Around London and back home

Text: Christian Müssemeyer
Images: Henk Dumont
Translation: powerglidertaifun.de

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The Club Fournier International (CFI) organised a flight to Popham (EGHP) and Husbands Bosworth in the United Kingdom from July 8th until July 10th 2006. Aeroclub 77 participants were Hans Wirtz and Christian Müssemeyer with their Grob G-109b (D-KEOI) while Miguel Rubia joined Henk Dumont in his fast Taifun 17 EII (D-KFDI).
Here their report by Christian Müssemeyer:

We met on Saturday at Mönchengladbach airport. Henk, with his Taifun, had already flown in from Geilenkirchen to pick up Miguel. Around 09.45 we departed and flew along the A52 motorway. When passing Elmpt (the former English fighter base) we spotted the barriers on the old runway. Somebody ensured that nobody would ever use this runway again, not even in emergencies.

We passed the Dutch border, contacted Beek tower, crossed the river Maas and left Dutch airspace, all in 7 minutes. Here in the Limburger region, land with the cheese of the same name, is where Henk Dumont lives, and he's very proud to be a Limburger (not the cheese). We contacted Brussels information and requested passing Kleine Brogel EBKB military CTR. This was allowed, however without crossing the airfield itself.

Kleine Brogel is surrounded by huge forests, to the West is a military training area, lots of dark sand, a little bit of grass, everything torn up. After passing this area we headed toward VOR BUN and had to take care of navigation, it is only a small VFR corridor between Brussels and Antwerp at a maximum of 1500 feet. The VOR is a perfect aid and the GPS was even more helpful.

To the West a lovely countryside with the river Schelde could be seen. The Schelde has numerous bends towards Antwerp. Everywhere are green acres, little forests and fields. From above it all looks very nice and organized.

To our right we had a good view over the city of Gent and we continued towards the NDB of MAK. After passing this we approached the French border and had to ensure a safe distance of 5 kilometers between us and the nuclear power plant. After only two hours of flight we landed in Calais, refuelled and waited for the other participants to fly to the UK.

Patrick Faucheron (RF-5 D-KOPF) arrived some two hours later with 7 other CFI-planes trailing him. His group had departed from Speyer, had to fly through a cold front and picked up Alfred Scherer in his RF4 (D-KHWD) in Kirn.

Piet de Crom and Ger van Zunderd arrived from Midden Zeeland (the Netherlands) in their Grob G-109-b (PH-746). Paolo Capellini and Diego Comellini arrived from Cremona (Italy) with a RF-5 (D-KABG) and Fausto Tumiatti arrived from Bolzano (also Italy) in a Rf-4 (D-KARL). The Italians had left early morning, crossed the Alps and without any doubt had the longest trip. Michael and Beatrice Legrand from France joined with a RF-9 (F-CAHM).

Now we were aviators from 5 nationalities (Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain). After refuelling and putting on the life-vests we had a formation of 14 aircraft from Calais to Popham. Take-off was performed in the CFI way, one after the other with enough safety distance. Patrick did all the R/T work for all of us and the rest just followed like a flock of geese. Very easy and understandable for all.

Directly after take-off we saw the famous white cliffs of Dover, only 15 minutes flying distance. From Dover we headed south along the coast towards Brighton and passed the Chunnel Ferry terminals. This is where the cars are loaded onto the trains before entering the tunnel towards France.

We spotted Hastings, the place where William the Conqueror fought his battle in 1066. The landscape is famous from many movies, steep cliffs, many hills, moors, fields with some cows, of which we don't know which ones are mad (see BSE-test).

Towards Brighton the weather deteriorated, we could only fly at 1000 feet, not very high and comfortable above a hilly area. From Brighton onwards the weather improved, we turned Northwest, just another 50 kilometers to go. Also here a lovely hilly countryside without any straight farming fields, all are divided by rows of trees or fences. We saw many idyllic villages and also the famous country houses as known from TV. Patrick instructed us to form a line at equal altitudes, one after the other, to set-up for the landing. In the mean time he contacted Popham and after 1 hour 45 we landed without any problems.

Shortly after landing the English CFI-organiser Mike Millar, his wife Amanda and Adrian Hatton welcomed us. Popham airfield was constructed by a Spitfire-fan, Charles Church. He restored and flew multiple aircraft but unfortunately died in a crash, after which his wife and family took over the airfield.


Nowadays Popham is a meeting place for vintage airplanes. The next day we visited a hangar with fully restored and well maintained old-timers. E.g. Staggerwings, a Cri-Cri (the world's smallest two-engine plane) and a Nieuport fighter plane from WWI.

Sunday turned out to be typical British weather, lots of wind and rain. This had led to Henk and Miguel’s tent collapsing overnight. Henk failed to pay attention to his tent being constructed by others and had to pay for this mistake! Never do anything without a checklist!

We already were afraid of not being able to fly but fortunately the weather improved rapidly. On the computer forecast we could see that the afternoon would be better, so we decided to fly to Husbands Bosworth the same day.

Popham airfield has two grass runways, number 21 is 940 meters and ascends towards a forest with high trees. Runway 26 ascends as well, runs parallel the forest along the highway and features a downwind with the appropriate wind-direction. Both Henk Dumont and myself were a little worried about our take-off performance with the heavy Grob and Taifun motorgliders, Henk gave it a test while solo.

Luckily, a 20 knots headwind allowed him to be airborne before the half marker so finally we too dared an attempt and took-off. We cleared the trees and headed north, towards Husbands Bosworth. "We" in this case were three plains; Henk's Taifun (D-KFDI), and two Grobs, being the PH-746 of Piet de Crom and our own D-KEOI.

The English CFI pilots warned us to avoid the military dropping and parachutist area southwest of Oxford. Heavy activity every day, including dropping of vehicles and weaponry. However, the area was depicted on the charts and in the GPS, no problems to avoid but still we circumnavigated Oxford via the east to be on the safe side.

More to the North we passed a huge glider-site hosting more than 100 aircraft. We noticed the amount of airfields in the UK, many more than back home. Since the closure of military airports after the end of WWII the majority is used by glider clubs. They all have very long take-off and landing areas at their disposal.

We had strong tail-winds and landed after only 40 minutes in Husbands Bosworth, northwest of London. We were welcomed by some local club members and waited for the other 22 participating planes of this CFI rally. They had taken off about half an hour after us and thus arrived later as well. All 22 landed safely, always amazing to see so many aircraft land one after the other in such a short while.

Mike and Adrian had arranged for a barbeque-evening. Everyone got a plate with a Hamburger, a steak, a sausage and a rib to cook for himself on the available grills. A lovely evening, leading to new friendships with the UK pilots.
 

Miguel had paid extra attention to pamper Henk, he had gotten some chocolate sprinkles from Spain and put it on Henk’s food. Henk watched and started to smile from cheek to cheek because he didn't have to do without his favourite chocolates.

The same evening we enjoyed the Fifa Worldcup football match between Italy and France. Of course our participants from these nations made the evening perfect and the Italians celebrated their victory after the end.


We had checked with the club president whether he could arrange a contact in Duxford, because we wanted to land there and pay a visit to several musea (a.o. Duxford Imperial War Museum). Duxford normally is very expensive to visit, about 22 UK pounds landing fees (about €33), without museum access. The president arranged a landing fee and visit the museum for a total of 10 pounds.

So the next day we, together with Henk and Miguel in the taifun and Piet and Ger in their Grob, flew to Duxford. Navigation was no problem, no restricted areas to cross, only to avoid airports with 2 NM or above 2000 feet.
 

We contacted Duxford and got our landing permission right away. From the air we already were able to see all the buildings with their many airplanes inside and lots of older aircraft are parked outside. During the landing there was a little confusion, somebody was landing on 24 and at the same time another one was landing at 06. The controller reacted appropriately and instructed both to turn right. After landing we saw a Lufthansa Junkers JU-52 (D-AQUI) and a Messerschmitt Taifun Bf-108. Both took off in formation for a flight to Antwerp.


Duxford had hosted an airshow in the weekend before we arrived. If we had planned to visit Duxford during the weekend this wouldn’t have been allowed. During our presence numerous aircraft flew a demo, amongst which a Spitfire and a Mustang.

We used this time to have a good look in all the Hangars where aircraft are restored. You can’t imagine the size of a 18 cylinder double-star engine, which was used in American aircraft. Piet was able to explain the engines as he had worked with Fokker company as a mechanic in his younger days.
 

We were afraid a cold front would catch up, so we left at 13.30 from Duxford to go back to Mönchengladbach. One after the other took-off and headed east to avoid Stanford CTR. We were thoroughly briefed by Duxford ATC about the mandatory routes.

Thanks to our GPS we had no problems with the navigation, we overflew the city of Haverhill, then to Earls Colne airfield, towards the river Thames and direct to Dover. We only had to avoid a very tiny prohibited area, as we could see a prison from the air.

 

Our route was direct to Dover VOR, we climbed to 3000 feet to have some safe altitude above the English channel. We could see the French coast already and after only 15 minutes of water we were above French mainland again.

We overflew Calais airfield and saw the other participants of Patrick's CFI-group. We said goodbye to Piet de Crom and Ger van Zunderd who headed directly to Midden Zeeland (EHMZ). We joined the corridor between Brussels and Antwerp once more and again asked permission to cross Kleine Brogel (EHKB) CTR. We were told to contact Kleine Brogel and were permitted access of the CTR, only once avoiding an approaching combat fighter. After three hours of flight we landed in Mönchengladbach.

Once again a beautiful flight with the CFI with no extreme costs. This is especially important when flying to the UK because there everything is very expensive. Mike Millar and Adrian Hatton had organised everything very good including the food and the accommodation. Also we didn’t pay any landing fees in Popham, in this way a visit to the UK is manageable.

Later on I was a little astonished to learn that Mönchengladbach-UK is a shorter distance than Mönchengladbach-Berlin. A flight to Schönhagen near Berlin the next day took me three hours while a flight to the UK was only 2.5 hours, a reason to go there more often.


Christian Müssemeyer

 

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