29 September 2021
We all know the saying, but is it a tad harsh when it comes to considering using GA as a legitimate form of transport rather than just a hobby? I thought I’d put it to the test for a recent trip I had planned to the Isles of Scilly with a group of friends for a long weekend sea kayaking.
With everyone avoiding holidaying abroad this year it seemed the perfect opportunity to show my non-pilot friends how useful GA can be for going places. One of them is American, so she is quite used to flying in small aircraft to travel long distances on occasion. In fact, seeing as our plan was to fly from London down to St Mary’s, she was very much of the opinion there was no other way to do such a trip. The alternative would be to drive or take a train for the 5.5 hours down to Land’s End and then hop on a ferry taking another three hours, meaning we’d waste an entire day just getting there.
The first problem was finding a suitable aircraft to take the four of us. My little Super Cub was definitely not on the cards, lacking both the speed and seating capacity for such a trip, and there’s no borrowing of work’s PC-12, so I asked around for something meeting our needs. Most four seaters aren’t actually capable of taking four people with fuel and luggage any real distance, which meant renting something from the usual places wasn’t really an option. Luckily, a friend of mine has a lovely, modified Cessna 172 Reims Rocket, which he was happy to let me borrow at a reasonable rate.
“We decided to depart early rather than risk getting stuck for an unknown length of time”
The next problem was I have never flown a 172. The only SEP I’m current on is my Cub and while the thought, how hard can it be? crossed my mind, I thought it best to familiarise myself with some circuits just to be sure I wasn’t going to bend it. The other thought in the back of my mind, had been remembering a report of someone who went off the end of the relatively short and humped runway at St Mary’s… The 172 doesn’t exactly have Super Cub levels of runway length performance and it’s been a while since I’ve landed on anything remotely sloping.
I needn’t have worried. The Reims Rocket lived up to its name and landed short too with those large flaps. The trickiest part was figuring out how to use the autopilot and glass cockpit with its blend of various Garmin units installed throughout. I think it had more screens than works PC-12!
The final part of the trip was the flight planning. As tempting as it was to go IFR, I opted for VFR as a lot of the charm of GA flying is being lower to the ground so you can actually see things.
Also, with SkyDemon in hand there’s really no excuse not to quickly plan a VFR route and allow for any required zone transits on the way. Yes, you could get a paper chart out and faff about drawing lines with a pen but the whole idea of this trip was to prove that going by air is quicker and by using something like SkyDemon, you can save lots of time over old-fashioned methods.
There’s always a bit of extra stress when flying ‘non-pilot’ friends, especially when they’re relying on you to get them to the destination. I made it very clear from the start that fun flying in light aircraft for trips like this is by no means a guarantee of success. If the weather was bad or the aircraft unserviceable, we would have to fall back on the ground-based method of getting to the Isles of Scilly. I’m lucky to be instrument rated, as was the Cessna, which took some concerns away if the weather was a bit iffy, but even then, neither the departure or arrival airports had instrument approaches.
Thankfully the weather behaved for the trip, as that’s always the worry when planning a longer cross-country trip VFR here in the UK. We departed bang on schedule (take note UK train services!) and once clear of the busy London airspace, I could relax a bit more and enjoy the flight.
Departure for the return trip was brought forward due to an impending weather front blowing in from the south-west. We could have risked waiting it out but the forecasts weren’t great for what was following behind and so we opted to depart early rather than risk getting stuck for an unknown length of time.
Looking at the total amount of time I spent sourcing a suitable aircraft, planning the trip itself, getting checked out in the aircraft and then actually flying, I probably didn’t really save much time in the grand scheme of things. The cost was a bit more, although not by much, than a train/ferry combination per person. So I guess the old adage, time to spare, go by air, still holds true even when a trip goes to plan. Saying that, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it all again…
Currently dividing his time between a Cub, a Catalina… oh, and a PC-12
[email protected]
