Eurostar to Nowhere

The gap was definitely getting smaller. That much was certain.  Looking at the ever narrowing piece of sky between the forbidding soft clouds above and the extremely unsoft moors below, I idly wondered if anyone had ever successfully flown a Eurostar through a letterbox before and came to the conclusion that they probably hadn’t. And that I didn’t want to be the first to try either.

I’d not been flying for a month and with the onset of winter I was fully expecting today to be a day of disappointment too.  Last year I managed a grand total of zero hours during November and was hoping to, at the very least, improve on that this year.

During September and October I had, for one reason and another, ended up exclusively flying the Ikarus with no Eurostar time.  This was partly down to aircraft availability when I wanted to fly and also because for my smaller passengers  the Ikarus affords a much better view of the ground below, because the wings are strapped to the top of the fuselage, not underneath it.

Today however, I had taken the precaution of inviting no one.

It was ‘Eurostar time’.

It was my time.

I still remember the first time I set eyes on Victor Tango back in February of 2014.  The sleek pressed aluminium fuselage.  The top opening canopy. The conventional flight controls with the control column positioned between the pilots legs.

This wasn’t a microlight.  This was a small fighter plane. Or at least it was in my eyes.

I even liked the fact that you have to climb up onto the wing to get down into the cockpit, just like a jet fighter.

Once positioned in the cockpit you strap yourself in with the 4 point harness and lower the canopy whilst trying hard not think phrases from Top Gun like

“Launch the alert five aircraft”.

Back to today.  I had decided to fly out over the hills towards Todmorden.  There is a VOR (a navigational aid) there called Pol Hill that I used during my navigation training in the latter part of 2014.  I wondered if I could still find it without using GPS.  I then planned to take in ‘Huddersfield International’, a small airstrip on the top of the Pennines and also at 825 feet above sea level, one of the highest airfields in the country, before heading back to Barton.

Today was all about just flying for the pure pleasure: no practice emergencies, no land aways, no circuits, just flying.

Lining up on Runway 26R I applied full power. Lurching forwards you could tell that Victor Tango was desperate to get into the skies.  I do enjoy flying the Ikarus but I always forget how fast the Eurostar climbs when there is only one person on board.  Not quite astronaut like, but fast. Fast enough to put the ‘Eurostar grin’ on my face at any rate.

I left the circuit heading North East enjoying the view and the sunshine although I mentally noted the clouds ahead. Nothing to worry about at this stage though.

Overhead Rochdale I performed a couple of circuits of my daughter’s school noticing that they were out for playtime and might like to see an aeroplane.  I bet none of them even looked up, they were probably too busy playing ‘kiss chase’ or whatever kids play these days.

Turning back on track after about 5 minutes I was greeted with the clouds.  Not just a few clouds. No.  This was a lot of cloud. I could see there were plenty of big gaps to get back down though it so I thought I’d have a look at going above it. Just to see.

Power on.

At 3200 feet though I admitted defeat.  The top of the cloud was probably about 3700 feet, which is 200 feet inside Manchester Aiports TMA, the bit of airspace that is reserved for the controllers at Manchester to marshal the sky buses into order for landing.

They aren’t too keen on you interfering in that task.  I figured that “because I wanted to have a look on top of the fluffy white clouds” wouldn’t be too well received by the Civil Aviation Authority as an excuse so I ceased climbing and resuming my track descended back underneath in the murky gloom away from the brilliant blue sky I had just been enjoying.

“Terrain, terrain!” screamed the ever cheerful Mr Garmin.

I knew about the terrain.  I could see it.  Fortunately, it was not as close as my electronic navigator thought it to be though, as his altimeter is preset to a sea level pressure setting of 1013hPa.  Today’s pressure setting was actually 1022hPa.  In English this means that the pressure at sea level was higher than the GPS unit thought it was.  This in turn means that we were higher than he thought we were too.  About 250 feet higher as it happens.

However, the gap between the bottom of the clouds and the top of the hills was definitely narrowing.  In fact I was starting to feel claustrophobic. After considering this for all of 5 seconds, I turned my Eurostar south, towards the light.

I glanced to the East to see if I could make it to Huddersfield. Nope. No chance.

I hadn’t got to where I was going. Damn.  But at least I lived to fly another day.  Flying into worsening conditions or pushing on to achieve what you set out to is a sure fire way to end up dead.  Especially over high ground.  You only have to look at the many World War Two period aircraft wrecks  in the Peak District to realise that.  If you enter cloud and you are uncertain of your position, things can very quickly go wrong when you are near the edge of the air.

Much better to turn around and live.  As the saying goes “There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots”.

On the plus side, apart from not being dead, I did take some great photo’s; I’ve even submitted one to the Microlight Flying photo competition for January’s issue.  Fingers crossed…

 

I also had a great hour flying Victor Tango again.  The weather conditions (when I got back from cloud land) were perfect.  Lovely still air, clean skies, and a beaming sun which matched my smile.

Copyright © 2016 Dan Roach