It’s great up North!

By Perry Harris

Myself and a pilot friend of mine decided to arrange a trip to a fly-in event at Eshott Airfield just north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne to take place on the 12th of June.  The medium term weather forecast looked good and so I checked the EBS. Unfortunately, the Warrior, which would have been ideal for the trip due to its endurance capability, was not available so I  booked one of the C152’s instead, which my passenger, also a PPL holder and a keen air to ground photographer would appreciate due to the high wing.

I took a look at the route on Skydemon and decided to include a stop at Breighton, nr York for fuel and to also have look around the fine collection of aircraft that are based there. We would fly on to Eshott and then return via Sherburn or Gamston. At this point I realised that the UK southern chart doesn’t cover that far North so I ordered the Northern one from Pooleys.

I checked my passengers’ weight and worked out that to keep within weight and balance limits we would only be able to fly with half tanks. On the C152 this would provide about 2h 15m flying time (46L at 20L per hour). With a 1hr reserve this would mean sorties of around an hour which was not enough to get to Breighton. I therefore added an interim fuel stop at Nottingham, somewhere I hadn’t been to before and would probably do something similar on the return. The flight from Breighton to Eshott was just on the hour but longer if there was a headwind.

The other complication on checking the NOTAM was that the Red Arrows were due to do a formation flight that morning from Scampton down towards Northampton at a similar time and on almost the same opposite track as our proposed flight. I adjusted the route to cross their track early and keep well out of the way to the West.

Departing Halton at just after 09:00 Z in cloudier conditions than forecast we headed up towards Tollerton (Nottingham) as the locals still refer to it as. There was a good 8-10kt headwind which extended the flight time and validated the need to stop here for fuel.

With a quick fill of 10 litres in each tank followed by a visit to the tower to pay for the fuel and landing fee we headed off to Breighton, following a 10minute queue to depart with aircraft in front of us and a busy circuit.

The weather was now starting to improve with the cloud breaking up and the sun peaking through. The flight to the East of the Sheffield\Doncaster zone following the river Trent was pleasant with striking industrial views of the local power stations and Scunthorpe steel works. A left turn where the Trent feeds the Humber had us on a 10mile run to Breighton, which is notoriously difficult to see from the South (no overhead joins). We saw the airfield almost as we joined left base and landed without issue on the wide and well-kept grass runway.

Always a very friendly place, we started talking to one of the local pilots who showed us around the various hangars and mentioned that if we were heading to Eshott and we needed a fuel stop then an airfield called Fishburn between Tesside and Newcastle would be a good choice, but to be wary of the ‘slope’, which after encountering it later I would more accurately describe as a ‘hill’!

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A sausage sandwich and another 20litres of fuel later we were heading to Fishburn overhead Elvington Air Museum and the City of York for some great photo opportunities and then onwards towards the North York Moors. We radioed Teeside and got a totally unrestricted south to north zone crossing, clearing it just as a Ryanair flight came on the radio to begin their arrival.

During the overhead join at Fishburn I could see the ‘slope’ and some high power lines to be avoided on the western approach. The landing went well, but not without some judicious use of power to ensure a smooth touch down on the upward slope.

In glorious sunshine we sat in the Pilots area and chatted to some of the locals including the airfield owner who informed us that there are over 40 aircraft based there and that the runway slope had not caused any untoward issues (well not recently anyway!).

It was at this point that we reviewed our itinerary and realised that if we did the final leg to Eshott, which was only about 30 minutes further North, then we would probably not make it back to Halton before the 8pm closure. Having been warned in the morning that a previous latecomer was refused a landing and forced to divert to Brize Norton with all the associated complications, we decided that we had better start heading back.

We examined the chart and plotted a route back down the east coast over Whitby and Scarborough stopping at Beverley (Hull) and Fenland for fuel. I called both airfields for PPR and to ensure that fuel was available. Beverley was fine and Fenland had a 24/7 unattended set-up which even though they closed at 6pm would be available to us.

The uphill take-off from Fishburn proved to be less of an ordeal than imagined and we were soon talking to Teeside Zone again, flying across the port from Hartlepool to Redcar and then down the beautiful East Yorkshire coastline.

At Beverley, another well maintained grass strip, we fuelled again and then flew south over the Humber with magnificent views of the road bridge, and then down into the flat lands of Lincolnshire towards Fenland.

Fenland is notorious for not being easy to spot from the air. The flat lands and thousands of square and rectangular fields make for spotting the T shaped runway layout tricky. Anyway, we eventually spotted it and a call to the traffic had us landing on the westerly 26 runway followed by the long taxi up 36 to the fuel.

It was at this point that I realised that Tango Mike’s wooden fuel dipstick was missing. It wasn’t much of an issue at the time, as I would just put 10 litres in each tank as I had done all day, but I knew that I would not be popular at the club having lost one of these precious bespoke items. I assumed I had left it at Beverley whilst re-fuelling there and luckily a quick call the following day to the friendly ops manager confirmed this, with him helpfully posting it back to the club the next day.

Once fuelled and then racing a hare whilst taxiing down 18, we departed on the final leg to Halton, arriving at the airfield on 02 just before 7:30 pm.

It had been a full and fantastic day’s flying, with 6.25 hours logged and a couple of new airfields added to my log book.