Essex Microlight Club

Our next club meeting is Monday 14th April, at 7pm for 7-30 at Stewarts Bar, Western Road, Billericay.

Le Touquet 18 May 2005

Words by Tony Harrison Smith

Pictures by Simon Rigby and Tony HS

This was the second time of trying to get there, the first one last year being fogged out.

This trip though started a couple of months ago when at an Essex Club curry night, Chris Draper, after talking to Steve, Pete and Jeff, said to me ‘we are going to have a joint fly out to Le Touquet, what day are we going?’ We decided on Wednesday the 18^th, and hoped for the best. I must admit I then ‘delegated’ the arrangements to Pete, for Essex members and Jeff for Stoke members, as they had been there before.

Leading up to the day, I bought 2 flotation suits and an emergency beacon, just in case…

The day was approaching and the weather forecast looked perfect, it obviously could not stay like that, could it? The day dawned, with the weather exactly as predicted, light winds, sunny and good visibility. The plan was that there would be 2 groups flying over and meeting at Le Touquet. The group from Stoke (except me) would fly to Lydd, file their flight plans there, refuel and then fly direct to Le Touquet. The Essex crowd, and I, would fly directly from our home bases, meet up in the air and fly as a group.

(Phil regretted not fastening the frame locking strap and asked Simon if he was in any pain)

Well it started OK. The Stoke flyers left on time, except Dave who was a bit late, and we then had 25 minutes to get ourselves ready before meeting the other Essex boys overhead. Now the problems started. First a slightly low pressure tyre on the Thruster delayed us a little, but only by about 6 minutes. Then, the biggest surprise of all, the Essex group were on time overhead, the buggers! They circled overhead while we took off and then we followed them. The next problem was that I could receive on the radio but not transmit. This was sorted out after about 5 minutes of playing, by plugging the headset into the right socket on the intercom! The next problem was that London Information could not hear us properly to open the flight plan, eventually they got the message and opened it for us. They then asked if we were going to stay on frequency, surprisingly I said ‘negative’.

(Karen Draper confessed to having difficulty seeing Lydd from the air. Few believed her)

About this time the GPS decided there were not enough satellites in the sky to give any readings. I was about to turn around and go home! As we could not find a frequency that the Essex boys were on, we decided to carry on, in case they wondered where we were. Having tried all the frequencies that we could think of to hear our flying partners, we gave up and called Lydd for Flight information service. No joy, they asked us to contact Manston. After hearing tales of Manston’s legendary level of service to microlights, I was not that hopeful, but decided to give it a try. This was where the flight started to go right, OK we had reached Canterbury by now, but it had to go in our favour soon, didn’t it?

Manston were a joy to talk to. They were very helpful and could hear us perfectly (I later found out that the problem with London Information was at there end and that they were transferring lots of people to Manston as they could not hear them). We were now on our way and the workload was reducing. I could see Trevor and we were flying together, even if I could not talk to him. As we approached Dover, all the other Essex boys started to call Manston as well. At last! I could hear the others in our flight. You have no idea how comforting that can be.

(The Drapers pedalled furiously for 22 miles )

The trip across the channel went well, we could see France from Dover so we were quite happy, so it must be time for something else to go wrong, right?... right! The bullet camera decided that it had been working too well for too long and stopped. Not wanting to play with it during the flight, we just went to hand operation of the video camera, not perfect, but workable. We later (when we got home that night) found out that the batteries had run out, I wondered what that symbol meant on the screen :-(

Approaching Le Touquet was very much an anticlimax with us all calling downwind, however Steve decided to do a 6 mile downwind as he could not see the 2 GA aircraft in front of him. By the time he turned final, Pete and Trevor had slotted in before him. I was not quick enough so I followed him in calling short finals as I crossed the runway threshold (as requested by the ATC).

(The Onion Sellers Convention was well attended)

At Le Touquet, we hired bikes and went cycling into town for lunch. If you have not ridden a bike for 20 years, I can tell you at the end of it your backside hurts. We found this lovely bar and sat outside with our drinks and had a really nice meal.

(An Onion Seller)

Isn’t it funny how, when your passenger drinks a few glasses of red wine and you are on Coca-Cola, you start to hate the passenger :-) although Rosemary very much disagrees and says she will not fly the plane home:-)

("Signor- La quenta por favor! Nous departons sur les bicyclettes, in a minute." Malcom's French was impeccable)

As we finished our meal, the Stoke crowd turned up and ordered their meal. After sitting around chatting for a while, most of the Essex Boys went off to suntan on the beach while the rest of us just sat there chatting. It was soon time to go back to the airfield, so via an ice cream shop we cycled back to the airfield, meeting up with the Essex boys on the way back.

(Mad Bob had watched Ronan too many times the previous night)

Most of us had pre-filed our flight plans, so it was just a case of booking in and then going out to the apron for a group photo.

(Despite trying to blend in, Customs quickly detained the two asylum seekers on the right)

After getting dressed in the floatation suits, we all called for permission for start up, started up and then waited for 20 minutes until the ATC gave us permission to taxi. Steve was getting a bit upset on the radio by this time.

(Jason had watched too many Flintstones episodes the previous night)

The flight home was quite smooth and without any hitches. The Stoke crowd went to Headcorn to clear customs, while the rest of us went back to our home bases, having previously advised Customs, that if they want to see us, that is where we will be, none turned up though :-)

(The clean air of East London was a welcoming sight)

Back at Stoke, John (Smokey) had a lovely hot curry waiting for us and we spent a good couple of hours, just sitting there eating, rolls, nam bread dunked in curry, drinking beer and chilling out. I am sure that John has no idea as to how much that was appreciated. It really was a great end to a great day.

Well Rosemary & I are no longer ‘channel virgins’ And really enjoyed the experience. Roll on the next foreign outing.

The people who attended this joint fly-out were:-

Pete Croney & Jason Crozier

Paul Knight

MadBob and Malcolm Perry

Steve Sebastian

Trevor Sexton

Jeff McCall

Chris and Karen Draper

Phil Penhaligan & Simon Rigby

Dave Sudworth & Alan Cashin

Roger Griffiths

Myself and Rosemary