Port of Dover from the sky – first flight based at Headcorn

With a day off work on Wednesday 18th April 2018 and absolutely glorious sunshine bringing a welcome break from some recent torrential rain and high winds, it was a great day to head over to my new home base at Headcorn for my first flight in command since joining Weald Air Services.

Having been checked out on both the Cessna 172 and 152, I had the option to use either aircraft. I opted for the Cessna 152. Not only is it slightly cheaper to fly, I wanted to gain a bit more experience in an aircraft I am not familiar with as most of my previous flying experience is in either the C172 or a Piper PA28.

The choice of aircraft presented me with a different problem than I am used to… weight and balance. With the C152 having only 2 seats (compared to the 4 I am used to) and my father occupying the second seat, my flight bag also weighing in at around 12 lbs as well as all of my camera equipment I had to make sure I carefully calculated how much fuel we departed with as full tanks would have taken us over the maximum take off weight.

With the rarity of some really good weather, I decided on a short sightseeing flight so that I could also spend the remainder of the day making the most of the sunshine with my family. I planned a simple route from Headcorn to the Port of Dover via Ashford. This is a flight I have been wanted to do while based at Biggin Hill, but never got round to it.

We departed from runway 10 at Headcorn which put us on a perfect direct track towards Ashford and Dover. I noticed immediately in the take off roll that the aircraft was heavy and after leaving the ground our rate of climb was really slow.

After departing the circuit we changed radio frequency to London Information for a Basic Service. With the majority of the south east of England not covered by a LARS unit this was my best option in terms of an ATC unit be in contact with.

Due to the vast are that London Information cover, they were incredibly busy as usual. On top of that they were having to deal with another aircraft travelling to France that was experiencing engine trouble. This meant that I didn’t actually get to make contact with them until I was to the east of Ashford.

On reaching the coast we made a turn to the left over the Port of Dover which allowed the camera looking out of the left window to capture some amazing footage of the Port, Dover Castle and the White Cliffs.

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We then took the same route back to Headcorn heading west until reaching Ashford when we switched over to Headcorn Radio and continued until we joined the circuit on the left hand downwind leg for runway 10. The circuit was reasonably quiet which is unusual for Headcorn and we turned final for a routine landing. The only aircraft waiting for departure behind us was the airfields parachute aircraft waiting to drop off a group of sky divers.

Although it was only a short trip, it was great to get my first flight in command under my belt in a new aircraft type. I can’t wait for my next trip.

View the video on my YouTube channel: