The evening before was spent being spoiled by a jolly fine home cooked meal and being introduced to the intricacies of enroute flight planning across Europe. There are many offerings now which reduce the laborious manual flight planning that used to have to be done.
AFPEX is the offering from NATS, but is a little clunky I feel and I have not yet got to grips with it, despite submitting flight plans through it on my instrument course. Always happy to learn, if there are willing volunteers.
Flight Plan Pro is another useful resource and is the one I had paid most attention to prior to this trip.
EuroFPL is the third I have experience of and Steve clearly knows his way around the site. It produces plogs for the trip, along with the forecast winds and groundspeeds, which were remarkably accurate on both the outbound and return legs, to within 2 to 3 knots. Considering this was plogged on the Monday night and we came back on the Wednesday morning even more so. They can also give you NOTAMs and so on. They have started making a small charge for their services but you are still able to submit 10 flight plans a month for free.
The most difficult part of this type of airways flight planning is knowing what is an acceptable route to the Brussels computer and a lot of the pain is taken out of this by the likes of the above sites.
Morning dawned and last minute weather checks were made over a light and healthy breakfast. A short drive later and I was being introduced to the Malibu. Leather clad seats, pressurised cabin and an avionics fit that would make most light GA pilots weep. Not the place for a bored deviant with buttons and switches everywhere.
Closing the doors on the Malibu is not the same as on a training type single. Not a case of slamming the door and maybe moving a lever. It is a delicate operation requiring steps to be lifted (and not dropped or the result of the twisting overstretched hinges would be very expensive) and locked into place, before lowering the top half of the door and securing so that you have two greens showing. This indicates that you are doors closed securely and pressurisation should happen, everything else equal.
It is a tight squeeze into the front seats but oh so worth it. The view out is somewhat letterbox’ish but adequate for the type of flight intended. You would not use this aeroplane for a low level bimble around the local area. The view inside is a huge progression from what I am used to, with dials for everything, a couple of GNS 530’s and an Avidyne display too. It has weather radar and also TCAS, which also feeds onto the 530.
The flight plan had been entered the previous day, but consisted of a series of airways waypoints, those 5 letter named points that the big boys navigate by, designated by blue triangles on charts. I was to become familiar with skipping through the FPL option as we were given routings that jumped two or even three waypoints ahead, sometimes up to 200 miles away. Unheard of in visual navigation, certainly in the UK.
Departure clearance obtained, we lined up for a COWLY 23 departure, climbing to 500’ before turning left onto a heading to intercept a radial from HON before intercepting a radial from DTY at a set distance which would then put us at the correct distance along that radial to be at COWLY. Initially cleared to an altitude, we were swiftly handed over to London Control and were asked to be at level at FL190 by COWLY and to advise if not possible. I had been handed control after the first left hand turn and was thoroughly enjoying seeing the altimeter wind up past FL100 (the highest I have ever flown myself and that was in a C152!).
The Malibu flew beautifully. Like most aeroplanes, once she was trimmed she only required soft and gentle inputs to fly heading and maintain rate of climb. Maintaining 110 knots kept an acceptable rate of 800fpm whilst keeping some cooling available for the engine and any turns we made gave a sense of solidity yet fluidity about the airframe.
Levelling off, the speed was quickly at 140 knots IAS. Dialling in the outside air temperature gave us around 195 knots TAS. The headwind was to turn to a tailwind on the way down to the south coast of France, so we expected some reasonable groundspeeds.
We passed WOD with the autopilot engaged as I would gain far more from this trip by concentrating on radio work and how IFR Nav works on a long trip, than by putting in undue effort to maintain height and heading for 3 hours straight and level. I happened to glance at the VFR GPS 496 on my lap as we passed Midhurst and gained photographic evidence as we passed directly overhead my house nearly 4 miles up and at 200mph. Nothing seen as we were in cloud at the time, but simple things….
It took me a while to tune into the French accent, but was rapidly adapting to being cleared two or three waypoints ahead as we coasted in and travelled south through France, past Paris until we broke cloud just south of Lyon to see the Alps off to our left and the Massif Central off to our right. It was not long until I was requesting descent when available due to the tailwind and we switched to the Nice controller passing FL120, descending FL110.
Further descent given to FL90 and we were gazing at the sparkling blue Mediterranean in the bay of St Tropez whilst looking for the Airbus holding 1000’ below us. They do look big as they turn towards you and appear out front at a stones throw away. As the Airbus left FL80 to be radar vectored onto the Nice ILS, hardly necessary in today’s weather as we could see the runway from our vantage point, so we were descended and vectored wide out above the ocean.
An eventual expedite descent to A2000’ saw us at 250 knots groundspeed. To me it looked awfully fast as I anticipated the level off nervously. I needn’t have worried. The Malibu behaved as it should. Power retarded enough to slow down, but not enough to shock cool the engine, we were soon at a sensible 120 knots and headed for a visual approach over Cannes Bay for downwind join for the southerly runway. Down to 1100’ and aware of the crosswind, Steve took over for a base turn onto a final approach.
I love the arrival at Cannes. This was my second visit, the first being in my beloved group Cessna 152 some 4 and a half years beforehand. It is a grand looking tower, with business jets dominating the apron you use for taking on fuel. Hills to one side, the town of Cannes on another and the bay to the south. Looking north the land rises to the mountains that become the Alps.
Having met the owner of the fine aeroplane, we squeezed the 3 of us into his Audi TT and Steve and I were dropped off to our resting place for the night.
A quick refresh and we had most of the afternoon to ourselves so elected to wander along the craggy clifftop before pausing for a beer and a coffee at a beach bar in a sandy cove.
Suitably refreshed it was back along the cliffs to stand and stare at the numerous boats that fill the several marinas to capacity. Some like more power at the back of their boats than others!
More beer, more coffee, more gazing at the view across the bay, before taking up a path along the river edge. The path got narrower and almost petered out at one point before bringing us out into another large inland marina, surrounded by affluent looking apartments, topped with magnificent penthouses.
Follow our noses took priority from this point and we eventually arrived back at the very street that our hotel was in, all done without the aid of fancy GPS units and charts, just out inbuilt compass to guide the way.
Suitably impressed we plumped for dinner on the seafront. October and dining outside do not compute when you have travelled for only 3 hours from the British coast. Very pleasant it was too, once the flies had decided they had pestered enough for one evening.
After a welcome night of rest, it was up and out to enjoy a relaxed café au lait in the opulence of the terminal at Cannes Mandelieu Airport. We had been lucky to get a taxi as there was a large conference on in town and most were busy ferrying the executives around. Yet the airport was more or less deserted, in common with most French airports I have been to I have to say.
The owner of the Malibu was flying the leg back home to Coventry which allowed me the luxury of admiring the view most of the way back.
There are not many airports that have such a memorable view on take off. Climbing to FL210 took around 25 minutes by which time we were being treated to the most amazing views. The weather had really cooperated. Unlimited visibility allowed me to look backwards and see the French south coast whilst also getting a good view of the Matterhorn and the Alpine scenery surrounding it. There really are some impressive views to be savoured on a day like this one.
As we passed the Matterhorn, so the view was taken up by the presence of Mont Blanc on one side.
The other side was spectacular mountain scenery followed by a wonderfully chart like view of Grenoble.
Chambery came into view, then Lyon. I watched amused as an airliner crawled along like an ant many thousands of feet below intercepting the ILS.
We entered cloud before I had the opportunity to see Paris from the air. At one stage, in a break between layers, I was able to watch a Lear Jet streak across left to right across our nose, confirmed by Paris and TCAS as 1000’ below. I watched him climb rapidly once ATC had the required separation from us for him. At those speeds it doesn’t take long!
In the usual French fashion we were handed to London prior to us coasting out above the English Channel. Good to know it is not only VFR flights they get rid off as quickly as possible.
The cloud cleared as we approached Biggin Hill and I was like a teenage spotter. Commercial traffic neatly lined up on approach to Gatwick, departing traffic climbing away. Looking out the other window neatly lined up inbounds to Heathrow along with a multitude of others climbing away to far away places. A backdrop of CBs and some requests for deviations due weather added to the occasion.
The Thames stretched out lazily beneath us. London City Airport, Biggin Hill, Redhill, Gatwick all visible from this vantage point. The Thames Barrier, the O2 Dome, Buckingham Palace, the multitude of bridges, all laid out to sit and gawp at like an overawed school kid again.
Then a turn to the north west with the tailwind making for some impressive groundspeeds again and a good view of cloud streets.
A deviation of 20 degrees to keep us out of the worst of the developing CBs and a descent given which was gratefully received. Again at maximum speed, trying to combine a rapid descent to allow us to fly as straight in an approach as possible, whilst maintaining cylinder head temperatures and avoiding shock cooling. It wasn’t helping not having those airbrakes. We passed through the edge of one of the CBs and the whole world turned to ice as the windscreen iced over in the blink of an eye. It cleared as quickly once we vacated the cloud a few seconds later. Humbled by the power of Mother Nature as ever.
It is a fast approach when you are dumped out of the airways and the “airspace where there be dragons” whilst battling height loss and engine cooling and working out your approach. No procedural holds here, just radar vectors for the ILS. We were visual below 2000’ after threading our way between the lower level cumulus and a lovely landing later the trip was over…
…well, almost…
Supping a cuppa back at Steve’s house he quipped that it was a shame we were wasting such a beautiful day by not flying. Had I ever been flying in the Maule? Erm, nope!
Five minutes up the road we were pulling out the Maule from the hangar. Steve demonstrated a textbook take off and handed me control with the instruction to head east. So we did. We headed for a reservoir and Steve commented that we may drop into his favourite strip. Indeed he would love to buy the property but like most of us simply does not have that sort of cash floating around in his bank account.
Pittsford is a picturesque strip on the southern edge of the reservoir. It is challenging, with a pronounced hump at the point that one would like to land. It also acts as a slightly premature launch deck on departure. Beautiful setting; absolutely stunning.
Back at Dav International I was given the order to grab the aeroplane by the scruff of the neck or she would get away from me. So I did. I seem to attract a crosswind at this strip, but the Maule handles it well. It has oodles of power if you do need to go round….and I did on the first attempt.
I got out of the aeroplane grinning like an idiot. Two extremes of flying in just over 24 hours. What enormous fun.
