Morning Snorkers on Mull and packed and ready for the off. That was when we realised that we were low on fuel and with the new plane had no idea of exactly how far we could go – so the only thing was to ask Gordon putting the responsibility on him …. he said we would reach Oban which sounded good at the time – but less encouraging when we did the radio is pushed off again and we needed radio to land at Oban’s new multi million pound ‘we are a real airport now’ on the day they were having a CAA visit to approve them.
We also had low cloud so we were being pushed down in the Sound of Mull I could see the accident report now – well Gordon said we had enough fuel. One instinct was to head back to Mull and get fuel but we pushed as many buttons as we could and got the radio back and joined the lengthy circuit and landed on the huge and new runways and taxied to the fuel stop. A huge tanker turns up and fills us up and gleefully presents the bill. Gulp isn’t avgas expensive – no wonder low cost airlines are giving up.
Oban airport now has a lot of staff running around (it used to just be the fuel chap with his jammy dodgers) but to be a real airport you need lots of people who constantly tell you they are really busy – even though we were the only aircraft there. A seaplane landed on the tarmac runway, which was disappointing, but looked like such fun – and reassuring to land in a loch instead of trying to emergency land on a beach or a single track road.
So we took off to the south heading to Bute and over the Neolithic graves of Templewood the spirits decided to take revenge – well it was probably a convergence of winds but we were being well thrown about the sky. Kim was pointing out items of interest as I was trying to keep the plane upright….
Over Lochgilphead and over the loch to Bute and then swing down onto finals on the air ambulance strip and land missing the lights. Parked and walked up to the pub for luncheon and work out how many ears the rabbits had (various estimates went from 1-3). Everyone wasn’t really hungry apart from the Russian girl who demolished a huge lunch demonstrating that essential survival technique of grabbing food when it is available.
And so Kim took me back flying back the same route I flew in, in a convoy with the others with no real incidents and we landed tired but safe back at East Fortune. Overall a great flight there and back again. All that was left was cataloguing the hundreds of photographs…
