Tremorfa

As the year rapidly begins to run away from us, the nights begin to draw in a lot sooner and the cold and wet weather is here to stay for the autumnal and winter period. To cease a weekend of crisp autumn weather in early October is a blessing, and it just so happened the clear weekend coincided with the Weston MotoCross Beach Race, in which, my younger brother was racing. So it seemed like a good opportunity to support him from the air!

It also transpired recently, that a good friend of mine in the aviation world, had been the guest editor of the new Flyer! Magazine Helicopter Supplement. There were some really interesting pieces in a magazine dedicated for the rotor community, that is, as I am sure everyone could agree is long overdue. As I was turning the pages, an advert for the Cardiff Heliport took a half page spread offering landing for just £10. I hadn’t ever been to Tremorfa, and as it was a dedicated heliport, it sounded like an exciting place to visit.

The first leg of this trip was flown by Nick, the first student at Heliflight back in 1996. He had expressed an interest in visiting the helicopter museum, and as is common knowledge I need no encouragement to talk about helicopters to anyone who will listen. We therefore organised, that he would fly the R44 to the Museum heliport, and I would give him a more in-depth tour of the exhibits. It seemed like a good idea, and I had in fact never sat in the left hand seat of the R44 before. (Something I may need to do a lot more of if I decide to take the Instructor route).

It is always worthwhile flying with different pilots and instructors to learn as much as possible, and the route to Weston is one I have done most frequently during my hour building adventures. Therefore it was interesting to see how Nick did an approach along the Weston-super-Mare seafront and around to approach the Museum Helipad form the Southwest. It was smoothly flown, and in fact was advantageous as it afforded me the opportunity of taking some great aerial shots of the beach race, and the busy beachfront.

After the Alex Bishop Tour which equated quite literally into me talking non-stop for around 40 minutes about the collection, it was my turn to fly the last two legs of the journey. I wouldn’t say flying over water is a grey area with helicopters, however, you really should be able to either: Fly at a height which allows you to glide clear of the water or Carry and wear life jackets. It would be far too tempting from Weston to buzz directly out, straight-line to the heliport, and in fact if it isn’t a commercial flight and all passengers are happy this could in fact be done. There was however no rush, it was a Sunday afternoon flight, so I opted to fly a little further North up the estuary and cross at a point which was a little narrower to give us all a fighting chance if the engine gave up on us.. (Plus, Nick mentioned he wasn’t a swimmer).

As I departed the Helicopter Museum, I took a route out to the South West and then turned for a flight along the beach over the Weston Beach Race. It was a poignant moment, as our family moved to Somerset from Warwickshire in 1996, so for my brother and I it has been home for our entire life. Now, he we were 13 years later, he was racing along Weston beach front flat-out through the wet sand, the sound of the motorbikes howling all around, and me 1200ft above, rotorblades hurling around and beating the air into submission and our parents watching from the beach front.

Just upon passing Portishead, I turned to cross the Severn Estuary and headed towards the coastline near Newport. The airspace above at this point is Bristol, and then rolls into Cardiff. Bristol are very strict on the use of the listening squawk and no non-essential contact, Cardiff have a listening squawk also, but are not so rigid. I decided to let them know our intentions, out of courtesy as we would be heading into Tremorfa, the Heliport shortly and they may have wondered why we were descending over the water. After passing Newport on the right hand side, the Heliport presents itself on the nose of the aircraft, right on the coast with a runway 02 or 20 to choose from. The prevailing wind was from the North so i chose a descending right turn over the water and in to Runway 02.

I came to a hover mid-point of the runway and hover taxiied sideways to park up next to the fire engine to shut down.

I had visited the heliport once before, by road a very long time ago, pre-navy in fact and i remember being impressed by the setup then and still so now. We were greeted on arrival by Adam, a good family friend of Nicks, and we were driven into the centre of Cardiff for lunch. The centre wasn’t far at all, and for a £10 landing fee the Heliport was proving to be quite an appealing option for visiting Cardiff again in the future. We all decided that Miller and Carter was a sound lunch option, a steak always goes down well and it didn’t disappoint.

After a very pleasant lunch break, we were driven back to Tremorfa . I called in with Gloucester to update the arrival time and set off up the East Welsh cost, following the estuary up to Lydney and being routed in to Gloucester from the South. It was a very pleasant day out, indeed.