Chilbolton pirep

Yesterday visited Chilbolton which is a very nice grass strip (400 m) under the Middle Wallop MATZ.

Viz was not great round London, felt like 5000, although probably in line with the TAFs of 8000. Did not have my Garmin 196 with me, so it was the usual ded reckoning, with Essex and Farnborough listening watch, or the local airports when near their ATZs. Attempted to contact Wycombe as I would be south of them and wanted some info on their gliding activity – as usual too busy to talk despite lots of breaks as they handled three aircraft – must have been complications with their tea making equipment.

White Waltham OTOH very helpful despite having what appeared to be more traffic.

Just over an hour to Chilbolton from Essex and landed in lovely sunshine on the grass strip with a nice headwind. There is a gap in the hedge on 06 and the Super Cub may have used around 60 m, so a few minutes taxiing to get to parking. Met with a local friend and less than five minutes was at The Greyhound in Stockbridge, which is a Michelin star pub and the food lived up to the reputation – total bill just over GBP20 a head.

After lunch headed back to Essex, and listened in on radar – the listening watch service is very good, and pilots on radio were only speaking to get either ATZ or MATZ clearances. Farnboro would call the occasional pilot on watch to advise them whether they were aware of CAS. Cuts down on unnecessary rabbit and may be one of the UK’s better policies.

Threading the airspace west of Heathrow is helped by the Thames, and only spotted one DA40 inbound to White Waltham near Henley on Thames – no doubt there were other aircraft about, but going round London VFR does expose you to these bottlenecks. The SC with an army greenhouse canopy helps on lookout, and spotted a helicopter north of Elstree. Both traffic sightings were similar level (1700 feet).

The headwind back made this closer to an hour and a half. Andrewsfield was quite and after a wheel landing (I suspect am not alone in alternating between three point and wheel landings to keep current), the SC was back in Hangar 1. One of the aircraft in Hangar 1 is being re engined so getting the aircraft out and back in took very little time.

As a social network tool the SC has been very good and practical – have caught up with friends for lunch in Yorkshire, Hampshire and Nottingham.

Hope to visit Aston Down in Gloucestershire soon.