Kim flew us back – taking off rapidly in the gusting wind and climbing out and over the paps of Jura – we decided to head northward and crossed the Crinan Canal and over Loch Long – with a voice over the radio asking – ‘do you think the MOD know you are flying a Russian over their submarine base’, with the reply – ‘they do now’. Kim spotted a bright green UFO , which we all think was a weather balloon (or it could be a UFO looking at the submarine base) and we flew rapidly back over Loch Lomond, The Doune Wild Animal Park (ignoring the suggestion of a low pass with possible engine failure for excitement), and over the Wallace Monument, with Richard musing why there wasn’t a Gromit monument.
Over Glenrothes looking at the airplane shaped hedge to the south of the town – we decided we would have enough fuel to get back. Climbed over the Forth at 6,000 feet and watched the wild waves well below us. Graeme radioed in to be told that 11 was the runway in use but that it was very rough and there had been interesting landings all day. Jill on radio also asked if we could do a wedding flypast and gave a convoluted set of directions which lost all of us – however we were all running low on fuel so a flypast might have seen us joining in with the guests which might not be welcome. Graeme landed first and it all seemed fine as we entered the circuit, then a wing drop on the downwind leg tended to emphasise that things weren’t going to be smooth. Kim’s first approach saw a wing drop at 100 feet as we were dropping towards the runway which caused the nose to dive towards a field. All I saw was the field heading towards us very fast and involuntarily screamed ‘GoAround’ but Kim was already there and masterfully had the plane level heading towards a hanger and then climbing and over it – phew. And we both thought at the same time – ‘Shite we need to go through this again’, and we are low on fuel and a glide approach was not going to end well in this gusting wind.
There is a saying that it is better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than in the air wishing you were on the ground – which is exactly where we were. Kim angled in from the North and with no wing drop this time landed perfectly onto the runway – the grass was an alternative at that stage… we just wanted down, we drove into the hanger in the gusting wind, took a deep breath and then watched as others landed in perfectly as the wind had died away totally – if only we had had the fuel to go for a fly past of the wedding we wouldn’t have had such an exciting near miss.
We had a dinner party at night at friends and hit the wormwood absinthe to celebrate being alive enjoying some freshly smoked salmon and drinking from ‘pussy cups’ where the clear liqueur forms a lens making the dark spot in the bottom of the cup turn into pornographic shots of naked vietnamese women. Is that some ‘fancy liqueur’ springs to mind.
So a fantastic away day – a BBQ on a remote Scottish island and back for an evening of bizarre alcohol. Our plans for doing something the next day turned into slumming in front of the telly half asleep.
Pages: 1 2
