Category: Trip Log

G-EJBI flew to Farley Farm in an what turned out to be an unsuccessful attempt to get some air in the oleos, we could not find a suitable adapter for the inflation valves. I needed to fly a dual hour of refresher training to keep my LAPL valid so we took G-EJBI to Clacton where I then spent a lovely hour flying with Jo McDonald in the Clacton Aero Club Super Cub. G-EJBI also managed a Tibenham local flight in April with Andrew taking his oldest sister Lucy for a flight. Lucy is currently training for her PPL on the PA28 with Premier Flight Training at Norwich.

A little more flying for G-EJBI this month with visits to Seething, Old Warden, Farley Farm and Wycombe Air Park. The visit to Wycombe was a bit of a trip down memory lane as it was the airfield where I completed my PPL. The flying club have this pretty cool retro B.O.A.C. livery Piper Cherokee with the other side painted in the old B.E.A. colours.

We took G-EJBI to Duxford at the beginning of the  month and visited Cromer towards the end. Cromer (Northrepps) is a small and quite picturesque airfield which always seems to have a good turn out of photographers. Here is a picture, taken by Graham Reeve, of G-EJBI departing on the rather short 385m cross runway.

Here is G-EJBI just prior to her first flight after maintenance and our first flight of 2019. This year Andrew and I did a lot of the spanner work on the aircraft ourselves under the supervision of Mike. It was probably for that reason we thought 30 minutes over the Norfolk Broads was ample flight time and we should land while all was working well.

Our trip to Old Warden at the begining of November was the last flight before the 100 hour check and Annual Inspection. Having attended two airshows at this airfield already this year, it was a pleasant change to be able to visit the museum at a much quieter time. With no ATC and very few visitors by air it was a lovely way to end the years flying.

Andrew, Oscar and myself took a trip to Calais at the begining of November. The restaurant at the airfield has opened again and we enjoyed a pleasant meal there before a walk into Marck. A few bottles of wine from the supermarket and the rebate on the fuel from Customs and Excise always makes this a popular destination of mine.

I had wanted to visit Damyns Hall for quite a while. It is very close to London and until recently didn’t charge a landing fee. The only activity on our visit was a Tiger Club Cub being prepared for flight., the restaurant was closed. The landing fee is now very modest but on our visit as everything was shut and the aircraft deemed interesting enough, there was nothing to pay. I should imagine it is busy at the weekends and with a nice wide and smooth grass runway we shall return next year.

We flew G-EJBI quite a lot in September. A visit to Blackbushe proved good value. now that they have reduced their fees to around £14. The reasonable fuel price was also a good excuse to use my new AirBP card. I took some friends sightseeing to the south coast and popped in to Farley Farm on our return to Blackbushe. G-EJBI also visited Duxford for the 2018 Air UK reunion and this picture of her was taken on a lovely day departing  North Repps airfield by Graham Reeve.

The begining of September and Paola and I visited Old Warden. They were holding their Heritage Airshow and again we enjoyed beautiful weather. We met up with Rolf and Sylvie who had kindly invited us to the Classic Klemm meeting at Eutingen. In the end we were unable to make the trip to Germany but looking at this video it seems we missed a good event.

At the end of August, Andrew and I visited Sywell for the LAA Rally. We just went for the day, on the Friday and spent a few hours looking around the aircraft and trade stands. With an arrival every minute it seems, on paper at least, to be quite a daunting prospect. In reality, arrivals and departures are pretty relaxed, there is little radio and with a couple of runways available they handle the volume of traffic well. Thanks to the many photographers who took pics of G-EJBI and posted on the web.