Just some of the aircraft parked on the grass at Barton.
| FLYING IN ENGLAND - FIRST IMPRESSIONS |
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Note: More comprehensive England flying section available - follow this link! Since this was written, I have been back to Barton again, and this time had enough time to get a full checkout to fly the Lancashire Aero Club's aircraft. The section covers things that a U.S. private pilot will find different when flying in England. Also, lots more (better quality!) photographs!
| -- Just Half an Hour -- |
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Now I've done my checkride, it was time to learn something new
(there always is something new to learn in aviation). I've never had the
privelige to fly off grass.
Barton Airfield is not far from where I was staying in Manchester.
They have an aero club there with instructors, so my aim was to get checked
out with them so I could take my mum on a quick sightseeing trip around the
area. So, Wednesday 22nd October I went to Barton to get there for 9 a.m.
Unfortunately, I didn't realise just how diabolical the traffic was in
Manchester, so we ended up getting there half an hour late...not very good,
since there was no way you can check out in the half hour of flying time
we had left.
I selected the C172 to fly, since I'm familiar with it (not
as much as I would have liked, since appalling weather in Houston grounded
me, so it was my first chance to fly in almost 3 weeks!). It's registration
was G-BOIL (the nice thing about English registrations is that you can have
much more creative ones than in the US - there was also an Archer named G-KITE,
and a 152 named G-PLAN). The aircraft was one of the best looking 172's I've
seen - it was in good condition inside and out. It even sported two
altimeters.
The preflight was pretty standard - the club had nice flipover
checklists. The weather was clear blue skies, and at least 15 miles visibility
and just a couple of knots of wind, but a cool 5 degrees centigrade. Preflight
was taken up by shivering instead of sweating!
Time to start learning...lots. First off, the before-takeoff
checks are not done the same way. In the US the checklists are positively
spartan in comparison. My instructor for the day, Tony Jones went through
the checks because we were late starting. The first check was an altimeter
check to make sure it was calibrated (setting 2 different pressures in the
Kollsman window and checking the hands moved the correct amount). Once fuelled,
a mag check at idle was performed to ensure that the engine wouldn't quit
on one mag at idle. Then we got rolling (you need quite a bit of power to
start moving on grass) and we did another set of checks - ensuring the gyro
instruments work. Whilst taxiing, we did a gentle turn to the right to check
the DG turned and the turn coordinator worked, then another to the left to
check the same things. The run-up check was pretty much what I was used to
- point the aircraft into the wind, and at 1800 rpm, check carb heat and
mags.
The radio work was also quite different. The phraseology is similar, but some procedures are different. Barton Airport is similar to Houston Gulf since it is not tower-controlled, but it has Barton Radio (similar to UNICOM in the US, except it's known as an A/G station, or air-to-ground). I was pleasantly surprised to find that my frequency for home was the same as SPX (122.7). However, the similarity ends there since you advise radio of your movements and what you are going to do. Like UNICOM, they don't give clearances, but they do give advisories and booking out with radio lets them help give other traffic a good picture of what's happening. Instead of self-announcing, you tell Radio what your intentions are and they give you advisories such as the QNH (MSL altimeter setting - this gives your elevation above sea level) and QFE (which means the altimeter reads zero on the ground). This is why we had two altimeters - one gets set to QFE and the other to QNH.
Departing on grass.
This was my first opportunity to do a soft field takeoff, for
real. The runway is about as smooth as a rugby pitch (imagine driving your
car at 70 mph over a well-used cow pasture and you get the picture), so it's
important to get the load off the nosewheel soon. Interestingly enough, standard
practise wasn't to hold the aircraft in ground effect, it was to just let
the aircraft fly itself off, then climb out at 60 KIAS. It was extremely
bumpy as we built up speed, but Tony had warned me about this! He also said
that it was interesting when he went to fly in the US, his checkout instructor
was amazed by how many checks a UK PPL carried out as we climbed out.
At about 500 feet, the flaps were retracted, and we assumed
a normal Vy climb. The performance of the aircraft was astonishing - with
a 70 KIAS climbout, we easily maintained over 1000 fpm thanks to the cold
air (a full 10 degrees C below standard when we departed, plus the pressure
was a touch over standard meaning density altitude was not a problem).
We didn't have time to do much - Tony pointed out good landmarks
to find home by, and we did a clearing turn followed by a couple of steep
turns (very ragged ones unfortunately - steep turns were never my strong
point, but I should have done better than that - then again, the cold air
and undoubtedly different rigging of the aircraft to what I'm used to would
make a difference).
Landing.
Procedures in England for pattern entry are different in general.
At Barton, standard practise is to come in for an overhead join. The overhead
join in this instance is to come in at 1500 ft directly over the airfield,
then circle down on the 'dead side' (the opposite side of the circuit, or
traffic pattern to which the traffic is actually using), and to be at the
pattern altitude as you make the crosswind leg, then follow the usual lefthand
pattern. You report overhead, downwind and final on the radio. Instead of
putting the flaps out one notch at a time, we actually put 20 degrees in
straight away once we were in the white arc. Grass runways are a lot more
difficult to see, and it was quite difficult telling when we should start
our turn to final, so I was late turning (I was lining up for the wrong field!)
The pattern we flew was a bit wider than what I'm used to, so I had plenty
of time to line up. On short final, I deployed the remaining flaps, and eased
the power back once the runway was made.
Flaring was interesting. Deprived of my normal visual cues like
runway edges, plus once you are near the ground it's difficult to differentiate
the runway from the rest of the grass judging height was completely different.
Somehow I did it, and managed to make a greaser with the stall horn going
off. It's vitally important to land main wheels first on grass - if you do
a three-pointer disaster can strike. I held the yoke back as we rolled out.
The additional friction of running over grass meant I never touched the brakes.
That landing was one of the most satisfying ones I've ever done - a quality
soft field landing on grass! (I can see some people who learned on grass
saying 'big deal' right now ;-)...)
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