Sigurd Martin

Typical December weather:

…even with some snow thrown in:

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, some aviation was achieved. The RV6 over the fog filled valley of the Tay at Ballinluig:

Back in the hangar and safe from the elements, the Cub inches towards the point where the wings can come off for repair…

Control cables disconnected and ailerons removed to the workshop at home for safe keeping:

Cables tidied up and strapped to the struts:

I’ve got loads of yellow tape in the locker for the RV; it’s coming in handy for the Cub now as well…

The control cables sometimes do manage to retaliate:

At least we’re doing it under cover and not in the Ardennes in the freezing cold of the Battle of the Bulge…

The freshly printed instructor rating finally got used in anger, here’s Oli my first ever student. He’s off to an integrated course next year with a conditional offer from BA…

…so in the future I am going to be able to say that my first ever student now flies for BA!

On a cold day, with another student, we just couldn’t get the aircraft started. Even before we climbed into the aircraft we had about 30 minutes of de-icing to do.

The battery was a little inefficient in the cold, the oil was all huddling together for warmth at the bottom of the sump, the inside of the canopy was starting to ice over from our breath and the engine stubbornly refused to start.

Eventually we overprimed and flooded the carb intake box. The next failed start must have had some flame blowback through the intake valve and like a dog, it went WOOF and we were on fire.

It became obvious quite quickly, a strange smell and people shouting “YOU’RE ON FIRE!” – those were the main clues…

We did the fire drill and jumped out. There was a residual flicker of flame from the carburettor intake filter element – it’s made of foam and impregnated with oil to trap dust and other bogies, so it burns quite nicely.

The last item on the fire drill in the checklist reads:

“Vacate aircraft, taking fire extinguisher with you”

…so naturally I had to go back into the cabin to get the extinguisher and only then were we able to put the fire out.

The extinguishers in aircraft are very effective; one quick squirt to test then another longer squirt to put the fire out. Almost 12,000 hours and that was the first time I had to use an extinguisher in anger. All those fire courses my previous employers put me through were well worth it!

So, yeh. We were on fire. Tried to burn down a Cessna. Tough old birds, we didn’t manage to complete the task…despite forgetting the extinguisher.

Happy New Year! Both of you…

Perth airport’s most recently qualified instructor…

And here’s the proof:

The boss of the flying school got me a present to mark the occasion. How did he know they are my favourite? He must have spoken to the paramedics…

Taking into account the cost of the course, we worked out that each Jaffa Cake was worth about £600.

Still ate them though…

This has been my view for most of a very busy September and October, learning to fly a from the “wrong” seat…

…trying to synchronise my thoughts and actions and words to learn how to teach.

…It took ages to prepare lesson plans (above), which together with an hour in the Cessna 152 (below):

…turned into a mess of notes, ticks and scribbles:

Of course the weather does not always cooperate at this time of year…

It was a little windy a few days ago, time to sit in front of the fire and catch up on ground school subjects…

I did manage to get the RV out for a couple of trips, “keeping the oil warm” is my excuse. It was great to fly along enjoying the view with no pressure to perform, although I did find myself verbalising my thoughts and actions, just as if I was demonstrating to a student:

Once the course is finished it will be back to tinkering in the Cub, getting the wings ready to come off. The aircraft has now swapped positions with the Tiger Moth to ensure any Cub work doesn’t block them in:

Oh yes, the “Beatson Turns”…it seems I misheard. The term is “beats and turns”, like in a sailing dinghy, beating across the wind, then turning and beating across the wind in the opposite direction. The term was mentioned when we were doing glide approaches…if you are too high you can do s-turns to increase your track distance, but this is a modified version where you don’t make much forward progress – a way of losing a lot of height without losing sight of the emergency landing field.

Here was me thinking it was named after some famous instructor chap from the 1920s called Beatson. What a character he might have been…

With the plan being for the wings to come off it’s obvious that the aircraft won’t be flying for a while… so we decided to inhibit the engine to prevent corrosion.

And then we started the process of taking the wing root panels off to gain access to the mounting bolts:

It’s a slow and fiddly process with lots and lots of fasteners, bolts, nuts and screws to keep track of…a lot of sealable freezer bags to be filled and labelled up. The wing roots also contain electrics and fuel lines so there is a bit of thought required, bearing in mind that it will all have to go back together once the wing comes back from the classic aircraft specialists in Leicestershire:

With perfect timing we found the wing crack just after filling the fuel tanks to full for the aircraft weighing. As there was no flying in the foreseeable future there was no point leaving the fuel in the Cub. Both aircraft were wheeled out onto the grass…

…and the tank was drained into a jerry can for transfer across to the RV. It took a few trips as the Cub tank is about 45 litres:

With my green credentials enhanced by recycling the fuel, it was time to fly. Lovely weather over several days…

…both below and above the clouds:

I was giving myself a general handling refresher of stalls, practice forced landings and steep turns:

Happy with the performance:

There was a reason to brush up on general handling. By the time this goes out I’ll be half way through the instructor course…

Back to school..!

Continuing the process of moving the Cub from a Certificate of Airworthiness to a Permit to Fly. We had already weighed the aircraft and done the paperwork sift to ensure all was up to date. All the panels came off:

The aircraft got a good clean, inside and out:

The access hole for inspecting the horizontal stabiliser trim mechanism:

Further back, the elevator control horn and control cable turnbuckles are revealed:

The underside of the wing has about eight inspection holes in the fabric

A view inside the wing, taken through one of the access holes. Looking good so far, but see later on…

All the circular access discs are marked with their location on the wing…

Trying to keep all the screws with their correct panels involves a lot of plastic bags:

Bungee covers moved aside to inspect the simple suspension system:

As always, maintaining an aircraft has its risks!

Aside from injuries, there’s always a chance of finding something concerning, and sadly on this occasion we did. Inspector Sandy (blue shirt) called in engineer and Cub expert Neil (green shirt) for a second opinion:

There was what could be a crack in the right rear wing spar. Visible from below, it might have just been a crack in the varnish…the top fabric was opened up to get a better look and this is what we found – a large crack. The wing is going to have to come off for repair. Depending on the depth of the crack it could mean a whole new spar.

“Vintage Corner” in the hangar is starting to look like a repair shop…the joys of owning old aircraft:

Luckily I have the RV to fly while we’re waiting for repairs…

…and at least we found the crack in the hangar, rather than at 500ft over the D-Day beaches. That would NOT have made for good TV!

Every cloud etc

Early July and the warbirds are out at Perth…

For a small fee you too can have a ride in a two-seat Spitfire Mk IX. Check them out at http://www.spitfires.com – we thought it would be a good idea to get some photos of the two warbirds together, so the Cub was wheeled out:

Both aircraft are single-engine taildraggers, with tandem seating for two. They have D-Day markings, and both have evidence of bullet holes. Virtually the same, but they wouldn’t let me take the Spitfire for a wee flight..!

Meanwhile back in the workshop at home, the SSDR Eindecker got a new ignition switch:

And silly me lost the wiring diagram and the photo of the old switch in situ so it took a morning of trial and error to get the leads on the correct terminals. Got there in the end…

Quite a bit of RV flying thrown in, trying to find “hand gesture shaped” cloud formations, with limited success. Here’s the only one…

The Cub is now out of annual, as we are in the process of moving it from a CofA to a Permit to Fly. There are several stages, one of which is an aircraft reweigh. The aircraft is rolled up these ramps:

And then on to the special scales:

The tail is lifted until the fuselage is level (pic shows ramp but no scales yet) and then the weights are recorded for all three wheels.

After that there’s a bit of calculation magic to determine empty weight and CofG.

Next stage will be the aircraft inspection, plus there’s a bit of a paperwork sift to check that various service letters, service bulletins, airworthiness notices etc have been complied with.

A lot of the notices are from pre 1980, and should have been complied with when the aircraft was rebuilt in 2014, but we still have to check:

After this picture was taken and the cowlings were put back on, I got home to the paperwork and found that there may be another AD on the carburettor, depending on the model. So now I have to take them off again to check. Life is hard.

And finally a wee trip in the back of a BA A320 from Edinburgh to London for Uncle Johnny’s 80th birthday celebration- at a pub just visible in the photo on the south bank of the Thames in Greenwich.

Whoever said retirement was full of free time was full of it themselves…

Nice video of the flypast, as seen from the ground…

In the morning, it was up not too early, breakfast and a taxi to Caen-Carpiquet airport.

The early risers had already gone, some to fly the beaches and some heading off home. The only aircraft left were the three Cubs and the Fairchild from the UK, and the L4 and L5 of Iza and Arnaud. As the organisers they had a very justified and well-deserved lie-in!

Preflight complete, I wandered down the line to say my goodbyes and then set off for Le Touquet. The other Brits were routing via Calais, so I was on my own again. Slightly strange feeling to be flying without anybody else in close proximity!

I crossed the Seine at Pont de Brotonne. I’d like to say it was a carefully chosen waypoint due to being a “distinctive feature with large vertical extent”, but I can’t. Like most people these days I was just following SkyDemon and kind of stumbled across it…

Le Touquet was quick and painless like last time…

…and I was soon on the way to Rochester, an exact retracing of the outbound leg. One of these days we’ll spend longer than 40 minutes in Le Touquet, but it was time to get home. Racing the weather again, which you wouldn’t really believe, as the weather was glorious approaching Cap Gris Nez:

Mid-channel with the White Cliffs of Dover clearly visible ahead. This time I didn’t make the mistake of thinking they were low cloud!

Dover Harbour:

And finally in to land at Rochester. There was plenty of daylight left…the aircraft could have gone further but the pilot was nackered. I almost clipped a runway light on the way in, and this was where the hotel room was, so I decided a rest was needed.

Before I hit the hotel, guess who turned up? Yes, two gents from Border Force spent 10 seconds checking my passport and 10 minutes chatting about Cubs, D-Day and the channel crossing. Of course they wanted a photo by the aircraft…they had seen the inbound GAR and wondered what an L4 was…the fact that it had no registration on the side was even more intriguing to them!

Meanwhile the Dutch lads were already home to a victorious welcome:

After the stroll to the hotel ( they gave me room 216 again – I should have left my posters up ), a quick bar meal and a 50 minute call home. Then it was time for a big sleep.

—————————-

Final day! Four legs. The plan was Rochester to Fenland to Sherburn to Eshott to Perth. Breighton had a vintage aircraft fly-in that day, and while the Cub would have fitted in nicely, there was no time. Sherburn was used instead. As it turned out, a good choice. Great airfield – and FREE landings for Perth based aircraft due to the reciprocal agreement. Free stuff is good.

On the way out to France there was a 20 kt tailwind at times. Now on the return trip it was a 20 kt headwind. A free headwind is NOT good in an already slow aircraft.

I got in early, packed up and set off just as the airfield opened…

The plan was to fly, land, refuel, pee, pay and fly again. Four times. No time for anything more than a quick snap. Fenland:

Gordon from the tower in Perth captured this screenshot as we were passing Gringley on the Hill:

Sherburn:

Eshott:

And finally, 21 hours and 45 minutes flying time from Perth, we were back where we started. Almost 22 hours in a vintage aircraft means that this is how I walk now:

Ears ringing at about 2100rpm, back permanently contorted and a numb bum that took several days to recover. I was nackered. Again.

It was all worth it for the fantastic experience, new friends and awesome adventures.

But it was worth it mostly for the privilege of being allowed to fly down the D-Day beaches in formation with other genuine WW2 veteran aircraft to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the invasion and, in our own small way, honour those who took part.

And finally…

A quick point about the photos for all five parts of this D-Day 80 trip report…a lot are mine but quite a few are from the WhatsApp group. Thank you to everyone who posted pics, hope you don’t mind that they are being used to spread the word – I’m planning to go through one by one and give credit where credit is due.

An excellent selection of superb photos from the event can also be found at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/99352218@N03/sets/72177720317912516/

Jusqu’à l’année prochaine..!

https://www.l-birds.fr/en/presentation/

There’s something about a grass airfield in the morning…sun slowly warming the aircraft. Dew on the wings and the whirr of ropes being removed through tie-down rings. Pre-flight checks of fuel and oil.

The daily inspection on a Cub is quite simple and doesn’t take too long, but with 20 or so aircraft in close proximity it felt like a frenzy of activity…

The briefing by Arnaud and Iza was simple: trail formation, 1000-1500 foot transit, no lower than 500 feet along the beaches, no fancy stuff, dedicated formation frequency and Lead would do all the communicating with air traffic control. Only after the beaches would we do our own comms for the landing in Caen.

We all made a note of which aircraft was in which position…when they are all camouflaged and the same shape and size it’s difficult to tell who’s who. I was “L-Bird 17” in front of the Storch “18” and the silver Fairchild 24 – “19”. At least the ones behind me would be easy to distinguish.

In front of me were two Cubs “15” and “16”, then the Auster AOP Mk V of the Vliegend Museum Seppe in the Netherlands – “14”.

As we began to taxi out in order for take off, “15” called on the radio that they were unable to start, “16” called that they were shutting down to assist, and that put me behind the Dutch Auster for take off.

We took off in 30 second trail and slowly formed into a loose string of aircraft about 8 minutes long, chugging over the French countryside at 70 kts or so…

Ten minutes after takeoff, we heard “15” and “16” call to say they were now airborne and pushing hard to catch up. They had to be with us by the time the formation started to enter the restricted airspace, and that was at a specific time.

Arnaud, as the lead aircraft in his Stinson L5, managed to negotiate a slight delay and so, approaching Lisieux, the whole formation did a racetrack orbit to allow the stragglers to catch up.

All they could see ahead was a mass of aircraft, with no idea who was who…”16” called for me to waggle my wings, which I was happy to do quite vigorously, and the picture became clearer. They tacked on the end and the formation was complete again. Totally out of order now, but complete. In the nick of time too, as the lead aircraft was just entering the restricted area.

The brief had been to fly in trail along the beaches, but as we approached Ouistreham and the start of Sword Beach, it became more of a thundering herd. I tried to slot in behind the Dutch Auster…

But eventually “15” and “16” overtook on the outside and some sort of order was (temporarily) restored

No pics of this bit as it was rather busy! After Sword, Juno and Gold beaches we flew past Arromanches to the turn point where we headed inland and tried to transition from the gaggle into some sort of sensible spacing for the landing at Caen on the grass runway 31R. As you can see from the SkyDemon track screenshot below, there were several s-turns required to get the spacing:

All credit to the controller at Caen who sorted out the confusion with the numbering and the order. He got us all down in one piece. We taxied onto the parallel taxiway and shut down. Notice how I am now somehow in front of “13” and “14” – as I said, we did get a bit jumbled up:

A fuel truck was already there and slowly made its way down the line of aircraft, filling each one to the brim in anticipation of the next flight along the American sector:

And then, disaster! Joe Biden was coming back…at least a three hour delay while the airspace was closed. A very welcome pack lunch was brought out while we waited for Joe.

As Caen is probably too small for the normal 747, he arrived in a 757…

…and clattered off in a flock of helicopters to whichever ceremony he was attending:

While he was gone the Patrouille de France treated the L-Birds to our very own flypast:

They flew right over the line of aircraft, so it must have been for us, right?

We sat around chatting and planning the next flight as time marched on…I did some advance planning for the trip home by booking the same hotel in Rochester for the next night. Eventually the president returned and after a bit of faffing about, took off to go home, leaving us the airspace again:

Unfortunately it was now too late and the second flight along the beaches was cancelled. We had a team dinner reservation in the hotel and we couldn’t keep the staff hanging on all night.

Aircraft were tied down and we trudged all the way from the grass taxiway where we were parked, along the side of the apron, to the terminal building. Directed down a staff corridor, we emerged in the main concourse and made our way outside.

A taxi ride later and we hit the bar…the Brits and the Dutch contingents:

Dinner was awesome and a good time was had by all. This is just one of the tables:

In my room later on, I was checking weather and doing paperwork for the return trip. Flight plan to ATC, email to customs at Le Touquet and GAR form to Border Force in the UK.

Last time we entered the UK after the 2018 Sweden adventure, nobody came to meet us. Maybe Border Force would turn up this time..?

It was eerily quiet at St André…just me and a couple of other aircraft. For a bit I felt as if I was in the wrong place.

And then, off in the distance, some dots in the sky and the gentle drone of several Piper Cubs approaching…

They landed and taxied to the pumps. One of them turned out to be an Auster, not a Cub. It’s the one in British markings:

It turns out that the early arrivals had been given permission to fly on the 6th. They had done a 10-ship formation down the beaches and flown past the commemoration ceremony as the veterans were arriving. They even appeared on French TV.

The following pics are from various participants (not mine):

Wonder of wonders they even got permission to fly while the US President was on the ground. The temporary helipad with Marine One and escorts:

Soon more and more aircraft returned and the queue for the pumps stretched almost all the way to the runway…

One of the late arrivals was a French registered Fieseler Storch, the German equivalent of the Cub. Stranger danger..!

We were planning to brief in the evening for the next day’s flight along the beaches, but word came that Joe Biden was still hanging around and timings needed to be flexible. Take off was set at 1000, with brief at 0900, and “wheels” from the hotel in Évreux at 0745 to get to the airfield at 0800.

The food truck opened for business, and the special cider bottles were broken out…

The food was excellent and filling. Hot and spicy:

…and the cidre was much appreciated, as well as the beer on tap. Here’s the Spanish contingent having fun:

Five Spaniards in two Piper Cubs? How did they do that? They brought a car with them, alternating driving legs. It was very useful for logistics and reduced the burden on taxis and other drivers.

On the way up through France one of their Cubs had blown an exhaust. With Iza and Arnaud of the L-Birds team on the phone organising things, the exhaust was taken off, driven to a welder, fixed and back on the aircraft within about six hours.

By now the last aircraft were being refuelled…

…and tied down on the grass as the sun started to set behind the hangars:

There was just time for a quick team photo before the shadow hit the aircraft:

And then it was off to the hotel. Tomorrow would be the big day!