Guernsey

Waking up this morning to see the weather in Guernsey was 200m visbility, overcast at one hundred feet, light drizzle and fog, I was worried that our day might be ruined, but for once in its life the forecast improvement late morning was actually right.

I drove to Dunkeswell slightly early as I was afraid of being late - and popped in to the WWII remembrance centre to have a look around.  Unfortunately it needed a lot more time than the 15 minutes I had, so I shall return another day.

This is an airfield that the USAF flew out of (mainly B24s) from 1942 onwards to do raids on U-boats in the Atlantic.  Pretty cool little centre.

On to the real reason for my early arrival, I then hurried back to the flying club to sort out the aircraft's in/out paperwork and landing fee, by which time Terry had landed and we headed out to the Bonanza.

Terry and I, complete with life jackets.

An obligatory V-tail photo.

For the way out, I sat in the back and Mike, Terry's friend and the owner of the airplane, flew, and on the way back Terry flew and I sat RHS and did a few not particularly useful things like write down the atis (wrong QNH, tsk tsk) and change radio frequencies - and of course take lots of pictures.

Approach to EGJB

Departure from EGJB (we may or may not have had the appropriate plate on board and fudged the departure, I can't rightly say)

Approaching Exeter: this is Sidmouth, where my new chief pilot is from.

Dunkeswell aerodrome

Standing under the Swiss tail of the BE35 in Guernsey - sorry this photo is out of chronological order.

A rather useless photo to prove that Terry was flying... as the photos I got of his face over-exposed and didn't work out! 

Final approach into Dunkeswell.

The day was so amazing, including going for lunch in Guernsey with Terry, Mike, Len(?) and John in the café whose name we discussed at length and which I have forgotten how to spell.

I got the opportunity to talk about aviation all day which was great, with aviation people, which is greater, as there's nothing worse than trying to explain things to People Who Don't Understand.

It was ever so kind of Mike to let me come in his aircraft, and of Terry to invite me - well I sort of invited myself but he helped - and just an all out Great Day Out.

I think I should make this small-aircraft-flying a habit. That would however mean that I would need to become proficient and would require some effort on my part!  Not to mention 💰💰💰