All started off well.. arrived to a deserted East Fortune, and managed
to dig g-cweb out of the back of the hanger on our own (no mean
feat!), fuelled up and overcame initial radio problems (plugged P1
into the wrong socket after taking the radio out to programme in
Leuchars Tower!)… I encouraged Mike to do a circuit or 2 initially
before heading out, but he came in on the first approach wobbling away
in strange crosswinds, declared a go-around then decided ‘f***-it,
lets just head off!’ I’m sure this confused the fireman-chap and
another carload of spectators who had just arrived to hear the fireman
chap saying to mike ‘you’re not taking off in this, are you?”!
Over the Forth fine, trying to contact Leuchars Approach, but no one
answering – however we could hear them speaking to another plane, who
kindly offered to relay for us.. mike said ‘oh jolly good’, and
‘wilco’ or something, then promptly fell silent – so I explained he
had to pass his message to the plane who would pass it to
Leuchars…..
they changed us onto Tower, so that was fine, heard them ok, skirting
around low broken cloud, but a big lump of it was sitting over
Leuchars, so all enquiries ‘do you have the airfield in sight?’ were
‘negative’…. Looking for the Eden estuary, I spotted water, then
realised it was the Tay with the bridges, so we confessed we had
‘overshot due to cloud and were returning south’…..
very nice lady controller was very helpful – ‘descend to avoid cloud
at your discretion, no traffic to affect you, cloud is broken at
700ft, cleared to land on 09′ (was initially going to be the ‘old one’
at 04 but this was the brand spanking new runway!).. they asked if we
were familiar with Leuchars? ‘negative’… ‘ 09 right hand, qfe 1010
catch wires are position UP, at 1300ft…’… seemed straightforward
when we first heard it, but with the cloud and increasing panic, when
she finally said ‘airfield is in your 10 o’clock do you have visual?’
and mike still saying ‘negative’… I suddenly spotted acres of tarmac
with about 20 papi lights gleaming in welcome.. ‘its straight ahead,
ask to come in on final approach!”.. ‘granted for straight in
approach, call finals’.. we were on a perfect line for landing, when
suddenly mike said ‘oh, the wires, they’re at 1,300 feet’ and suddenly
zoomed upwards! confusion and panic, then realised they couldn’t
possibly be 1300ft HIGH (in retrospect if they’d kept references to
distance in metres, and left feet to height…!)… so resumed
approach angle somewhat dramatically and took up a bit more of that
>2000m runway than we’d anticipated! Crosswind then took hold and we
were careering towards the right edge of the HUGE runway, but managed
to stay on the tarmac and were instructed to ‘backtrack, then look out
for the silver car who would escort us to our parking bay!’ We taxied
past the missiles and parked fighters, and given a spot outside a
hanger opposite the one where the concert was being held.
The RAF offical who escorted us seemed rather dour, and perhaps didn’t
take kindly to mike’s ‘israel air force’ t-shirt being revealed as he
took off his flying suit….
we pulled GCWEB onto grass and in tribute to being on the airbase I
hobbled it ‘fighter style’(!) so it didn’t look out of place…
we were then escorted to the canteen to get a coffee and see the
performers getting ready – lots of low rumblings as the ‘throaties’
warmed up…
6 coaches finally arrived with the plebs, and the dour RAF official
was in his element directing everyone and doing the safety briefing
(warning everyone not to wander off, as the area was sealed off with
patrols and attack dogs, who were so named for a very good reason!)..
, then the hanger doors opened with klaxons and lights going, and we
filed into the hanger, which was superbly lit up with coloured
lights…
The concert was brilliant – the acoustics and the lighting were just
amazing, and at one point they opened up the bit that the jet flames
blast into, behind the choral singers, and that was all lit up too…
lights lighting up different parts of the hanger to direct you to
different parts – really imaginative and memorable! the end was a
piper who started playing something that sounded like the music from
the film ‘last of the mohicans’, and the throaties started to join in
tapping their instruments, audience were clapping and whooping and was
all very jolly!
someone then asked us ‘what coach we were on’.. yes! we crowed ‘we
came by microlight!’.. oh, you’re the microlighters..!’
apparently, the director of the event said the article in the scotsman
had hit idaho and they were planning ‘fly in concerts’ there as they
thought it was such a good idea!
Came out to rain, but the cloudbase above looked like the same mix of
low scattered and mid-broken that we’d arrived in, so we decided to go
for it… RAF-chappie was much happier now we were heading off, so I
took the front seat and he escorted us to the runway, waving us
cheerily off……
had to dodge cloud on the way back, and up to 8,000 over the Forth,
lost contact with Tower who had advised us to keep on their frequency
due to the problems we’d had with Approach on the way out.. but we
lost contact with them over the water, so I phoned in, reporting home
and thanked them, when we landed… in pouring rain!!!
Had a lovely bar supper in Garvald on the way back.. end to a really
memorable day, and quite a good achievement of Forsyth teamwork!
