The Bank Holidays are always busy for AERO ALLIANCE and this one at the start of May is no exception. My 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th flights with AERO ALLIANCE will be positioning and flying a family to the picturesque and relaxing UK holiday destination; Perranporth. Near and around Perranporth are numerous beaches, a golf club, friendly people and plenty of cottages to stay in. AERO ALLIANCE have many contacts at airports around Europe, including Perranporth where we have contact with: Holiday cottages, caravan/campsites, hire car organisations or even your own personal taxi driver for the weekend!
Fig 1.0 Zoomed in map of Perranporth showing the nearby golf club, coast and town
In the next couple of weeks I will be reviewing the popular stag and hen location Plymouth, with nearby Liskeard which features many activities including Hovercrafing, Go Karting and Zip Lining. Cornwall has it all! From the map below you can see the position of Perranporth in relation to the South West. As you can see Perranporth is nearby to Newquay which hosts more of a busy social atmosphere.
Fig 1.1 Perranporth's location in the South West
The flight started off at 1430 after all the necessary pre flight, weather, walkaround and refueling checks. We positioned the aircraft to Goodwood which was a very short flight from Shoreham to pick up our passengers.
Fig 1.2 Mike Preparing for the flight at Shoreham
Fig 1.3 Positioning To Goodwood, overhead Worthing
Fig 1.4 Arundel Castle, Changing point from Shoreham Approach To Goodwood Radar
At Goodwood, while we were waiting for the passengers Andy had the aircraft performance graphs out calculating which runway would be better. The options were a shorter grass runway with a gusting 35 knot (40.27mph) headwind or a longer grass runway with a 35 knot crosswind. Andy decided to use the shorter grass runway with this strong headwind. Despite the full payload and grass takeoff we were still airborne in no time at all. I even managed to take in the cars whizzing around the perimeter racetrack.
Our passengers were looking forward to their relaxing Bank Holiday break and were also extremely excited about the flight. Despite the advantage of a 5 minute check in are the large windows on the Piper Chieftain, along with a flight at lower altitude (our flight level was FL040, or 4000 feet at a standard barometric weather pressure setting of 1013.25 millibars) the passengers has an excellent view of the coastline including The Isle of Wight, Portsmouth, Southampton then enroute through to Exeter and then finally the golden beaches of Cornwall.
Fig 1.5 Exeter Airport
En route Capt Andy Bland advised me that we were to fly through 2 weather fronts, which he even pointed out to me. This weather started to appear with some cloudy conditions just after Portsmouth as Andy advised just as we took off from Goodwood. With his experience we made the passengers aware that they didn't yet need to fasten their seatbelts however there might be some slightly bumpy conditions as we entered the cloud. Then when Andy anticipated that in around ten minutes time (bearing in mind we are traveling at 3 miles a minute) it would get a little bit more bumpy as we passed through a squall line of weather. This gave the passengers confidence and I can see they were loving every minute of the flight. At one point Andy asked me if everyone and the baby were OK, to which I replied everyone is thoroughly enjoying the flight and the baby is loving every minute of it!
Fig 1.6 Coastal view of Perranporth
I gave the passengers an updated en route expected arrival time (to which we were actually early, despite the headwind) of 1730, to which the Gentleman was surprised we were getting there so soon and asked if we could circle for a while as he was enjoying the flight too much!
Fig 1.6 Perranporth Town
Fig 1.7 Close up of Perranporth Beach - This will be utilised in the summer - Great for Surfers !!!
Fig 1.8 Caravan park below - another form of holiday accommodation
Fig 1.9 Final approach for Perranporth
On landing at Perranporth airport the aircraft was greeted with a chauffeur for the family where they were driven to their holiday residence for the long weekend. I now look forward to my return trip on Monday 3rd May. Look out for the return leg AERO ALLIANCE TV and also a review of places to stay and entertain in and around Liskeard and Plymouth.