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CRUISIN' IN THE CLOUDS (Scrumpies take to the air)
Well the day got of to a good start,
with sun in the sky as I rode down to Compton Abbas airfield to meet Steve
and Kev. Steve had booked the plane for three hours and our destination was
to another flying club at Exeter where there was a plane rally being held.
Yes, flying clubs are just like bike clubs but with bigger engines!
I arrived at 11am to find Steve pouring
over the flight plan and calculations, even with Kev and me being under 24
stone the weight of the fuel was crucial and we'd only have 5 litres to
spare. On a bike going to Exeter and back that would be fine but not when
you've got a 7 litre engine, so in goes an extra 30.
Down the runway we went and slowly took to the air where
we took a long slow upward spiral to reach 1600 feet. Steve heaved a
sigh of relief that we didn't appreciate until we took of from Exeter
with a lot less fuel onboard, that time we were in the air and at 1600
feet with little effort and a great deal less time!
Looking down on rural dorset you notice the abscence of
roads, farmers must spend hours crossing field after field to reach the
one that they actually want to be in. There are houses tucked away that
can't be seen from roads and some that can't even be reached by road,
who'd pay millions for a house that's not on a road? Thats privacy for
you.
The first large town that we flew over
was Dorchester, its not that big really. Then came Weymouth and our first
sight of the coastline which we followed down to West Bay and Lyne Regis
before turning inland to Exeter. They've got a tarmac runway which gave us a
perfect landing. It took an hour to cover all that ground yet most of the
time we seemed to be motionless.
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EXETER
After coffee and a smoke or two Steve
did his pre flight checks and we were off again, this time it was a straight
line back to Compton with the wind behind us and we hit 130 mph. The cloud
was low and we skimmed just below it as we flew over Chard, Crewkerne and
Sherborne.
All too soon it was over and our
return journey took 35mins. Even landing on a grass runway produced
little more than a jolt. That was a brilliant day out and we only had to
pay for the plane when it was actually in the air not when we were
sitting around at Exeter, bargain!
Waiting for us back at Compton were
Terry and Dave, they still wanted their Sunday rideout, so where better
than Shearwater for more tea, cakes and nubile waitress's, and this week
she was a peach.......I should be on a register somewhere.
Many thanks to Steve Rhodes for
making all this possible.
Live the life you've got left.
Blackjack.bob
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