Good morning, today is the day! We are starting on our Grand Tour of Europe well when I see we I mean me 🙂 I’m currently sitting my office looking towards the aircraft hangar here at Blackpool Airport with a fresh mug of Coffee and my charts on my tablet and I’m waiting for the tower to open at around 0745.
The Piper is looking stunning after a final inspection and loaded with a few tools, luggage and parts for this trip. So where are we going today?
Well as this is leg 1 we was always going to stay within the UK airspace in case of any issues with the aircraft or myself for that matter and we are heading on a ling winded flight to Humberside, long winded because we are not going there directly from Blackpool, but instead we’re heading south-west out over the Irish Sea and South Wales across Hampshire and over London before turning north and making our way to Yorkshire for a landing at Humberside. This gives the airplane a long airborne sector in which we can get a feel for fuel efficiency and flight feeling on the controls.
We’ve planned for a flight of 25,000 but we are carrying emergency oxygen on board in case the pressurisation system is not working properly as well as life raft and vest due to water. The Piper has been meticulously overhauled, and engine and system tests have all be passed and checked in the tech log so I’m not expecting any issues but you never know! We are fighting the weather a bit today so I’m also hoping that a high cruise level will take us way over most of it
A support team will be leaving Blackpool shortly to meet at Humberside and prepare the aircraft for its trip into Europe on leg 2.
FLIGHT
After a straightforward departure despite ATC giving me runway 10 and not 28 as was on the ATIS for take-off the aircraft has performed well and at 25,000ft we’re safely above the weather, there’s not a lot to see today with overcast over much of the UK and rain forecast at Humberside also,
Well, we’re over the Southwest of England the aircraft is performing extremely well with the new avionics and overhauled engines and so far, I’m happy to take it into Europe
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WELCOME TO HUMBERSIDE
After a busy arrival and having to go around on my first attempt we landed to a wet Humberside and I decided to let the autopilot bring the airplane down to test its capability with no major issues other than a long landing, the flight has been a great success and an enjoyable one too. Tomorrow we’ll be heading on 2 flights, in the morning we’ll be heading north to Wick and then later across to Norway.
