The aeroplane spent the last few weeks at Wycombe Air Park where we gave it a thorough “check-up” in an attempt to squeeze some more performance out of it… “Doctor” Hammond worked his magic and last week we pronounced ourselves fit to go. I flew several times to get back in the swing of things and I was pleased that I had not forgotten how to fly the race plane…
Thursday last week was the planned day to ferry the aeroplane to Budapest… Nicolas Ivanoff in his Edge and Nigel Huxtable in the Team lamb MXS were going to fly alongside and we’d planned a gentle trundle across Europe in the sunshine to get to the fourth race destination of 2009. Sadly Mother Nature had different ideas and the weather scuppered our plans. These aeroplanes, unlike commercial airliners, are not designed to be flown in cloud… you have to fly “VFR” (visual flight rules) which basically means seeing the ground and staying away from fog, cloud and poor visibility (they do not have any instruments fitted for flying in cloud).
The forecast for Thursday was fairly good when I checked it at the beginning of the week so the plan was set… two flights of about two and a half hours were planned (a stop for fuel half way) and we’d be in Budapest for tea and biscuits in the evening… except for the fact that a huge area of rain, thunderstorms, fog, and low cloud marched it’s way right across our planned route. We initially got forced down and had to land at Wevelgem in Belgium (lovely lunch by the way at the airport restaurant)… so we took advantage of the fuel pumps, topped off with avgas (aviation gasoline) and after a two hour delay set off again. This time we were going to outsmart the weather and go south before heading east towards Germany… our plan lasted about an hour when we found a wall of water over France and ended up at a small, very quiet and peaceful airfield in the middle of nowhere which was even further west than Wevelgem (not good when you’re trying to go east!!!). Another rain delay (just like cricket) and off we went, now planning to get to Haguenau which is about as far as we could get now that we were running out of daylight.
We couldn’t even get there because the formation leader (me) successfully found the biggest thunderstorm in Europe right on our track. We tried a bit of probing to find a gap but alas, no luck and we ended up with another delay on the ground (at another deserted airfield and now 7pm). When that storm cleared we then hopped over to Metz Lorraine where we spent the night. Our groundspeed averaged out over the day was 26 knots… not very impressive for three racing aeroplanes.
The morning dawned to fog and mist, but we planned to wait it out whilst phoning ahead to see what was covered in fog and what wasn’t. I phoned Baden Baden airfield to check if the hills to their east were obscured with cloud… a very helpful guy answered the phone and I explained the situation… I asked “can you see the hills to the east?”… “NO” was the firm answer. Damn, I thought, we need to see the hills to get past… I asked if the cloud looked like it would hang around. “NO” he continued, “I cannot see the hills to the east because my office window faces west!”…
As it turned out, the mist and fog cleared and we hurtled towards Budapest where we arrived just in time to sample Peter Besenyei’s hospitality and his traditional pre-Air Race party… Thank you Peter and Tünde !
Today, Saturday, was a day of meetings and media commitments and we managed to squeeze in a quick flight over the airfield in the afternoon. Tomorrow is the main briefing day and a short flight to calibrate the telemetry equipment… We’re looking forward to first training on Monday…