Tor Khan, one of Sara Whites Blues dance crew, was organising a group of her students to travel to Nepal to help to rebuild a school that was damaged by the earthquake in 2015. Tor was looking for sponsorship/donations to help buy building and/or educational resources/equipment. Adrian offered to take some of the blues dancers flying if they contributed to Tor’s request for donations. Tor herself had done a long sponsored walk from her home to Buckden village hall on 17 June, arriving at the end of the dance lesson to much applause. What an achievement and she still had the energy to dance.
So back to the flights on a lovely summer’s evening. Lesley and Dawn arrived looking very relaxed in their summer shorts and appeared to be very excited about the flights ahead of them. Adrian in contrast arrived in his office work clothes not quite a pilot’s uniform but not far off. You’ve gotta look professional haven’t you! So we all walked over to the Piper Cherokee aircraft and Adrian took a moment to do the serious stuff a safety briefing. So having completed that and with external checks done earlier it was agreed that Dawn would be in the back and Lesley would be in the front for the first flight.
Adrian went through the usual pre-start up check list and at the “Clear Prop” he was joined by the now two very excited girls. I think we could have been heard at the other end of the airfield. With the engine running we taxied to holding point alpha for the run-up checks. The wind was favouring the 10 runway but there wasn’t much wind so we could have used 28. Lining up on 10 Adrian sensed increasing excitement coming from his passengers. At the point we started rolling, Dawn started to record a video.
As we accelerate to take off speed the video captures Lesley’s enjoyment and surprisingly you could hear them over the engine noise. These girls aren’t quiet! Adrian’s focus of course is on a safe departure. We climb out of the right hand circuit up to 2500 feet. Once we are safely trimmed out in the cruise Adrian hands control over to Lesley. Unsurprisingly LB becomes a little quieter. With Lesley at the controls we head out toward Grafham Water east of St Neots. Flying over Grafham with Lesley still at the controls we head back south, west of St Neots. At the Black Cat roundabout we turn east and head back to Little Gransden. For the first time at the controls of a light aircraft Lesley was doing very well. With about 5 miles to run Adrian takes back control allowing Lesley to film the approach to land.
With an airliner, 3 deg style approach we land safely back on terra firma. Perhaps one of Adrian’s better landings. We park close to the runway and shut down and exit for a few minutes. Now it’s Dawn’s chance to be in the front with Lesley in the rear. Again the girls join me in a loud “Clear Prop” just before starting the engine. As before, we use runway 10 but this time instead of heading north west we initially head east towards Cambridge. At our cruising altitude and trimmed out I hand control over to Dawn. We turn to head north to avoid getting too close to Cambridge ATZ and east of Bourn and over Dry Drayton. If it wasn’t for the engine you probably could hear a pin drop. Dawn soon gets the hang of it and is doing very well. After flying over the A14 we turn left to head north-west towards St Ives keeping the A14 out to our left. Close to St Ives we again turn left and head towards St Neots.
Before St Neots we turn left once more to head south before joining left base for runway 10. Dawn had been intently focused during the whole time she was at the controls. As we turn on final Adrian takes back control for a second landing at Little Gransden. With Lesley filming in the rear Adrian makes a slightly steeper approach this time.
The video suggests a bumpy landing but Adrian thinks it was Lesley not holding her phone firm enough. Anyway, with us all safely back at Little Gransden it is shutdown time and we exit for those all important photos and selfies.
From the smiles on Lesley and Dawn’s faces we can safely assume that they both enjoyed the experience immensely. Both Lesley and Dawn did really well at the controls, perhaps they might think about taking up flying. The LB flying group is looking for new members 🙂