Earlier in the year, I flew into the Historic Helicopters open day at Chard on what must have been the windiest day of the year so far. There I met John and Adrian, die hard helicopter enthusiasts, and as it transpired, helicopter owners.. of an original Saunders Roe Skeeter (be it not a flyable one!).
They invited me to Craysmarsh Farm in Melksham to visit and see it for myself one day. I thought no more about it until I was planning my next trip and thought of how good it would be to combine the visit with the experience of landing at one of the UK’s many farm strips. I had the Sunday free and Uniform Charlie booked out for the day.
The cloud base was low but forecast as lifting and Brize TAF looked promising. The farm owner rang to say it was rather hazy at the strip, but we decided the conditions weren’t unflyable by any stretch.
Flying in Restricted visibility is a real experience, and building hours post licence with an instructor is absolute invaluable. The self fly hire limit at my flight school is pretty strict, therefore the experience gained in having the instructor on hand in a safety pilot capacity is incomparable. As it allows me to get in the air over the SFH limit. Once we were en route the visibility was down to 3/4km at times with a cloud base as low as 1400’ so it would be a no go to fly it solo but fine with Doug in the No.2 seat.
It was an interesting transit down to the south with another around the tower departure, this time with the duty runway as 04L. Giving a little more space for manoeuvre but it wasn’t needed. The haze can really hide low cloud and inadvertent entry into any lingering areas was a serious consideration. This coupled with making sure I was at an altitude high enough to keep the flight legal and to land clear if there was a problem.
We frequency shifted to a Brize Norton listening squawk, then to Kemble, across to a Bristol listening squawk and then finally onto safety com for blind calls on approach to the Farm. A bright yellow auster with a white wing stood proudly in the field and made the field identifiable. A sweeping right turn into a descending left turn onto finals, where we picked up John marshalling us close to the auster.
Bordered by barns and farm buildings it was a real treat and felt quite special to be at a little home run farm strip, rather than a fully established aerodrome like Shobdon or Gloucester. We shut down after a slight repositioning due to uneven ground, and trudged through the long grass to see John.. who had been happily snapping photos the entire time.
As we walked towards the barns I stuck my head into the open auster which was a beautiful aircraft. Two gentlemen sat in the open fronted barn, their backs to a camouflaged painted Piper cub, drinking tea, sat on old school-chairs. Their table made from old pallets, with the biscuit tins and kettle perched atop. It was a proper airfield.
It turned out the two gentleman sipping tea, were the retired chief of air operations from Bristow helicopters and one of its lead ex-pilots. Who were at sharing flying stories!of the S-61 and Super Puma Ops in the North Sea and Australia. They were just the greatest characters to be in the presence of. Shortly after we arrived they hot footed it to the auster and off they barrelled down the strip and lumbered into the air, away they went for their morning flight.
As it disappeared out of view our attention turned to the Skeeter. Housed in its own container, with all of its fruitful history plastered along the walls next to it. It’s sat their proudly awaiting restoration, all of its components boxed and shelved around it. John gave us the history of it and talked lovingly about its journey to the present day and about all of the other aircraft components he had collected over the years.
It was magnificent, such a gem hidden away in the Wiltshire countryside. We clambered out of the container and fussed the Labrador that was running around like a crazy as John set up a table, with hot water, milk, coffee, muffins and doughnuts. We were so flattered he’d gone to so much trouble. But what a treat to finish the visit!
We signed the visitors book for good measure, seeing all of the others who’d visited over the years and climbed back into Uniform Charlie. Fired her up and headed out to the north, to the east side of Kemble, en route to Wellesbourne. The cloud base was no better, I picked up a road north of the Cotswold lakes and kept it between my feet as I tracked it towards the southern edge of the Wellesbourne ATZ. We were getting pushed for time, and even though EGBW is a beautiful airfield that’s fallen on hard times with development intentions from the landlord, we only had time to fuel, pay, eat a kitkat and get back into the air.. but enough time to catch a glimpse of the new R44 Cadet in use by HeliAir!
The cloud base was still hardly breaking 1400’. It was a really dreary day. I air taxied to Whiskey helipad and paralleled the 36 runway, took off into wind with a left turn out before the Vulcan bomber, which is sat pride of place near the end of the field. On the climb out to circuit height of 600’ QFE, the radio kicked out the transmissions of a fixed wing already in the circuit and I assumed, at fixed wing circuit height! (Giving us ample separation) Negative ghost rider. We couldn’t have been above 450’ and the Cessna 152, even though he called ‘visual with departing heli traffic’ was in fact, level at my 3 o’clock and closing. I pulled full carb heat and descended immediately, watching him pass over (just) and behind us. I’m led to believe the circuit height doesn’t change just because the cloud base is low, but try telling that to the old boy plane pilots!
Out of trouble and away from the bug smasher, I climbed back from the now 200’ I was at and made best speed for Gloucester, making extra sure not to fly into the side of Bredon hill, which was not visible for a good portion of the flight until we were skirting it’s south eastern edge. Doug called for an Autorotation on transit back into the field which brought us nicely down to circuit height. In we went over the golf course, for the furthest spot at Heli North East, to conclude another weekend in the air.
Total – 2.3h
(Leg 1 – 0.6)
(Leg 2 – 1.1)
(Leg 3 – 0.6)
Hourbuilding Adventures 