The plan for today was to fly myself, Coco & Mel on a) a local flight of the West Country, in order to sightsee & practice zone transits etc and b) to take Coco back to university near London. Since Mel & I had tried to fly a similar flight two weeks ago (see below) but to Wolverhampton instead of Wycombe (for a party), we were hoping the weather would be a little more agreeable today….especially since my last two flying slots have been weathered off (I had a PA-18 Supercub taildragger conversion course booked - again!- last weekend) We were therefore pleased to see that today's weather was looking...OK! Not brilliant, but far more doable than before. In fact after the low-level cloud/fog had gone, it was pretty much forecast to be CAVOK for the most part. AND I had a extra hour in bed as well!

Having completed much of my pre-flight planning during the week, & having checked the NOTAMs/Wx/etc early in the morning, when we got to Kemble all there was remaining to do was to complete my nav planning based on the forecast winds & A-check the aircraft. However despite this, with the A-check, settling in my 2 passengers & a small amount of baggage, and then fuelling the aircraft, we still managed to leave at 11:43, rather than the planned time of 10:00. Oh well! No worries - plenty of leeway in the slot booked.

Having departed from Kemble, I headed west to the Old Severn Bridge, and then routed down the coast towards Weston Super Mare. Bristol were very helpful in giving us a transit - despite the fact our transponder wasn't registering at first. After cycling & re-setting it worked fine, it may well have been a switchology error on my part. We then turned east, and my two passengers enjoyed the view of the Cheddar Gorge as seen from 2500ft. Proceeding on towards Frome, with a brief diversion over Bath my companions started to pick out familiar sights & places. As did I - however I was getting more & more conscious of the need to avoid letting the aircraft get ahead of me due to sightseeing - especially as we were sandwiched between Bristol's CTA & Lyneham's CTA on the left, and the Salisbury Plain Danger Area & Keevil to my right. Still, on the other hand it was relatively easy to navigate at this point due to the familiarity of the landscape.

In fact, very familiar as I headed over my house! We then proceeded to circle twice over Mel's house, where we were able to spot her parents waving. At this point I may have been a bit terse with my passengers - as I was trying to point out where we were, circle, and avoid any gliders from Keevil as well! (I was outside the zone around Keevil; however I know that it was likely that they'd be outside it). In any case I kept well clear of any other aircraft - we did spot a few. From a purely flying point of view, passengers seemed at this point to have pro & con points…possible distractions & administration, but also extra sets of eyes (which came in quite handy in spotting other aircraft) and also in a paperwork admin way; Coco was doing an admirable job of noting times & giving me the next calculated ETA!

Having completed the local sightseeing, we continued on towards Membury & Reading. I must confess that in addition to normal navigation, I was also utilising the IFR method (I Follow Roads) as the M4 was a very handy landmark...! I also managed to pick up the Reading NDB as well, which wasn't really needed as Reading was easily identifiable.

The next bit was the only iffy bit of the entire flight...and in retrospect wasn't all that bad; it just seemed like it at the time! This may have been due to the fact that I was very aware of the Heathrow zone a few miles east; but looking back, it's hard to see exactly what I was worried about. When I was approaching Wycombe, I became temporarily unsure of my position – I was having difficulty in reconciling what I was seeing in front of me with what was on the map (maybe I’d been lulled into being a little complacent due to flying over familiar terrain in the first half of the flight). I decided to orbit while I made sure of my position; Mel later told me this didn’t do her stomach any good (sorry Mel!) After a slight period of uncertainty...it suddenly all made sense, lo & behold I was over Marlow & there was Wycombe dead ahead! Much relief, and my landing was quite good too (if I do say so myself!). I was surprised to see that Wycombe was using the grass runway, but no worries, I’d checked beforehand & made sure I’d be able to get in & out on any one of the 3 runways, grass or not.

There was quite a lot of activity at Wycombe – gliders, helicopters, and light aircraft – which made for an interesting backdrop as we enjoyed the proverbial “£200 bacon butty” (which was actually drinks & crisps in a very nice restaurant – not a greasy spoon in sight!). After saying farewell to Coco, visually checking the remaining fuel & a quick walkaround, we taxied out for a shortfield takeoff. This was not strictly necessary, but given the length of the runway, but given the obstructions past the far end, and also given the principle of “better safe than sorry” it was worth doing. It’s also good to keep in practice.

Taking care to avoid the gliders sharing the ATZ, we set course for Reading – a lot easier this time having been through the area once before. The rest of the trip back was largely uneventful, – no navigational problems, and Lyneham gave us a low-level transit through their Zone, which was kind of them….even though I forgot to change my transponder back to 7000 afterwards! Sorry! The sun was beginning to get low in the sky, which restricted vis somewhat on the Reading leg, but after that it wasn’t a problem.

Back at Kemble, after 2 go-arounds due to traffic on the runway (which in fairness I could have avoided had I slowed down in the circuit) another fair landing and we were back…I didn’t even make Mel airsick this time! (Who also did a good job with the ETAs by the way!)

Overall, I thought the trip went well; I was very pleased with my handling of the aircraft, especially my landings. However I should note that the C of G was noticeably aft compared to what I normally fly with (landing at Wycombe was with 2x front seat bods, 1x rear seat and approx 1st max of luggage, compared with 2x front seat bods only) so therefore it would have been easier to a degree to land. But, then again, I thought my landing back at Kemble was good too – and that was with only 2 in the front. My height & course keeping was good. Overall, my RT was fair, as was checks/procedures etc – except for the glaring omission of forgetting to select the conspicuity code after leaving Lyneham’s frequency!

Things I feel I could have improved on were navigation, although having gotten myself lost I did managed to find myself again, and also circuit planning, with a nod towards spatial awareness. Overall though, the gripes were small things, and I felt confident that I’d handled the flight well.

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