Stuck on the parking stand
VFR over Brands Hatch and the QEII Bridge
One of the challenges that a lot of PPL pilots face is keeping track of all of the dates in order to keep the licence and type rating valid as well as any currency rules posed either by insurance companies or flying clubs.
At Headcorn, the club insist that you must complete at least one flight every 40 days in order to remain current to fly their fleet of aircraft. Sometimes the busy lifestyle of having 2 young kids and work commitments means that this can quite often be a challenge.
I had previously flown with my family on the 1st June 2021 and with my next flight with my family planned for the 18th July 202ยง, this would mean I would fall outside of the 40 day currency rule.
So with some good weather forecast, I booked the Cessna 172 (G-ATWJ) for a short flight with my friend Matt on the evening of Wednesday 23rd June 2021. As Headcorn is operates until sunset, this allowed me to finish work before heading down to the airfield.
I planned a local flight that should only take around 45/50 minutes in total to pass over the race track at Brands Hatch. With the attraction being quite close to Headcorn, for some reason I have never passed over it and usually plan my routes to the south of the Wrotham mast that stands at 1,400 ft above sea level. The last time I flew with Matt we headed to the south east coast which doesn’t have a huge amount of en-route scenery, so I thought it would be nice to fly over the QEII bridge which is quite a popular sight with a number of my other passengers.
What should have been a simple local flight actually turned out to be quite a long drawn out affair and ended up actually spending longer on the ground at the airfield than in the air.
The first issue was that the aircraft I had booked had not yet been released from its 50 hour check and with the appropriate Engineers finished for the day, there was no way to get it back into service. This meant that I was offered the opportunity to fly the clubs other Cessna 172 (G-AVIS) which has only just been regenerated. In fact, I wasn’t yet available for PPL pilots to hire due to its low timed engine. For this reason, I was instructed not to do any circuit training in this particular aircraft until it had built up more engine hours and it was released for PPL hire.
G-AVIS is another older model Cessna 172 built in 1967 but the workshop have done an amazing job with it. The aircraft was in immaculate condition and was sparkling clean, especially considering it is operating from a grass airfield where the planes tend to get a bit dirty.
With the aircraft checked out, the next job was to get some fuel. I started the engine and began to taxi away from the parking stand. Making sure my right hand wing was clear of the propeller of the plane to my right, the tail of the aircraft on my left looked a little bit too close for comfort.
Not wanting to cause any damage to the aircraft that had only recently undergone an extremely expensive regeneration project, I asked A/G operator if he had a view from his position, this would have avoided having to completely shut down the aircraft so that I could get out and double check.
Although he couldn’t see from his position, he very kindly tried to radio the engineers in a nearby hanger to see if they could assist. It looked like they had gone home for the day as there was no response on the radio. So I had no other choice but to shut the aircraft down and double check. It was a good job I did. There was not enough space and I would have hit the tail of the other aircraft if I had continued my taxi.
Just as I was inspecting the clearance space the fire crew pulled up and kindly offered to pull the other aircraft out of the way. So Matt and I boarded our aircraft again and started the engine up again and continued our taxi to the fuelling station.
With the tanks full of fuel, we requested the airfield information for our flight and started our taxi to runway 10. It took a while to taxi to the holding point as we got caught behind a gyrocopter that moved significantly slower than our Cessna 172.
So after a number of delays we finally got airborne from runway 10 initially heading towards the east. We planned to depart the circuit on the downwind leg to put us in a westerly direction to head towards Brands Hatch. On the downwind leg of the circuit, the gyrocopter decided to fly directly through the downwind leg of the circuit in a northerly direction meaning that I had to take avoiding action.
Once clear of the circuit, we changed radio frequency to Southend Radar who provided us with a Basic Service. Our route took us just to the south of Maidstone and then direct to Brands Hatch.
We took in the views of the race track at Brands Hatch with a couple of orbits overhead where we could clearly see the cars racing on the circuit.
At this stage the camera filming out of the rear window decided fall on its side meaning that we couldn’t use any of the footage after that point.
Our route then took us to the QEII bridge. We passed over the River Thames and made a sharp left turn to head back south following the same route back towards Headcorn.
On our return we made a quick stop off to do an orbit over Matt’s house as well as popping by to see Leeds Castle. It was then time to rejoin the unusually quiet circuit at Headcorn to land back on runway 10.
A really enjoyable flight, getting to do something I haven’t done before in seeing Brands Hatch from the air and visiting some of the passengers favourite sightseeing spots. Not a bad way to keep myself current.
View the video on my YouTube channel: