Where have you been? What have you seen?
#1539500
I happily volunteered to take the DA40D from Stapleford to Bournemouth on a ferry flight for it's annual maintenance. Me and my passenger Andrew both took the Central line before taking an UBER to Stapleford, we discussed this was the best course of action as we was required to get a train home.

We arrived 1hr before our scheduled departure and managed to get a few lovely pictures of the aircraft despite the poor lighting.

Image

Image

The routing would take us east of London, abeam Sevenoaks, then over Tunbridge Wells before making a slight right turn direct Seaford VOR. The initial plan was to climb 3400ft once clear of Gatwick Airspace, then up to 4400ft once clear of the LTMA itself. Once out over the sea we would probably climb to 5000ft.

I decided against this because during the early morning planning I noticed a 0°c warning for 2000ft-5000ft across the zone in which we was situated on the MET Charts. It was 5°c at 2100ft so I never risked climbing into 'known' icing conditions. Not only that but it was extremely bumpy at the base of cloud, so who know's what it was like inside cloud? [The aircraft is certified for IFR but not icing conditions]

Image

So we departed Stapleford and climbed initially to 2,100ft (Cloud base was 2300-2400ft) and we couldn't see anything. Here's a few pictures showing how poor the visibility was.

Image

Image

As we routed over the South Downs, I decided to put the aircraft in control using the autopilot. Bad mistake as the turbulence we experienced was pretty bad and I didn't really like the feeling of 'not being in control' - something I need to get used to if I am going to do the full IR.

A bit of IMC tasting for my passenger, before making the right town at SFD as we pass Newhaven. North London to the south coast took approximately 28 minutes. A journey that by car would take just over 2 hours. I guess at 170mph we are literally flying?

Image

Image

We then routed along the south coast on track towards the Isle of Wight (Cowes) and in doing so we encountered a lot of traffic coming into Shoreham, so I climbed up to 3,000ft before having to descend for the zone transit of the SOLENT CTA.

We passed Hayling Island and Portsmouth and the weather improved quite drastically, as you can see by Andrew's pictures.

Image

Image

Here's Part 1 of the vLOG showing the pre-flight departure brief, the take-off and climb and the flight as far as Brighton. Feedback and suggestions for the video(s) much welcome, as I use them to better my flight experience.



Part 2 of the vLOG show's the zone transit and landing into Bournemouth.

#1541492
Here is Part 2 of the flight to Bournemouth - Enjoy! If you missed Part 1, don't forget to have a look at that too. Please have a look at other videos on my channel and subscribe if you like!

#1541964
Rob L wrote:Nice photos, and sounds like you had a good trip, thanks for posting.

Unfortunately, I shan't be "liking" or "subscribing" to your youtube channel. 17-minute videos are too long.


Better than 27 minutes! I've seen people post 30-40 minute videos of flying vlogs and get 1,000,000 views +

I am sticking to 10-15 minutes :) I'll be posting a 3-5 minute montage of the trip that everyone can hopefully enjoy once I am back from Cyprus and not jetting off again. :lol: Thanks for the feedback though, would you say 10 minutes per sector is the best time?

I am hoping to fly to Newquay at end of the month, so I'll try and edit that within reason.