trip was to get as many MEP hours as possible for Lauren, we asked to maintain our filed route STAFA, NANTI, WAL which was accommodated. As we reached Blackpool the weather had improved to scattered clouds with bases around 2000ft but the airfield was very quiet, probably due to the doom laden forecast. With it being so quiet, Blackpool were happy to accommodate us holding and doing a couple of RNP approaches for practice.
I hadn’t been to Blackpool before, but would certainly visit again. For the twin, with two approaches we paid a total of £58.08.
Annoyingly when we landed ATC informed us that our flight plan to Islay, generated with Autorouter was stuck in “Suspend”, however we handily bumped into a charter crew in the operations room who informed us that RIBEL would be a “normal” airways join point from Blackpool, so we hacked a route together using the airways charts which got accepted. At this point the radar picture was showing a few cells over the Lake District, but having been airborne shortly before we opted to depart knowing that they would be visible out of the window and we could avoid tactically if needed.
Once in the air we had good sight of the weather ahead which was all sitting over the peaks of the Lake District, but Scottish Control were very accommodating to get us around them and various danger areas, giving us plenty of route options. Eventually we got around the back of the weather and were cleared direct the MAC VOR which was to be our descent point into Islay. We had pre-briefed that the winds at Islay, directly out of the north and gusting may preclude a landing (the DA42 has a 20kt xwind limit) so we had Oban as an alternate and made multiple checks of the surface wind with the FISO at Islay on the way in. Thankfully, they stayed stayed just inside the limits and we landed off of the RNP runway 31 without bending anything.
As usual the welcome from the HIAL airport team was fantastic. The terminal was deserted since they only have one commercial flight per day, but we got a nice view of the island from the tower and the fire crew made us coffee and shared their biscuits. Total charges, £5.18!
Next stop, Dundee!
Blackpool to Islay video
Thanks. For what reason does one ever need to „build hours“ in a piston twin? For insurance reasons?
To instruct on MEP you need 30 PIC. One of the many shortages we have in the U.K. at the moment is ME/IR instructors. There are not many ways (paid jobs) to get MEP time without hiring one and flying it yourself, which at the cost is not helping the supply side.
Great report 
Scotland is a great place to fly. You just need good wx.
Annoyingly when we landed ATC informed us that our flight plan to Islay, generated with Autorouter was stuck in “Suspend”
Did you ever find out why?
To instruct on MEP you need 30 PIC. One of the many shortages we have in the U.K. at the moment is ME/IR instructors. There are not many ways (paid jobs) to get MEP time without hiring one and flying it yourself
Oshkosh trip
Peter wrote:
Did you ever find out why?
Annoyingly not! Actually when we landed at Blackpool I also saw that our flight out of Gloucester was in the same state. Gloucester handle a lot of IFR training traffic and know the aircraft and owner well so suspect they proactively sorted this with London for us. The only difference only that route we got was that our initial clearance was to TELBA which is outside of CAS ?? Once with London they happily let us fly the original route and cleared us to STAFA inside of CAS.
We had no other issues on the remaining legs, all IFR and generated with Autorouter. Will add a bit more to this thread on the remaining legs later on when I get done with real work.
Islay to Dundee
After the fire crew had fortified us with coffee and biscuits we departed IFR to Dundee routing BRUCE FINDO PTH. We started at FL50 and while we were not picking up any ice and there was little turbulence the view was not particularly great/there was none, so seeing sunshine not far above we asked for a climb up to FL70 to try and get on top. At this point we were outside of CAS and Scottish Information suggested we free call Scottish Control who were very accommodating with a pop-up clearance that got us back up into the sunshine. Eventually we were transferred to Leuchars who put us on vectors briefly while they organised our request for the RNP at Dundee which was duly given.
At Dundee we flew the RNP to minimums, a go around, back to the hold, the ILS and then spent an hour bimbling around the local area VFR seeing the sights before heading back in. We had pre-arranged parking (we don’t park the DA42 on grass) and fuel with Dundee and were parked on the main apron with a King Air, later to be joined by a LoganAir ATR.
Fuel arrived quickly and they were happy just to invoice for this, the same being true for the landing and parking, which we found rather trusting!
The airport is convenient for the city and is walkable, but having been flying all day and pretty hungry we opted for a short taxi ride. There are a number of reasonably priced hotels on the waterside. We took the Premier Inn due to the flexible cancellation policy. We managed to get some surprisingly good Italian food a 5 minute walk from the hotel and retired early ready to be away early to Kirkwall in the morning.
Video link for the IFR part tomorrow, but here is a quick edit of the VFR part.
