Guernsey EGJB

Had a weekend in Guernsey with my girlfriend and some good friends of ours – a couple that live in the same village.

This was the first time I had filed IFR flight plans, and the first time using EuroFPL which worked very well.

I filed IFR for a few reasons. Firstly to learn something new, secondly because Jersey Control in their Class D tend to give VFR traffic a default clearance of ‘not above altitude 2,000ft’ and my experience is that one needs to be fairly assertive with them to get higher. I won’t go into why I think 2,000ft is not a safe altitude over the sea in an SEP and why I think it’s wilfully dangerous of them to try and make you do it. My assumption is that it greatly simplifies their management of the zone – VFR is below 2,000ft and is required to separate from each other so they can just give it a clearance to wherever it wants to go and then forget about it.

In the past I had dealt with the issue by calling them up (or asking Bournemouth or Solent to coordinate) and asking for IFR into the zone at FL60-80 despite being on a VFR flight plan. This always worked inbound, but it was obvious it was catching them on the hop and you can always tell from a controller’s tone when they are thinking “why on earth are you asking for that?” because it’s generally severe CAVOK. So I figured that if I filed IFR then they would be expecting it, or should be. Also no VFR departure from the Channel Islands really deals with the altitude issue – on one previous trip they were adamant it was not above 2,000ft to the zone boundary and I actually orbited over the island and refused to proceed north until I was given higher.

We were departing Enstone EGTN early in the morning to be ahead of a band of weather that was coming down slowly from the north west. I’d positioned the TB10 from White Waltham the evening before and flown an ILS for practice at Oxford on the way. The filed route to Guernsey was EGTN DCT OXLOW DCT MARUK DCT BRILL DCT EGJB at FL60.

We were off at 0630z (0730 local) and as we climbed through the first layer I called up London Info to activate the flight plan. They obviously had it to hand because they replied very quickly with a London Control squawk and to check that I was expecting an airways join somewhere near Compton. I replied no, the filed route was OCAS apart from the Channel Islands Class D at the end and that surprised him for a moment, then we flitted to Brize Zone briefly in case we couldn’t quite out-climb their zone (it’s up to 3,500ft and directly south of Enstone – we were at MTOW). Turns out we just got over it so they sent us on our way. No-one else worth getting a radar service from was on at this early hour, so we went back to London Info to check on the Salisbury Plain danger areas – as usual these were cold above 3,000ft so we could go straight through on our planned track. We started at 5,000ft between broken layers and stepped up twice to 5,500ft and FL60 to keep a nice view for the passengers, improve the TAS, and benefit from less southerly component in the wind. Speeds weren’t great though with the winds much as forecast.

London Info advised us that Bournemouth (my favoured radar service going across the channel in this area) weren’t officially online until 0730z but that he’d spoken to them and that they were happy for us to call them up. I thanked him and changed to Bournemouth, really good proactive service but I appreciate he probably didn’t have much else to do at that time in the morning. Bournemouth in fact didn’t answer the radio until about five minutes after their published opening time, by which time we’d already coasted out. They did coordinate with Jersey Zone though and everything worked nicely going into their zone, stepping down gradually and then the ILS 27 into Guernsey. Instrument arrivals into the Channel Islands also avoiding any waiting around – we heard VFR SEPs being asked to orbit and stay out of the way during our approach.

Brilliant service as ever from ASG. They marshalled us to their little apron, already had the GAR, promised to fuel us up to 60 litres a side (that’s the limit when four-up) and put the tug on to take the aircraft over to the GA apron. Out and into a taxi, dropped our bags at the hotel – the very nice Hotel de Havelet – and we were in St Peter Port in time for a late breakfast. All very civilised.

On Saturday we visited the castle, Castle Cornet, which is very good. A couple of hours there was enough and after that we basically rolled from meal to meal with a fair bit of wine thrown in. Everywhere was truly excellent, if not at all cheap.

On Sunday we resolved to eat less due MTOW concerns, and of course wine was not an option with the flight back. We took a boat trip to the island of Herm, which takes about 20 minutes each way and they just drop you on the island with a list of times that they’ll return. It was a fantastic place, great for just walking around on the grassland and the beaches and of course with fabulous views. The ladies put their swimwear on and went for a quick dip in the sea – it looked lovely but of course was very cold. The gentlemen thought better of it. The island had a couple of eateries and we grabbed a quick sandwich for lunch before heading back to St Peter Port early afternoon. Coffee at the hotel to wake up a bit – a day walking in the sun is quite tiring – and then a taxi back to ASG. Great service again – they’d even brought the aeroplane back down from the GA apron so it was right outside their hangar.

We were heading back to White Waltham as I’d left the car there on the Friday evening. Route back was EGJB DCT BRILL DCT ORIST DCT BEGTO DCT TEVSI DCT EGLM, again IFR at FL60 but with a step down to A050 over the Isle of Wight to remain clear of Class A. Filed for 1600z we got a CTOT for 1619 which came back to 1610 and then disappeared altogether. ASG were incredibly proactive – I already knew of the CTOT from an email from EuroFPL but when we pitched up they were ready with all the information too. Started up on time and we were pretty much the last to leave with the airport very quiet by this time. ORIST 1X departure and then out of the zone to contact Solent. I asked Jersey to coordinate but they came back and told me Solent were too busy for that so it was a freecall.

Solent Radar wasn’t busy in itself but it was combined with Southampton Tower and the attitude, despite being on an IFR flight plan which obviously penetrated their Class D (and had been directly addressed to their ZPZX and ZTZX) was not exactly helpful. To be fair to the guy he was probably just over-worked, but he didn’t know where either BEGTO or TEVSI were (both are close enough to his zone that he should know) so just gave me direct SAM. Stepped down to 3,500ft as we coasted in to stay underneath some scattered convective stuff, then both Solent and Farnborough refused to be drawn on the question of whether they could see much gliding activity at Lasham on their radar. In years gone by they would be very proactive, telling you roughly how much there was, where it was concentrated, and individual traffic calls if you got close. This time both used a presumably-standard line of “we don’t tend to see it very well on our radar”. This is pretty disappointing – evidently both these units have decided as a matter of policy that it’s too much hassle to bother with and GA can look after itself in that area. Nothing on ADSB though, nothing seen visually, and on seeing Lasham itself it didn’t look like there was any activity which was surprising given the conditions.

Back into White Waltham, tea and cakes, then a request to call Border Force – they had no GAR for us. Of course I’d submitted it to the NCU, so they asked me to forward it to an email address they gave me over the phone which bounced! I called him back and let him know, and while he was very nice and not at all demanding about it, the system (at their end) is obviously completely unfit for purpose.

A great trip all round – GA has great utility for the Channel Islands. There is simply no other way four people can get their that quickly, with so little hassle, and with so little per-person cost. Any commercial route, air or sea, from the UK is chewing up a minimum of half a day and costing a lot more.