The plan was to fly to the grass strip at Insch for a familiarisation with Alex to provide guidance. We would stop for a cuppa at Insch and then zip back to Aberdeen to allow Alex to carry out a check ride on another member of our syndicate who needed to revalidate. We would leave Aberdeen at 1715 do a couple of circuits and land at Insch by 1800 and be back at Aberdeen by 1900 at the latest.
It didn’t work out that way! We 1st left the flying club and immediately turned back as it was pi**ing in a heavy rain shower – no chance of a VFR departure so back to the crew room and a 10 minute wait for the shower to pass. 10 mins later we started up and launched keeping at 800ft to stay clear of the lingering remnants of the earlier shower and with 10 degrees of flap for good visibility we followed the A96 and broke out into glorious sunshine as we cleared the Tyrebagger pass. From here the flight to Insch was simple– follow the A96 and then head just South of Insch avoiding the village of Premnay. Calling up Ken Wood who is the operator of the airstrip we told him we would be overhead shortly. It turned out we were more shortly than expected as the strip is hard to see unless you know exactly where to look so we were overhead before we saw it. Jinking to avoid overflying the village of Leslie at the western side of the strip I positioned to go downwind for a left hand circuit to runway 31. This 1st attempt I was too high (1000ft) given the tightness of the space available and did not extend the downwind leg long enough so we ended up going round for a second attempt . Again I ended up too high on finals – again too high on downwind leg and not reducing power sufficiently.
Insch Airstrip (google maps)
Overshooting again Ken asked us to fly a right hand circuit for noise abatement – this time Alex demonstrated with a downwind leg flown at 700ft and long downwind to go around the back of Premnay. This time no bother and Alex carried out a touch and go before handing controls back to me as we turned crosswind. This time I nailed it – 700ft on downwind ; round the back of Premnay a jink on the approach to avoid a farm and a fine landing – remembering to keep back pressure on the control column to avoid the prop hitting grass. Taxi in to meet Ken and a coffee – Job done.
ZV Marooned in Insch
It was now that the fun started. I went out to the aircraft and Alex called Aberdeen to tell them we would be taking of shortly and returning directly. Aberdeen ATC told us to stay on the ground as there had been an evacuation of the tower and to call back in 30 mins. 30 mins later we called and were told that cloud at Aberdeen was down to 300ft and they wouldn't accept us for ILS as they were then recovering everything that had been in the hold during the evacuation, we could wait another 30 mins and call back. This we did but by now they were still unwilling to accept us for ILS still – worse there was heavy rain showers with Broken cloud (5-7 Oktas) at 300ft now forecast for the next 2 hrs as a minimum. Decision time – sod it Ken offered a lift to Insch and we took it. I would go home we could get a beer and then I would drive Alex back to the airport to collect his kit and car. So it was we got back to the airport at 2100 in the Mx5 rather than the Cessna and eventually I was back at home at 2200 – further delayed by road works at Inverurie. ZV is still at Insch Airstrip and I hope to collect her tonight if the weather is OK.
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