Post 8: To Julian,my son.Happy Birthday Jules

This feels real. Steve and I and Alpha Charlie are finally on our way. Gaillac to Corsica. A fine day at Gaillac, fully laden ( and some) AC manages wheelsup in under 600 metres off a soggy grass runway. She lifts gently with two stages of flap ( respect.. Steve) and climbs easily. We bank left, head east south east and level off at FL55 (5500 feet), the Lycoming engine giving off a solid, satisfied growl. She's saying " This is OK. No worries guys". We both feel a load starting to lift (pun intended).

Soon we see the Pyrenees off to the south. Toulouse air traffic hand us over to Montpellier (oldest university in Europe, gateway to the spectacular Cevennes). French ATC are (almost) invariably helpful. They say 'Sir' and, if it's a lady, it's good form to say 'Madame'. And Bonjour. It feels like travelling Business Class, one ATC handing you over seemlessly to the next. They know you're coming, provided you've filed a flight plan otherwise there's lots of silent Gallic shrugging. Chapeau. Hats off.

Over Nice ( shrouded in cloud) a minor drama is being played out. A French rescue helicopter is cleared to cut through restricted airspace to reach a fire blazing somewhere in the Rhone valley. As we overfly St Tropez Steve and I exchange views on Brigitte Bardot, the actress, French Aphrodite and now animal rights activist, who lives there. I tell him I had an uncle who used to provide her with antique furniture at her house, La Madrague, where I was once taken as a teenager. He asks me a pertinent question about her anatomy which I can't answer with any accuracy. Way to the north we see the Alps, craggy, snow-capped summits lit up by the sun, contrasting vividly with the green and brown valleys and lower peaks of Provence below us. I am speechless, humbled and thrilled all at once. Who says men can't multi-task? All I can do is take pictures, like a gawping tourist.

Our newly-fitted fuel-flow meter is coming in very handy and tells us we're burning a satisfying 7.5-8.5 gallons per hour so if we do have to turn back because of poor weather at Corsica we have plenty in the tank to return to the mainland. Highly recommended. I have a new Honywell Bendix King Sentinel OB3000 display (the first to be fitted to a fixed-wing in the UK) with traffic alert. It's essentially a VFR tool,with a crystal clear screen and some nice features. But the jury ( that's Steve and I) is still out on its overall effectiveness. I shall report back.

Then there is Corsica, home of the Union Corse, France's Mafia, lovely beaches and a terrific soccer team. You can see why its called The Mountain In The Sea, its wild and craggy heights rising majestically out of carpet of cloud. We join the circuit for a left hand onto runway 34. On the apron we are met by the Gendarmerie in their smart blue uniforms and side-arms who record our details virtually down to our inside leg measurements. Flight time: 3.5 hours. Tomorrow Corfu.

Post 7: Fogged in

Fogged in. A High is moving in across France but Gaillac is in a valley. Charly ( who's grandfather DID own a chocolate factory and so might Charly such is his disposition) and Alastair can't take off in the bumble-bee as it is strictly limited to flying VFR(visually) and since you get guillotined in France for walking on la pelouse they (and we) are stuck. To be fair we wandered up to the airfield mid-morning and couldn't see the end of the runway.Soupe.But of course by the time we'd had our,erm, 2nd glass of rose at lunch the sky was crystal clear. Hoping to get to Bastia in Corsica tomorrow. I shall wear my moon (survival) suit. Sam has pushed the plan B button. We shall enter Libya via Benghazi and not Tobruk. But there's a couple of 500nm legs over Gaddafi's back yard to the Sudanese border. So 5 litres of water each ( which for those kindly following this on the Flyermag website) will know nearly stuffs our Weight and Balance numbers. One litre=Ikg, 10 litres.......Stayed tuned

Post 6: Real flying

After our chaotic start yesterday we did a bit better today. We filed an IFR (instrument) flight plan and left Tours in light drizzle and low cloud slotted in between several pairs of fast French air force jets taking off in close formation. Probably instructors and pupils learning the magic art of precision flying, so close their wingtips seemed almost to overlap. Thrilling to watch. Le Top Gun. Them not me. The operations staff at Tours were welcoming, friendly efficient and helpful. They downloaded the weather for us at various airfields we might land at (Memo to MetOffice UK: get with the programme and check out some of the software the FrenchMet guys have. For starters try http://www.orbifly.com/member/metmap.php?lang=ENG ) found us a hotel, gave us a cup of coffee " Sorry,no tea. We are French.". They then sent us on our way with warm wishes for our onward journey through Africa " Vous allez OU?"..and promised to follow the blog. Merci les gars.

After an initial climb through cloud to 4000 feet we were cleared to 7000 feet (FL70) and emerged in blue skies between two layers, white and puffy underneath and thin stratus on top. Outside temperature was zero degrees Celsius but we hadly picked up any ice on the airframe. Alpha Charlie behaved impeccably. No battery tantrums today. Leaned the mixture and got less than 8.5  US gallons an hour most of the way. Very frugal. As we sped south at around 110 knots with a 35kt cross-wind, the skies above and ahead cleared and we caught sight of the Pyrenees about 150 miles ahead shimmering in a blue haze. It took my breath away.

Limoges had cloud down to 300ft. We could hear frustrated airline pilots chattering away at machine-gun speed in French to the tower. Definately not cricket. L'Anglais est obligatoire. I could tell you a story about a German pilot who went ballistic for being ordered to speak English at a German airfield but I won't. We might need their money.The French, bless their little croissants, just won't accept they've lost the battle for La Francophonie..no direspect to Voltaire et al.

Toulouse radar, anticipating our needs and reading our minds, quickly cleared us to our destination: Gaillac. Nice little wine attached to a town, tannic, fresh with a hint of herbs and spices. Grass runway. "Will you land VFR (visually). Cloud base maybe 1000ft, maybe.." he asked implying that we were bonkers. We did, John skillfully taking over just as we broke through over a green and damp landscape dotted with vineyards and woods, executing a perfect hard bank to the left to line up and brought her down on well-drained French soil.

Alastair ( ex-RAF chopper pilot and Captain Bird's Eye look alike) met us in his stately little Renault van with the push-pull gear-stick. Alastair and his friend Charly are joining us on the trip in Charly's kit-built dinky toy( compared to our Tonka). It's actually fast, has a range of 1000kms, sups Avgas in thimbelfulls, a parachute ( for the plane not them) and almost certainly a small wine cellar. Alastair used to own a vineyard. It's a brilliant little aircraft.

Steve arrives tonight from the UK. We head to Corsica on Sunday, then Corfu, Crete and almost certainly entering Africa at Tobruk in Libya, Rommel and Monty and all that. Sam the Man appears to have finally accepted the inevitable and canned the route through Egypt.

Post 5, Fog in channel but continent not cut off

After a number of false starts and the odd not wholly kosher promise Alpha Charlie finally set off to get through a narrow window of grim but not disastrous February weather in France on the first leg of her 18,000nm trip to Africa and back.
I got up feeling as close to suicidal as someone as obdurate as me can feel when the phone rang. Deus ex machina. John McGwynne, a ferry pilot and Cirrus instructor I'd never met who'd seen my distress flare sent the previous midnight called at 8:30 am to say he was free. Pilots are like that. Well, most pilots. Apart from the ones with Very Big Watches. John has 2300 hours in the bank, an instrument rating and a nice, open manner which suggested caution and experience and nothing to prove. Sometimes you just go with your gut. And mine was telling me this meeting was what Karl Jung called Synchronisity.or good karma. John is one of the good guys. Not, as some pilots can be, serial willie-wavers.
We meet an hour and a half later at Cranfield,  Then everything that could go wrong did. Flat battery; jump start; flat again; another jump start; avionics died one by one and the piece of paper we'd scribbled the flight plan on in haste (Rule One broken) was spun away by a nearby King Air starting up. We eventually took off half an hour late, IFR flight plan shot anyway, but with nice egg and cress sarnies from Cafe Pacific and some refreshing Cranberry juice on board.

Layers of stratus cloud over the channel, more muscular stuff over France but not quite CBs, moderately helpful French traffic controllers who seem to need to be spoon fed flight plans and are thrown if you want to divert. Mustn't grumble though. They produced the goods, warming us off Limoges and Poitiers and Toulouse (our hoped-for destination) which we would have reached after dark anyway which I didn't fancy. Weaving and dodging cloud at between 6-7000 feet, auto-pilot behaving itself. Engine leaned to around 8.5US gallons an hour. Purring along. I love Alpha Charlie. And I think she loves me. Shucks.

We eventually plumped for Tours, a semi-military airport. John took her into the Instrument Landing glideslope (one day I too shall be a grown-up pilot who can do that) and handed her over on finals. Greaser of alanding  if I say so myself. As we stepped onto the Apron 4 fast jets..Mystere or Raffale or somesuch, played about over the airfield like over-excited puppies chasing each other. No doubt a fly-past in our honour. Incredibly helpful airport staff. Handshake, fuel, hotel at air crew rates, taxi. I was wearing my gardening/flying suit so maybe that helped. ( Tomorrow Toulouse then Corsica and Corfu where Sam, our gruppenfuehrer, I suspect (and hope) will announce that flying a bunch of over excited penioners and some of their wives into the jaws of a revolution in Egypt while everyone else is headed for the exit may not be such a good idea not least for his business. ATC of the day is a joint award : Farnborough Lars and Paris Information. Man of the match is John. Thank you. Merci. And good night.

Post 4: Weather interrupted

2:00 am. Freezing fog forecast for France later today. So my plan to visit the Toulouse-Lautrec museum at Albi before it closes this evening followed by a nice glass of Gaillac is stymied. Weather's fine in southern Spain. Where's European harmonisation? We give them our subsidies. They should give us their weather. I blame Ted Heath. And the fact that I don't have an instrument rating. Or a Cessna Citation. The Egyptian army has said it won't shoot protestors. Hillary Clinton wants an " orderly transition" for which read "next dictator please". Game over for Moubarak. Which is good but not soon enough for us (or 87m Egyptians) so we will probably route to the Sudan via Libya next week.  Now there's irony for you. The safest route south from the Med is through Gaddafi's Libya. You couldn't make it up, could you?

Post 3: Democracy interrupted

I've been thinking of tweeting 80m Egyptians - or a representive sample relying on the trickledown effect-and  asking them to put their little grumbles on hold for two weeks. As a favour to an old Alexandrian. Me. At least until we get our little squadron through El-Arish, Sharm and Luxor on our way to the Sudan and South Africa. But a) the internet has been emasculated by the regime ( that's encouraging actually; I mean the fact that Mubarak's goon squad includes internet anorachs who can do that) and b) I'm not sure a joy ride by a bunch of overfed Brits and other Europeans will figure high on the protestors' priorities right now.

So we're on our lonesome. Do we ignore all the official advice and head south and, if so, which way? Egypt, Libya possibly Saudi Arabia? I don't think W will take kindly to wearing a scarf. Yes, some of the guys are bringing their better halves. All I can reveal is that serious discussions are taking place in a constructive atmosphere in the group divided, roughly, between the Stiff-Upper-Lip wing and the Do-we -really-need this flight wimps. I am torn. I am reminded nostalgically of the time, when as an FT Foreign Correspondent I flew into Tehran on the chartered Air France Jumbo,carrying that bundle of laughs the Ayatollah Khomemeini on his return from exile in France. The Shah had been driven into exile. The emperor had plenty of money. But no clothes. And look what we got in his place! Some you lose. And some you lose.  Mind you, that French skipper knew a thing or two about flying. He corkscrewed the Jumbo onto the ground to avoid possible missile fire.

I'm packing my stuff in the smallest bag you've ever seen and flying G-VAAC to Toulouse on Tuesday, ready to jump whichever way Sam the Man dictates. We could reach Khartoum, as intended, through Libya and Chad.  Many barrels of Avgas. Many camels.

Today we had satisfying session at Cranfield with Mark Barnard the Chief engineer at Bonus about what we need to watch for. It boiled down to: " Lads...keep topping up the oil, don't let the engine overheat, don't panic and here's my number. But I never answer my mobile so don't bother calling. And if anything goes wrong remember rule ONE: fly the plane. Oh, and here's  a roll of gaffer tape in case the wing tips buckles or falls apart in the Equatoirial heat. Good luck and send us a postcard " Thanks Mark.

Getting Prior Permission to land at en route airports has been diverting. The French, cool as  concombres, have been blisteringly efficient. The Italians have been charming and, well, Italian. And the Greeks, oh those Greeks, seem so thrilled that we are going to drip in for Kelftiko and Tarama they're offering to charge us nothing."Just come...it will be a pleasure...!" said the lovely Vassilis at Rhodes Airport Authority. O Vassilis einai Leventis.

Monday I will find out what the underwriters feel about taking G-VAAC into Egypt. I'll try and catch him after he's had a good City lunch. I shall report back.

Post 2: Ten days to go

Just over a week to go. Africa beckons. I'm re-reading Alan Moorehead's White Nile. And the CAA lealet about ditching in cold water. I can hear the Egyptian Air Traffic controller " Golf Alpha Chaarlee, bus yuur massage...." I'm dying to thank him in Arabic as we cross into Sinai, skimming Israeli airspace, a childish temptation which I hope I'll resist. But I doubt I will. Resist. Sadly we shall not be landing at Alexandria where I was born and where Cleopatra subdued Julius Ceasar not just with her hips but with her guile. I love Egypt. But I'm biased. Slight concerns over stability in the Middle East: Tunisia has suddenly erupted and swept away the old crook who ran it for 25 years and his hairdresser wife who apparently packed $40m in gold bars in her Louis Vuittons before fleeing to that other model of liberty: Saudi Arabia.. Not, I wager, in a single-engine Cherokee. The talk now is of Tunisia being to the Arab world what Poland was to the Communist block in 1989. Arab dominoes falling as we cut through the Arab skies. I doubt it. Not for a while anyway. Then there's the referendum in the Sudan where we head after Egypt. The Christian south wants to secede from the Muslim north. The north gave us Darfur. Who gives up a third of their country willingly? We shall see. 


More mundane preoccupations: should we wear moon ( survival) suits when flying over longish stretches of Mediterranean? The RAF has a rule: if the water is under 15 degrees Celsius in the water moon suits are in order. It's the initial shock of hitting cold water that does for you , like Mike Tyson punching you in the chest with a bag of ice. A nice man at South East Marine supplies, who supply the emergency services, says: " Don't swim. Curl up in a ball and try and float, protecting your core bits until help arrives." Mind you Alpha Charlie is a robust little plane. She'd never let us down. And she knows I hate cold water. Do we take Kitkats and chocolate or survival rations? That's a no-brainer. Nuttella.  


We did a shakedown flight last week up to 10,000 ft over Norfolk in preparation for vaulting over the mountain wall which separates the Sudan from Ethiopia. On the way back the Traffic alert went on the blink. We could see the little black squares on our display signifying other aircraft but an irritating, clipped American voice kept saying "Altitude, Data Invalid". Fat lot of use if you don't know where the enemy is. Up, down, left or right.


We have to get her to Toulouse by February 4th at the latest if we're to make the rendezvous in Cyprus on February 12th. Sam Rutherford, our leader, leaves no prisoners. Steve joins me on the 4th at Toulouse. Adrian, top gun Air Traffic Controller at Cranfield, has agreed to fly with me to south-west France a few days before. He can fly in cloud ( and almost certainly walk on water) so we'll be fine. I am getting a bit windy. But that's good says my wife. It will delay Alzheimers. She ( my plane not my wife) is getting her final check next week and Steve and I will be shown how to change a spark plug. I have bought a, chic little, blue urine bottle to keep in the plane. WikiHow's first rule for GA pilots who need to go is " Don't pee all over yourself." Who writes this stuff? We meet CC Pocock, maverick bush pilot, in South Africa. Have a look at www.bush-air.com  They don't make them like that anymore.