The other day, I spotted some great pictures of the Aéroclub de Limoges’ Diamond Star at White Waltham and realised that the pilot was―ME.
One of the problems for a Londoner belonging to a French flying club is that it’s a bit difficult to take one’s friends for a ‘jolly’ on the spur of the moment―so I decided to book the aircraft for a week, bring it over to the UK and cram a summer’s-worth of flying into a few days.
In my opinion, the DA40 is a great aircraft for long-distance flying―I also love the club’s Robin DR400-180 but the DA40 autopilot and moving-map GPS make this an excellent aircraft for single-pilot operation.
Having now flown the aircraft In both directions, I realise that the journey could most-likely have been done in a single hop though it’s always best to err on the side of caution and I do rather like the concept of stopping-off for lunch whenever flying over France.
My outbound route, planned to avoid the Paris area, was a dog-leg via Ambiose, Chartres, Evreux and Rouen which provided a useful backup of VOR beacons in the event of any GPS problems.
It was my intention to stop-off for customs clearance, flight plan submission and a leisurely lunch at Le Touquet which I have visited many times before though I have never actually eaten at the, reputedly excellent, airport restaurant.
In the event, the LFAT runway was temporarily closed due to an earlier accident and I diverted to Calais whose catering amounts to a ‘one Michelin star’ vending machine (curses!!).
The trip to the UK was over familiar territory and I parked the aircraft at Stapleford, having previously submitted the General Aviation Report (Customs Form) which allows you to land at a non-customs airfield.
For me, living in the Central London, Stapleford was an excellent place to base the aircraft for a few days―their landing fees are modest by UK standards, they don’t charge for overnight parking and the airfield is a short taxi ride to the London Underground Central Line.
Also, the airfield is open from 07:30-sunset during the summer with an ATS service from 08:00-17:00―though they are generally happy for aircraft to operate outside of the ATS hours, on a ‘prior permission’ basis.
When operating outside of ATS hours, it’s just a case of judging the appropriate runway from the windsock, announcing your intentions on the radio and liaising with any other aircraft in the vicinity.
Stapleford is also well-placed for spectacular trips over the City of London, provided that Thames Radar will let you through which they usually will.
I usually route via the Isle of Dogs (not above 2400’) which enables a single-engined aircraft to ‘land clear’ while providing great views of Tower Bridge, Millenium Wheel, Canary Wharf, Royal Naval College, Cutty Sark (temporarily covered for restoration), Greenwich Observatory, Thames Barrier and the Millennium (O2) Dome―on this particular trip, I could also see the construction of the 2012 Olympic Games sites.
The photos on this page were taken at White Waltham where I picked-up my Sister-in-Law for a flight to the Isle of White―I have never known an airfield which does so much to encourage aviation enthusiasts as can be seen from the large number and variety of parked aircraft (dozens opf them).
I learned to fly at White Waltham around 40 years ago and they had about 600 ‘social’ members then.
If there are any airfields or flying clubs like that in France, please let me know.
Apart from the obligatory flight around the IOW (after lunch) to see The Needles, Osborne House (Queen Victoria's gaff) and the boats at Cowes, the flight over Portsmouth Harbour is always interesting with a good view of various naval ships, including the occasional aircraft carrier and submarines, as well as Nelson’s HMS Victory.
BTW: What's brown and steams out of Cowes (A. The Isle of White Ferry).
I also made another attempt at a trip to Le Touquet with a couple of friends though, on this occasion, the cloud base was below VFR limits (another fine forecast from the MET Office!!) so we diverted to Calais which wasn’t much better and I was very impressed by the handling of the DA40 in the tight turns of a bad-weather circuit.
Although Calais is a bit ‘dowdy’ compared with Le Touquet, we found an excellent restaurant and later returned to Stapleford in absolutely fine weather―via Dover, Cantebury and a pleasant meander up the Thames Estuary.
Sadly, my return to Limoges was delayed by 24 hours due to poor weather so I essentially reversed my outgoing route rather than taking a more-leisurely trip down the Western side of France as I had intended.
On this occasion, I flew from Stapleford to Rouen (another spectacular city from the air) where I refuelled with JET-A1 from a tanker, after being routed all round the airfield, by ATC, to an AVGAS pump.
There was a small problem with one of the fuel caps falling apart though I managed to re-assemble this with the help of the fueller―clearing Customs/Immigration at Rouen is always a complete waste of time as there have never been any official bodies present when I have visited.
I also experienced a bit of ‘coughing and spluttering’ from the engine on climb-out so temporarily throttled back and performed a normal circuit with an ‘overhead pass’ of the runway once it was clear that the engine was running normally―I put this down to a temporary glitch of the Engine Management Computer.
As the aircraft had just returned from several months of 'maintenance', I suppose that a few 'issues' were to be expected.
Return to Limoges was uneventful though the weather was deteriorating towards my destination and I got back just in time to see my original homeward Ryanair flight departing―Ryanair offer great value generally but it’s bloody expensive to book a single ticket for the next day.
As already mentioned, the DA40 (diesel version) is a fine all-round touring aircraft but it’s a bit slower on take-off than the Robin DR400-180―though I managed to land and take-off easily on Stapleford’s ‘hard bit’ which is 600 metres (total runway length 1077 metres).
The DA40 is also a bit slower in cruise―I could generally get 135-140 knots out of the Robin but only about 125 kts from the Diamond, though that’s still pretty good.
Sadly, the club have now sold the DA40 as ‘the management’ apparently consider it too expensive to run―though their current proposal is to replace it with a more-complex and expensive Cirrus SR20 (go figure!!).
I, for one, will miss flying F-GUVE.
Photographs reproduced by kind permission of the copyright holder―more great aviation photos at More Photos by Moxy
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