Aircraft problems on departure

Kemble to Headcorn

Better late than never with this video, but here it is! The return leg back to Headcorn from Kemble in the Robin DR400-160 G-BFJZ with fellow pilot and friend Graham.

The first leg was actually my first flight as pilot in command of the DR400 since completing my differences training with my instructor. Apart from a slight delay due to the weather the flight went smoothly with no issues. So I was hoping for the same on the return leg to ease me in nicely to a new aircraft type.

As is quite frequently the case in general aviation, things don’t always go to plan. After checking out the aircraft and preparing for our flight, everything seemed fine both externally and internally. We fired up the engine and got our taxi clearance for a departure from runway 26. I released the parking break and started taxiing the aircraft. Immediately something didn’t feel right with the handling of the aircraft but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It seemed that every time I touched the foot pedals to control the steering the wheel locked up or felt like the brake was engaged.

Given that I don’t have a huge amount of experience in this aircraft type, I wanted to check that I hadn’t done silly like leaving the parking brake partially engaged or locked the nose wheel in place. But this wasn’t the issue, the parking brake was definitely disengaged and movement in the foot pedals was absolutely fine.

At this stage I wasn’t happy to proceed and we decided to pull over to one side, out of the way of other taxiing aircraft to investigate further. I brought the aircraft to a holt, engaged the parking break, straightened up the nose wheel and took a look at the exterior of the aircraft … everything looked fine.

I then released the parking brake pulled forwards slightly and everything seemed fine. As we still had a fair distance to travel to the holding point for runway 26 we decided to use this time to assess if we are happy to continue with the flight back to Headcorn.

We had no issues at all taxiing up to the holding point, where we completed our engine checks and were both happy to proceed and get the aircraft back to Headcorn where we could report the issue to maintenance and ask them to take a look at it in more detail.

We plotted a slightly different route for our return, flying overhead RAF Benson where a MATZ penetration would need to be requested and then to the north of the London CTR, over Banbury Reservoir and then passing over the Thames at the QEII bridge back into Kent. We would then start our approach into Headcorn from Maidstone.

Our departure from runway 26 was nice and smooth and we made a left turn to then depart the circuit on the downwind leg in the direction of Swindon.

On approaching Swindon we then gave the controllers Benzon Zone a call, initially to request a Basic Service before asking for a MATZ penetration via their overhead. As usual we didn’t have any problems with getting this approved.

Given the changing weather through out the day, although visibility was good, we were expecting one or two small pockets of turbulence along our route back home. We hit our first one pretty quickly just as we were approaching RAF Benson.

After passing through the Benson MATZ we were asked to contact Farnborough LARS North and we called them to request a Basic Service just as we approached Wycombe Air Park. At this point we started to get sight of the London skyline with Wembley stadium being the stand out landmark.

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We then had some tight spaces of airspace to negotiate, and the aircraft being buffeted about by pockets of reasonably strong turbulence really didn’t help with the concentration needed to navigate through the gaps between the London CTR and the Elstree ATZ and then a bit further along between the Stapleford ATZ and the London/City CTR.

This was the first time that I have flown over north London since Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium was built and we got a great view of this impressive looking stadium and we approached Banbury Reservoir.

After passing the London/City CTR, we made a right turn towards the Thames and the QEII Bridge which for some strange reason has always been one of my favourite landmarks to fly over. Around this area, Graham took the controls. He has never flown in a Robin DR400 before and wanted to get a feel for this type of aircraft and how having a stick control differs from the traditional control column/yoke.

As we passed over the Thames into Kent, the weather changed significantly over the North Downs. Initially we flew through a short burst of heavy rain which was then followed us being hit by hail. The rain eased off slightly and visibility was good but it pretty much rained for the majority of the flight back to Headcorn.

Just as we approached Maidstone we requested a frequency change to Headcorns Air/Ground radio service who gave us the aerodrome information for our approach to the airfield. The changeable weather had also had an impact on the wind direction which meant that the runway had changed since our departure earlier in the morning.

I had actually started to position myself to join for a right hand circuit on runway 28 but quickly altered the plan to land on runway 10 which has a left hand circuit. Although we had to lose some altitude slightly quicker, in fact the change of direction meant that we could knock a couple of minutes off the flight time as we could join the circuit either left base or downwind from the north, instead of having to fly a big loop around the airfield to join the right hand circuit pattern for runway 28.

Our join and approach was uneventful and touched down smoothly on the grass of runway 10.

We then taxied backed to our parking stand, shut down the aircraft and returned to the club house to complete the obligatory paperwork.

View the video on my YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acqSuA-M9Wc