Abandoned trip to Norwich
Poor visibility causes mid-flight change of plans
Unfortunately when doing my pre-flight checks, I incorrectly adjusted the radio squelch for the rear of the aircraft where the voice recorder was located. This meant that only transmissions between myself, air traffic control and other aircraft were captured so none of our cockpit conversations were recorded. Sorry about that.
It doesn’t matter how much planning you do and how close you look at the weather forecasts, METARs and TAFs, sometimes you just get those days where things don’t work out. And Monday 16th August 2021 was one of those days.
My friend Graham and I had been planning a trip to Norwich for a while as neither of us had flown over the east of England before and wanted to see somewhere new. With a day off work we decided to pay Norwich a visit for a bit of lunch and then head back to Headcorn.
The weather was looking reasonable for the trip, with favourable winds, the cloud base overcast at 2,000 and visibility at 9,000 metres or more along our route with the forecast and TAFs showing that it would improve throughout the afternoon, we weren’t too concerned.
So we checked over the aircraft, topped up with fuel and completed all of the necessary paperwork then taxied to runway 28 for a departure towards the west.
After leaving the Headcorn ATZ, we made a right turn on a northerly track and changed frequency to Southend Radar to request a transit through their class D airspace. It was at this point where I first had a minor concern about the visibility. Although the METAR for Southend stated 9,000 metres of visibility, it was obvious that this was not the case but it was still perfectly flyable.
The controller operating Southend Radar was extremely helpful and very quickly granted us a transit via Sheerness, the Southend overhead and Northey island which allowed us to significantly cut the flight time compared to the other option of completely avoiding their airspace.
As we passed over the Thames Estuary it became more and more difficult to make out anything in-front of us and the majority of our view was just a grey/white colour. The visibility was very quickly getting worse rather than better as the forecasts suggested.
When we approached the Southend overhead, Graham and I felt that the safest thing to do was to turn around and head back to the south where the visibility was a lot better, so decided to abandon our trip to Norwich.
ATC informed us that we were leaving controlled airspace, we let them know of our intentions to head back towards the south due to the visibility but we would take the longer route around the western side of Southend’s controlled airspace. The controller immediately offered us a transit back through controlled airspace, but as the visibility was better to the south, we continued on the longer route.
As we passed over the River Thames at the QEII bridge, the visibility to the south was a lot better than when we departed Headcorn, so we continued to do some local sightseeing in the area with an orbit over Brands Hatch and then onto Tunbridge Wells, Crowborough and Uckfield. We even had time to pass over Grahams’s house too.
Having been in the air for nearly 2 hours, it was time for us to get the aircraft back to Headcorn. We called the air/ground service at Headcorn for the airfield information as we approached Bewl Water and we joined the circuit on the downwind leg for runway 28. With only a couple of other aircraft in the circuit, our approach was uneventful and we touched down smoothly on the grass runway.
So we still haven’t managed to fly and take in the sights of the east of England and have yet to get to our destination of Norwich, so that still remains on the list for another day.
View the video on my YouTube channel: