A flight to the Aran isles: next parish Boston, Mass.

 " On some island I long to be a rocky promontary, looking on the coiling surface of the sea"

St Columba on his journey through the west of Ireland to Iona

Inishmaan is a flat limestone rock at the very western edge of Europe, a small island just off Galway Bay, with a short runway (546m), cow pats, sheep and angular dry-stone walls which encompass tiny pastures hewn out of solid rock. 

It is, like much of western Ireland, a place of legends and myth. Republican stronghold and inspiration to artists it attracts the famous, the footloose and the incurably romantic, seeking a quiet haven close to nature.

Mary Robinson, who holidays here, once invited the whole island to the White House in Dublin when she was President of Ireland. Here also is set the dark comedy by Martin MacDonagh, the Cripple of Inis Meain recently starring Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame on Broadway.

The cliffs of Mohar

When John and I arrived in our Cirrus SR20, G-ZZDG, a young French film crew were making a documentary about Inis Meain (the middle island) and its two sister Inis Mor and Inis Oirr. The locals are fond of saying that the next parish along is Boston, Mass.  

In the winter, savage Atlantic gales blow in from the west strong enough to topple its dry-stone walls (or a man); in the mild summer months you take your chance. We were fortunate. A High pressure system had been inching its way up from the Atlantic and the day was virtually windless, a few clouds spotting a pale blue sky which filled the sea with a silvery light, small ferries leaving a white foamy trail in their wake.

The coastline with Inis Mor in the distance. 

 We flew from North Weald, near Stansted
(EGSX) to Inis  Meain (EIMN) in one 2.7 hour hop (421 miles or 385 nm) thanks to a favourable tailwind coasting out at St David's Head then across Ireland's emerald centre from Wexford Bay to the soaring, monolythic cliffs of Moher in County Clare, making a slow descent for an easy left base entry into the circuit for runway 15 just ahead of a microlight and the scheduled Aer Arann go-anywhere Brittan Norman Islander. This takes island folk across to their shopping in Conemarra in just 9 minutes. Conemarra! How can you resist a name oozing such romance?

The runway is a bit tight for a Cirrus ( but longer than both the "big" island Inis Mor and Inis Oir, the tiddler); provided you aim for the small wall just ahead of the numbers and peg your speed at 75kts, full flaps and a 3 per cent descent rate you should be fine. I'm pleased to say we were spared the embarrassment of having to go around under the watchful eye of friendly local farmers who double up as airport staff and no doubt shake their heads over a pint of the velvet nectar at the islands friendly pub at those who do, muttering "amateurs". Mind you people have been known to pay with their lives for missing those numbers or coming in too fast. Or too slow. Don't go in fully loaded. And certainly don't fly out fully loaded unless you have a proper STOL aircraft.

Climbing out of North Weald on Runway 02 with a left turn, staying below 1500 ft until we were clear of the Stansted zone we climbed to 2,300ft heading pretty much due west. Traversing the Brize military Zone was a bit of nightmare: low cloud and haze and a busy day meant some aircraft were a bit close for comfort. Alpha Charlie, my beloved Archer III, had traffic collision avoidance and I miss it. Brize were good enough to provide us with a traffic service (both ways) which helped but got a bit testing when you were receiving advice about converging aircraft every two minutes or so.

But once approaching the Brecon Beacons you're home free. We opted to climb to 6000ft which took us above the frothy tops for our crossing over the Irish sea with the assistance, first from a very friendly Cardiff ATC, followed by the impeccably professional London Information to the FIR boundary at Slaney dividing the two countries, and then Shannon radar, juggling heavies coming in and out of the Atlantic route or Ryan Air at Knock and tiddlers like us, pretty much all the way to the islands.

Milk bar

We stayed at the Tig Congaile guest house on Inis Meain run by the incomparable Vilma who brings a Venezuelan charm laced with a wicked sense of humour. She served up delicious sea food chowder and fresh lobster and a brown sugar meringue to die for. No, not that kind of brown sugar. Her basic but comfortable and airy guest house is populated by Americans, Canadians, Spaniards and French, an easy 20-minute hike from the airfield unless you're lucky enough to hitch a lift from a passing islander in a tractor. Landing fee is Euros 10. Rooms are Euros 40-50.

The next day we flew due north to Sligo. We slalomed around the high peaks and valleys and the Burragh, a lunar landscape of vast, sheer limestone sheets, skimming as close as we dared to Ireland holiest mountain, Croagh Patrick, where the blessed Saint is said to have cast out the snakes from the emerald isle. Thousands climb it every year to the tiny church at the summit, some barefoot, coming from all over the world. The coast from Tralee up and beyond Sligo, renamed The Wild Atlantic Way by the Irish government trying to revive its economic fortunes, is breathtakingly, unexpectedly beautiful especially if you're lucky enough to have decent weather which, it must be said, is not often. Pillars of light fall through broken cloud illuminating crofts and fish farms along they way as one inlet gives way to another in a landscape at once bleak and sparkling.

Sligo is a charming town, crowded with visitors and fiddlers and harpists and bookshops in July and August when the the Yeats summer school is on. (Sheryl Crow will be singing there this October). It has an Italian quarter. Our taxi driver had a Castillian accent.

WB Yeats by Augustus John

Sligo is where my mum's favourite poet WB Yeats spent his summers (as did my co-pilot John messing about in rowboats) mingling with the Anglo-Irish gentry including two beautiful sisters, Eva and Constance Gore-Booth and who lived (and loved) at the magnificent Lissadell House in County Sligo. They are immortalised in his poem "Two girls in silk kimonos, both/ beautiful one a gazelle". Both later become involved with the Irish Republican movement. 

Strandhill, a few miles up the coast is a surfer's paradise dotted with seafood pubs and funky burgers bars serving chilled Guinness and milk shakes. When low pressure comes in from the Atlantic the waves can reach 30 metres. Hard-core surfers worldwide are alerted by weather-watchers and text each other. They then hop onto a plane from all four of the earth to catch the monsters.

Riding "bombs" at Strandhill, Co. Sligo

We left the west of Ireland with a a heavy heart. Short take-off. Feet on the breaks, full power and, with luck and not too much weight, G-DG was off in about 400 metres, the stall warner chirping. The BN Islanders are airborne pretty much after they've started their take-off roll.

Planning our return flight the night before we noticed the NOTAMS had a blanket restriction against flying through south Wales. Inis Meain is blissfully out of touch. No TV. No papers. Puzzled, John rang the number given. A woman with a cut-glass accent picked up within 2 seconds. " We're flying from the west of Ireland back to North Weald and we wondered if we could transit the restricted zone" he enquired politely. There was a pause at the other end before she replied in a measured tone" "Actually sir we rather you didn't".

Understatement of the century. An iron curtain had fallen across Wales. Newport was hosting the biggest ever NATO summit since the end of the Cold war: 60 heads of state including Obama, Merkel, Cameron, 70 foreign and defence ministers 10,000 staff, the SAS, close-fighter protection for Air Force One. The lot. Enough said.

Still we were allowed to refuel a Haverford West on the western tip of south Wales as we were short of fuel having picked up a bit of headwind. Lovely airfield. Two cross-runways and a decent little cafe which does a mean frozen latte plus a self-service fuel pump which is handy provided you don't mess up the alpha numeric keyboard. Two elegant blonde women, one trailing a long pink scarf, took off in a sleak Cirrus SR22 as I munched a bacon gap.

A wonderful trip. Magical. A revelation. Shame about the Leprichauns. That should be the Ministry of Tourism's next project.

St Patrick's Holy mountain at sunrise

 John McGwyne Flying Services
 Www.jmflying.com 

Flying with Maverick in African skies

Where to begin with CC Pocock? His name I guess. CC stands for Captain Chaos, a nom de guerre he relishes. Call Central Casting (Top Gun division).Tell them you're shooting an action movie in the African bush. "I want an ace pilot with a bit of an edge: Maverick with a touch of the Crocodile Dundees. I want daredevil pyrotechnic stunts; a pilot who chases hijacked cars down highways six feet above the tarmac in a Cessna 172 and can fly in and out of narrow canyons with his eyes shut. He must be a fully paid up member of the awkard squad. And he must be able to cook”. They'll probably send for CC.

CC playing to the crowds

But of course it's not that simple. Beneath that occasionally volcanic, unreconstructed hippy, shoot-first-ask-questions-later exterior lies a more complex character. He can be patient, deeply serious, responsible, meticulous, passionate, articulate, driven, occasionally stroppy, flies like a raptor, and...yes he can cook. In a kikoi. So not that scary. More Tigger than tiger. Some clown once said “Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.” CC can do both. Consumately.

I spent 3 days with CC flying out of his private, airstrip near Barberton, South Africa from where he runs Advanced Bush and Mountain Flying courses. We did things in his reinforced Cessna 172C with big wheels and a go faster logo which few, if any, well-brought up British instructors would contemplate. Crazy stuff they'd say. I beg to differ.

The Barberton valley, in what used to be called the Eastern Transvaal, runs along the high peaks and passes into the neighbouring mountain kingdom of Swaziland where the King, bless him, has 14 wives and a private jet big enough to take them all shopping at Harrods. Barberton is an early Voortrekker settlement, site of South Africa's first gold exchange. El Dorado run by early Dutch settlers who led their ox-wagons in a great exodus from the western Cape in the 19^th century, fed up with English taxes and later the abolition of slavery which hit their pride as well as their pockets. They set up the first South African Republic. Then these invariably courteous and hospitable people dreamt up Apartheid. And we all know how that ended. 

CC's little kingdom is a strip carved out of the bush. It has a tower, a windsock which has seen better days, a hangar, guest rooms, a serious security perimeter, a Golden Retriever mut who sits calmly in the back of the Cessna while CC performs loops and barrel rolls and a cat called Pussy which mostly just sits. He has a well-stocked bar, speakers the size of small houses thumping out rock music and an obsessively tidy hangar where he keeps his beloved Cessna in fighting trim.

CC runs his fiefdom with the help of his partner Tine von Heynitz, the steadying hand who keeps his wings level. Tine brims with charm and good humour but a pushover she is not. Which is just as well because life for a modern woman in the bush, in deeply conservative Afrikaans country can be tricky. Here, when a woman rides in a car driven by a man who is not her husband she is expected to sit in the back. She snorts at the very thought.

Now that Mandela's Olympian authority is no longer there to keep a lid on the fissures that run deep and wide in South Africa the future is by no means obvious. Life can can be unsettled and unsettling. She edits his absorbing, crisply-written book “Bush and Mountain Flying". It has a section on survival in the bush. Especially helpful is the bit about edible snakes. Tine is a PhD,an accomplished photographer; she's building a simple but lovely fly-in lodge at the end of the runway. (Check out Bush Rock on Facebook). She puts up with endless pilot bullshit with good humour and she's a terrific hostess. She makes a great wingman.

Tine, the wingman and the flying pooch

 Up at dawn to get ahead of the African sun hammering down on the veldt, pushing the temperature up and the Cessna's performance down. Short field take offs, very short field take offs and what the Monty Python crew might call silly short field take offs. Ditto landings. Narrow canyon turns at 4500 feet with turbulent downdrafts washing over crests above us in 30 degree heat along the Swazi border; spin recovery; flying through stalls with full power and full flaps which is a bit like aviating in a food mixer; helicopter-style circuits at tree-top level into his bumpy grass strip, in 90 seconds flat from take-off roll to touchdown, and blissfully peaceful landings into mountain strips surrounded by high ground.

If you're interested see the videos shot by Quentin “Iceman” Steyn, CC's co-instructor on Facebook

CC and the team

For me this tryst with extreme flying was the latest stage in a slow process of recovery from two bouts of major surgery followed by a gruelling,10-week circumnavigation of Africa in 2011 starting in the UK in my single-engine Piper Archer III: 18,000 nautical miles and counting. See earlier posts on this blog.

This tale is more than about high jinks. CC is a man on a mission. Far too many pilots he believes die flying in bush country or mountainous terrain around the world because they simply don't understand the hazards involved and how to avoid them. What's astonishing is that the majority of these fatalities are not, as you might expect, weekend flyers with low hours and unsuitable aircraft. They are, in the main, highly experienced pilots, often with commercial ratings, flying high powered aircraft into mountains they don't understand or respect. “They haven't been properly trained” he says” so they end up flying into a trap”.

CC isn't a great fan of run-of-the-mill flying schools. He sees them as conveyor belts preparing pilots to fly push-button jets. Or private pilots who just want to get their license in a hurry. Flying schools teach that what keeps you safe is planning and flying within the limits of your aircraft. But how do you know, CC asks, what those limits are in your particular flying machine if you haven't explored them?

At the heart of his course are exercises which do just that. His teaching methods are, by his own admission, extreme - even dangerous: flying perilously close to stall speeds at low altitude for example. No weather forecasts. No flight plans. Just look out of the window and fly. And if something comes up, deal with it. The antithesis of everything you're taught at flight school.

If he could, he'd rewrite syllabus for student pilots. Exploring the very limits of what their aircraft can and can't do will, he argues, make them safer, better pilots. Thousands of pilots of course qualify and become safer and better without resorting to these extremes through steady experience and practice. But CC has a point. Commercial pilots can fly big jets with the help of “pilot-proof” fly-by-wire systems. But how many could hand-fly their way out of trouble? How many are trained to do so? Come to that how many of the many thousands of hours they clock up are spent hand-flying? 

This straight talking does not endear him to the civil aviation authorities or the more straight-laced flying community. They think he's a bit of a wild man which is understandable, given some of the stunts he's pulled and his occasional wisecracks like “ People who can't fly play golf`'.

But he makes his case with strong, evidence-based conviction. He is relentlessly focussed. He has a deep understanding of his trade rooted in the humility of a man who is not afraid to fess up to, and learn from, his mistakes.

And it works. You're not a bush, let alone a mountain pilot, at the end of his course. But you come out the other end at one with your aircraft. The lingering fears you carry with you from flight school of pushing the envelope evaporate. You are “in the zone”, like a tennis player whose racket is an extension of his intuitive self.  

Sadly there was one fatality on the course: a frog who clambered in through my window. Some African frogs apparently climb walls. Or maybe CC drives them up the wall. Anyway I went to bed on the 2^nd night, exhausted, pole-axed. There was a funny smell in my bed. “Oh dear I pong” I thought “ I'd better have a shower”. That didn't seem to make a difference. I was too tired to care. I woke at five, just as dawn broke. I slipped my hand under my pillow. I felt a soft, mushy blob which, in my semi-comatose state I reasoned, must be the remains of an apple I'd eaten. It was, I'm sad to report, the remains of a blameless frog who had penetrated our perimeter and perished silently. If it croaked I never heard.

That little tragedy aside it was a time of gifts for me, as it has been for over 400 other pilots . 

www.bushair.co.za