With time on my hands I took the opportunity to do a few circuits at the strip yesterday – get a good feel for the Auster again and vary the circuit pattern and style of approach. She still surprises me how much she wants to float and a practice glide needed plenty of sideslip to get me in. Reluctant to get airborne she may be, but once she’s up, it seems she doesn’t want to come down.
Although not actually going anywhere, I love flying circuits – trying to perfect the approaches and the landings and there’s nothing more satisfying than doing a gentle three pointer in an aeroplane like the Auster. The fun was enhanced by using the shorter of the two runs with a bit of a crosswind thrown in. Perhaps circuits are so satisfying because it’s when the whole delicate balance of controlled flight comes together in unison – all in short, satisfying little hops around a familiar field that feels like a second home – much like messing about in a small sailing boat on the coast, I would imagine – just up and playing for nothing but the hell of it. I was only flying for half an hour, but the sense of satisfaction and delight I got from that short flight lasted right through the rest of the day.
I topped that off by taking the Auster across to Insch today – a lovely strip with 540 metres of well cut grass, hiding in the shadow of Bennachie. Although I’m familiar with Insch, I had never taken the Auster in there and with a couple of hours free, it seemed the perfect excuse to go. I took some cheese and bread with me for a bit of lunch and once airborne from the home strip, enjoyed the brief 20 minute flight across the patchwork rolls and folds of the rumpled blanket that is Aberdeenshire, spying impressive houses tucked away in copses of trees and letting my eyes wander along the meandering course of the River Don. Everything looks good from the air, especially a landscape like this one.
The strip at Insch seemed awfully short and narrow compared with Whiterashes and the Auster seemed to want to float right on past it, but we bumped down eventually and were back-tracking along the narrow strip to park up by the Micro-light club-house. I was greeted by Ken, the strip owner, who lit the gas on the stove for me to make a cuppa – what a lovely place to stop off for a cup of tea and a chin-wag!
I didn’t stay long, knowing that the showers would be building up through the afternoon and after talking to Ken about the best way out, avoiding the various local settlements on the climb out, I eyed up the wind-sock and deliberated on the best take-off direction. The sock was more or less across the strip and the wind very light – although there is high ground on either climb out, heading off from runway 13 seemed the best option and, anticipating the Auster’s poor take-off performance, I lined up beyond the threshold adjacent to the hangars to give myself another 30 yards.
Ken thought this was a good idea, having seen a few Auster mis-haps in his time and although the extra back-track involved a turn through what looked like 60 degrees, at the start of the run, the extra distance to accelerate makes quite a difference!
I lined up, opened the throttle, careered around the corner and bumped across the little access track and we were off – accelerating nicely on the immaculate grass and up and climbing a comfortable two-thirds of the way down.
Once again we were airborne; bumping along above the model village landscape and I said goodbye to Insch and contacted Aberdeen on the approach frequency. There were some nice CBs building by this time and on arrival at the home strip a big downpour was just starting, which I had to race into the strip to avoid its full brunt. The plexi of the windscreen was covered in thick rain globules on the approach and I reminded myself to get some ‘Rain-Ex ‘ as seeing out wasn’t very easy!
By the time I parked up at the end of the landing roll, the heavens had truly opened and the sound of rain beating on the fabric skin of the Auster reminded me of childhood camping holidays in the Lake District, which was strangely comforting and I just sat there a few moments, smiling to myself.
Not the epic flights of great adventure, or the escapades of the aerobatic pilot, but sometimes it’s the simple little pleasures of flying that appeal and often, all that we need – just that pleasure that comes from the refinement of skill doing circuits, or the chance to get away for an hour or two and float along above a well-known and friendly landscape that is our own stomping ground. Flying means many things to many people and for me, the last couple of days, it’s meant getting the most out of life from the simplest of escapes.
The Auster Diaries 