(Second attempt, if you switch away to get a link you lose the original post – perhaps there is a draft button to save?)
On Monday took an old school friend up to Yorkshire to meet another veteran from School for lunch. In a modern car this would be a four to five hour drive each way, in the 72 VW 1300 you would need at least two days.
In the Super Cub with the last slack winds from the fantastic stationary high pressure we have enjoyed, the legs were just over two hours each. Will try and add photos when they are developed – pretty well stuck in an analogical time warp.
Departure at 0945Z with hard core IF3Rs (railways, roads, rivers, and some canals) and the trusty whiskey compass. Weather was initially scattered at 1,200’ but cleared up by Newmarket.
Listening watch on Essex and then a nice Stateside style ATC service from the good folk at Lakenheath. Why are they able to provide more service with less verbiage than some local ATC providers. Back to listening into Chatteris, checking for dropping -flew a few miles west downwind, but they are always quite active. More listening watch on Doncaster which seemed to be mainly handling IR training flights. Linton provided a nice service into Bagby which lies inside the Topcliffe MATZ – not very busy with only one Tucano departing for exercises over God’s own county.
Bagby is a wonderful grassroots field with the sort of undulating, grass runway with a nice up/downslope (2.4%, but I suspect this has been sanitised) which might make some of our more capable aircraft wince, or at least their insurance underwriters. The Super Cub exercised its bungee shock absorbers and the landing to observers seemed very smooth, in the cockpit it felt a bit more like well planted.
Impressively a Seneca 2 had flown in the day before, less impressively on a nefarious pharmaceutical cargo non AoC op.
Lunch was at a local pub (Crab and Lobster?), and was very good. Unfortunately was not able to exercise the 1950’s rule of one pint per leg on your qualifying cross country, so Diet Coke did for Yorkshire bitter.
The plan was for 1430Z ETD, but we were not airborne until 1505Z. Wonderfully milk smooth air with unlimited visibility, allowing navigation to revert to VFR. Literally picking out the medieval landmarks from York, to Lincoln Cathedral, to Ely Cathedral or the cooling towers of the monster CO2 coal fired generators on the Trent. South of Grantham a quick check of the Sunset table showed us landing with around 15 minutes to spare, fortunately the good folk at Andrewsfield were leaving the lights on.
The compass did become harder to read around Haverhill, and the rush hour arrivals at Stansted helped situational awareness. Arrival at Andrewsfield was nice and smooth with Peter manning the bar.
I do think if you have flexibility and can pick a nice day, these vintage taildraggers provide quite practical transportation, especially given their ability to use many more airfields.
The Super Cub joined the brace of Aeronca Chiefs in hangar one at Andrewsfield. I always imagine these old timers who are still very active, compare notes after being tucked away, probably with the odd friendly aspersion being cast towards their current keeper/operator.
Well told! Thanks for sharing! A notorious hater of (excessive use of) acronyms, I will note the term IF3Rs for future use – copyright will be honoured.
Regarding the Yorkshire bitter, I regret you went for the plan B. What could have happened had you gone for the real stuff, even if only a half pint? Myself surely would!
And you’ll excuse me to consider it dangerously tight planning, to arrive home a mere 15 minutes before sunset – but of course that is pilot’s discretion, too.
Your RPM gauge seems to work in the reverse sense!
flybymike I think that way it reminds you of the built in adverse yaw of the long wing vintage Pipers.
