Something a bit different from me today.
Last weekend I took advantage of a lovely afternoon to take “Harriet” my trusty AX3, on a long overdue familiarisation sortie to Blackpool Airport. I’d not been to Blackpool for a while and wanted to check out Green Planet Aviation‘s new café facility.
I’ve written a longer piece about the flight in general and more detail about Blackpool for June’s Microlight Flying magazine, but until then, here is a short review of the café as this kind of facility is well overdue at Blackpool and makes it a much more attractive place to fly in to and visit.
The flight was all quite simple and painless to arrange. A couple of calls; the first to Blackpool ATC (01253 472527) for PPR and the other to Green Planet Aviation (07518 896851) to arrange free parking at hangar 4. Note that there are some ATC restrictions in place at the moment due to staff shortages, so I planned my arrival and departure times with these in mind. They are publicised as NOTAMs and if you ask when you PPR you can make sure you are not stuck on the ground.
After take-off I realised that Blackpool would probably be on R28 (because of the westerly wind) so I decided to head for Poulton VRP hoping to get routed for a right base join. Approaching Poulton I contacted Blackpool Approach on 119.950. They were quite busy, but after a couple of “G-YL standby” responses I was indeed asked to join right base behind a Cessna on downwind.
No transponder? No problem, simply advise the ATCO “negative transponder”.
After landing way too soon on the huge runway 28 I had to push sneaky thoughts of taking off to get there quicker from my mind as I taxied the nearly 1 mile to reach the Delta taxiway.
After shutting down I was greeted by Bradley from Green Planet Aviation and he escorted me into the café adjacent to the hangar where Catie took payment for my landing fee (currently £12.30 including VAT for microlights) and served me a very tasty bacon barm and coffee, for a great price of £4.50. The café accepts card payments like most places do now, which makes it all stress free; plus, the ability to pay your landing fee there is also very helpful.
One word of warning though, don’t forget your Hi-Viz or the elf and safety police will want a word with you!
From the café there is a view over the airfield and based next door is the offshore oil rig helicopter too. Bradley tells me he has plans for a fly in soon and is also trying to arrange some outdoor seating to allow people to soak up the sun in summer whilst enjoying a brew. You can follow details of upcoming events on their Facebook page.
Reflecting on my trip I highly recommend a visit to Blackpool and in particular Green Planet Aviation’s café. Its nicely located, run by friendly people, has a nicely priced café menu and Blackpool ATC are very accommodating and helpful.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this short review. For the full story of this trip though I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for the June edition of your favourite flying magazine, Microlight Flying.
Dan Roach Flying Author 