[greghm]

Thanks Paul for the answer. I always wonder when flying if I need to divert like to a GA airfield (most with PPR), is it possible to land for this kind of reason and wait for the rain to pass? (you helped me frame better my question).

Car rental: got it. Just thought about the ones that come to pick up.

[Paul_Sengupta]

It's always good to look at the general picture of what's happening with the weather. There could be an area wide lowering of the cloudbase, in which case you'll want to be on the ground at some point. If you can see a front approaching, especially on rain radar, then you can make a better decision.

Always leave yourself with options. If I'm going on a longish flight with iffy weather, I'll take an overnight bag just in case I end up having to stay somewhere.

A train app on your phone can also be useful!

[johnm]

No one should ever be criticised for a precautionary landing. I once turned up unannounced at RAF Henlow to avoid a big CB. You can walk from Perranporth to Newquay along the cliff path and jolly pleasant it is too.

[greghm]

Ok thanks for the valuable answers. The scenery there looks fantastic, I have never been.

The trick is to find a hotel that I can cancel if the weather makes me cancel too.

[damhead]

We had a two week holiday in Cornwall earlier in the month, car hire turned out to be a big factor in the pre planning!

I had planned on Bodmin but the nearest car hire company closed at twelve on the Saturday so as we were flying down from Perth that was not going to work.

That led me to Newquay which I hadn't initially considered, after some investigation I found that they don't have mandatory handling and GA is looked after by Flynqy, the on site flight school.

So we flew into Newquay and had great service from Flynqy, costs were very reasonable £58 for landing fee and two weeks parking. A great deal.

There are two car hire company's on site and they are open unit 10pm so no problem with collection time.

That was my first visit to Cornwall which was great, ah those cream teas

[peter272]

Went to Lands End recently and a much improved experience. One problem though is limited parking.

Don't think of just rocking up expecting to stay. You need to phone ahead to confirm they have room

The 2 new runways are great though not shown on any chart. The staff are really friendly and helpful.

Enjoy

[greghm]

I was planning to go to Lands End but they are close on sunday.

Just finished my VFR planning.
White Waltham, Calne, Taunton, Tintagel, Perranporth. The GPS is not working properly so it could be interesting but that is a good brush up of navigation planning.

I am going to fly through Yeovilton AIAA and Culdrose; is it a matter of informing them that I am flying through?

[peter272]

On that route you'd be speaking to Exeter as far as Okehampton and Newquay until just before Perranporth. Why Culdrose?

[skydriller]

. The GPS is not working properly so it could be interesting but that is a good brush up of navigation planning.

But with the greatest of respect, may I suggest you at least get the free aware thingy if you have a phone/tablet capable of using it? by all means do the nav by map and looking out of the window if that's your thing, but why wouldn't you protect yourself wit some form of GPS device to back it up? It is a holiday you are going on, right, so make your life easy!
I unashamedly use GPS to navigate and back that up by checking the map/window on all but really local area bimbles where the features are unmistakable.

[phijip]

OK, since I was the OP, here's a little more information now that I'm back from the trip:

PPR for Land's End was zero problem. The prior contact via e-mail with Chris, the manager, was very pleasant.

There is actually very sufficient SEP parking on grass now, right in front of the main tarmac. The grass also drains very well. We had 35mm of rain the day before we departed and the grass was dry the day after.

That said, still, they are totally maniac about your advance PPR and receiving all possible details about your flight well in advance. Why? It's Britain...

The airport has indeed turned out very nice and cute. The new runways are obviously smooth as silk. Fees are very reasonable. Fuel is 1.70£ which is quite OK.

Now re transport:
At Land's End, there are obviously no rental cars on site. Rental cars are avaialble from Europcar (in Penzance) and Enterprise (just outside Penzance). We chose Enterprise, because they were much cheaper. Unfortunately, they will not bring the car over to Land's End airport, because they say it's too far (8miles?)
Don't know about Europcar.

So, one has to get a taxi from the airport to the Enterprise office, which costs about 18£. As mentioned, consider the opening times of the rental car agencies.

One alternative to the rental cars is to get around entirely by bus. No. 300 is stopping at the airport and will take you to Penzance via St. Just. From there, you can take another bus to St. Ives and other places.

If you really want to take a rental car directly at the aiport, it seems one really needs to land at Newquay, but if you want to go to St. Ives,
I wouldn't do that, since it will take ages to get there from Newquay.

Perranporth will be at least a taxi ride to get to somewhere they will hire cars.

Re accomodation in St. Ives: the place was abviously quite heavily booked when we arrived, but fortunately,the supply of hotels and b&bs is quite big, so we just asked around a bit and found a decent place in no time (Regent Hotel, with probably the best possible views over St. Ives).

If only the weather had been better during our stay...

[phijip]

For who hasn't seen it, here is the trip report:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

[Paul_Sengupta]

Nice write up, enjoyed seeing that. Oh for some sunny weather!