29 September 2020
I was due at Castle Combe circuit for 0830 on the Monday, and I really wanted to go in my Messenger. Sample the value of two years work, and travel to a job in a style not available anywhere else. I already knew though that there’s a big difference in actually using a vintage aeroplane you don’t know that well, and doing a few trips round the patch. I had flown for a couple of hours over the previous weekend without any problem, so I was confident about oil usage and could make a reasonable guess about the fuel consumption. The weather was perfect and forecast to last, so I rang Garston Farm, my normal Combe-convenient strip. “Sorry, no visitors at the moment…” Ed the editor suggested Wadswick but that – and Gloucester – are at least 60 quid away by taxi. Then someone proposed Badminton, which is only four miles away. Howard, who hangars his Commander there, said he’d give me a lift. Used to fly in a Messenger, he said, be good to see one again…
“Travelling to a job in a style not available anywhere else”
Monday 0430, and a quick look at the TAFs promised local fog in the South West, a possibility which had been thus far completely absent… Damn… It was forecast to clear by 0900, but I’ve been caught out like that on more than one occasion, kicking my heels for the whole day. Or I could just miss the shower and shave, drive like a madman and be similarly late. So, I did what I would have done 20 years ago. Tugged Messenger out of the hangar, fired up and soared into a cloudless sky where Messenger rode the wind beneath its wings as only Messenger can. The sun began to warm the cockpit and the patches of fog I could see as I neared the West were scattered and thinning. An hour on and the gauges had stayed pegged where they should be, but then… the Blackburn began to surge. The rev counter would move 25rpm in one direction, settle for a moment and then go back, accompanied by a semitone’s change in the sound. All too easy to get preoccupied by this and find yourself 500ft from your cruise level, or inside someone’s space. There’s no carb heat, so I cycled the magnetos in case one was going down, but neither made any difference. I waited for the surges to get bigger, or smaller. It’s almost worse if they disappear all on their own.
I’m not sure how I found out, but the change in the engine’s note turned out to be a simple response to pressure on the rudder bar. The Miles has a neat arrangement where the pedals are on the ends of a swivel mounted on a pedestal and bolted to the wooden floor. Which makes a great sounding board… The rev counter surges all on its own, probably because it’s 70-odd years old. Problem understood, the rest of the flight was perfect. The murk which still lay over the Severn was clear of Badminton, Howard was there to meet me at a lush and beautifully kept strip – and identified the Messenger in which he’d flown many years ago, as the one which had just landed. I made it to Combe bang on time. I finally got in touch with Sywell about lunchtime. Could I visit about six o’clock ? “Sorry no, we’re closed on Mondays…” It’s OK, I only need the credit card pump? “No, sorry, it’s closed.” What, you mean it’s no longer available ? “No, only on Mondays…” Yes, I know.
How about Oaksey Park? Steven at Merlin Motorsport – who keeps another Commander at Gloucester – said they close at five, or about the time I would finish at Combe. The only choice, he said, was Gloucester, but be sure to ring for PP.
Howard had kindly offered his taxi again and as we wound our way back through the leafy lanes to Badminton, I explained my fuel dilemma. Fenland is also on my route but since I hadn’t proved the fuel gauges, that would be a risk, especially as the headwind had now disappeared and the air was hot and still. Howard dialled up Oaksey Park on the Bluetooth. “Got a fellow flyer who needs fuel, can you sort it ?” Andrew replied politely, saying that he closed at five and besides, he was about to go out for a drink with his beloved. “Come on,” said Howard, “you can’t have him going to Gloucester. Besides, he’s flying a Messenger…”
I hadn’t been to Oaksey for a while, but it’s truly a model airfield, and the fuel turned out to be the cheapest I’ve seen for ages. Andrew swiftly turned it all round and I set off again, confident now that Messenger would do all it could to get me home, including turning at max continuous for the next two hours.
A mid-afternoon text from home reminded me that the sun set at 1915 and asked if I wanted car headlights to shine down the strip… I picked out the twin beams a long way before the thin green line emerged from the gathering gloom, backing out just as I wheeled on. Most helpful.
I’d made it, but it seems I never really learn the lessons. The details wouldn’t have been much the same sitting in a Cherokee, but the experience was so very different.
As a friend of mine put it, flying anything like a Messenger isn’t just a flight, it’s an event…
Working vintage aircraft and cars make Mark particularly happy.
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