As is often the case, in the days leading up to this year’s Farm Strips Fly Out the forecasts began to look none too promising. In fact ‘none too promising’ is something of an understatement, ‘positively dire’ would perhaps be more accurate, and so with some confidence I left work on Friday evening having assured Vrai and Sanjiv, who I normally give a lift to the airfield, that our Saturdays could happily be spent engaged in other pursuits.
‘Imagine my surprise’ therefore to get home and find an email waiting for me saying, ‘Looks like it might be doable – let’s all meet as arranged and give it a go’! Oops! Cancel that Friday night drinking session and start drawing lines on charts….
And so five crews all in slight states of ‘last-minute readiness’ arrived at North Weald on Saturday morning. As it turns out it was a good call and the only real problem was the strong westerly wind – otherwise, it looked like being a reasonably nice day. Fortunately, most of the strips that we were hoping to visit were to a greater or lesser extent aligned with the wind, and on short strips, a bit of a wind straight down the runway obviously never goes amiss anyway. The only exception to this was our planned lunch stop at Priory Farm with its north/south runway. As Priory Farm had featured on a previous fly out we decided to do the sensible thing and simply snip it off the route, meaning our planned six strips became five. Speaking of lunch stops we had originally planned to get Billy to put together some of his excellent picnic lunches, but when it looked on Friday like the whole thing was off, had cancelled the order. The late call to give it a go meant there was no time to re-order, meaning no lunches to take with us, and a rather bemused Billy arriving at North Weald on Saturday morning to find us all getting ready to go on the fly out that supposedly wasn’t happening. Apologies Billy!
With the usual Farm Strip Fly Out need to balance the procedures unique to each strip with crews of differing experience and planes of differing performance, once everyone had done their initial planning, Malcolm and I, who had recce’ed the strips earlier in the summer, gathered everyone to run through our notes and observations and most importantly, just as we do every year, instil upon everyone the importance of ensuring good spacing and not all arriving at the same airstrip at the same time.
Naturally, in the best NWFG tradition, all the crews promptly ignored that bit, and so guess what happened next…..
Waits Farm (520m)
Situated somewhere rather in the middle of nowhere (near Sudbury), this is a lovely, if rather tight, genuine little farmers’ strip. Malcolm and I had visited it earlier in the summer and located it without problem – approaching from the western end and slipping in over the imaginatively named Puttock’s End as we did so (stop sniggering at the back). Although on a calm day this is the favoured approach due to a slight upslope, today’s strong westerly obviously favoured an approach from the other end. No problem; as we were already familiar with the strip, Malcolm & JR in Fox-Golf, and me and Barrie in Fox-Alpha, would fly on ahead, land, check the lie of the land, and talk everyone in on the hand-held.
You know how sometimes things viewed from one direction look completely different when viewed from the opposite direction? Yep, you’ve guessed it – despite arriving easily enough in the general vicinity, neither of us could locate the strip! Round and round we flew trying to spot the strip where it ought to have been (and subsequent downloads of the GPS traces showed that we actually flew straight over the top of it several times). And to make matters worse, with all of our fannying around the faster aircraft behind were now entering the fray.
In a scene reminiscent of the film The Battle of Britain, in no time at all the sky over this sleepy little strip filled with aircraft milling about all chattering away on Safetycom trying to keep each other advised of their whereabouts and be the first to positively locate the strip and land. Honours, in the end, went to the newest crew, Keith and Sanjiv in Fox-Sierra, who rather showed up the rest of us by spotting the strip straight away and flying straight in as if to say ‘What’s all the fuss about?’ However, having now flown a pathfinder mission locate the strip for the rest of us, further go-arounds were called for as Fox-Sierra was obliged to vacate the narrow runway the only way possible – by carefully backtracking its way back up it.
Fortunately, everyone avoided everyone else, and in due course, all five planes were safely down and parked. Once out of the planes we were able to meet Richard, the strip’s friendly and welcoming owner, and assure him that we’re all usually far more proficient than that!
Wait’s Farm is a great little strip and well worth a visit. It’s not in Pooley’s but you’ll find its details in Lockyear’s.
Parked up at Wait’s Farm
Rougham (760m)
A quick into wind take-off at Wait’s Farm, followed by a right-hand turn onto a northerly heading put the grain stores of Bury St. Edmunds on the nose – a handy visual locator for our next port of call, Rougham.
In contrast to Wait’s Farm, Rougham is a fairly busy and active grass airstrip but still maintains a nice rural feel. Its runway is flat and very well prepared, and there’s a nice friendly welcome at the clubhouse.
Rougham’s preference is for Standard Overhead Joins, and with 27 Right-Hand being the active circuit this actually worked very well with us all tracking up from the south (with reasonable separation this time!) and then effectively ‘driving down the multi-story car park spiral ramp’ in order to slot in neatly round the circuit. It’s a good system when it works!
We had hoped to visit the WWII control tower at Rougham, but unfortunately, on this particular day, it was shut – another time, maybe. The tower being shut also meant that its café was shut – the crews would have to stay hungry!
Whilst on the ground the clouds began to cover the sky, and with the fresh wind, the temperature dropped markedly. There was no getting away from the fact that for the middle of August this was bleedin’ cold! A shame because it would have been nice to sit out in the sunshine at what is a very pleasant little airfield, but really the donning of coats was our cue to move on.
On short final at Rougham
Monewden (800m)
With Priory Farm being outside crosswind limits, our next leg would take us round the top of the Wattisham MATZ to Monewden (pronounced ‘Monneden’). This again this is a lovely little strip, which fell into disrepair some years back but has recently reopened and is immaculately presented.
Going off my and Malcolm’s previous experience the easiest way to be sure of locating the strip is to fly to Framlingham and then track 220 degrees which puts you on a long 8 mile final with a handily-placed church near the threshold and on your nose to aid navigation (NB you are required to jink around to the right of the church to avoid overflying).
Mindful of the earlier Wait’s Farm adventure, this time Barrie and I had set off well ahead of everyone else, with Red One forcibly restraining everyone on the ground, so that we could be in position to photograph arrivals and be on hand with the hand-held on Monewden’s discrete frequency (Ipswich Radio – 123.20) to pass on any relevant information to the arriving crews.
This time naturally things worked too well and Barrie and I sat on the ground twiddling our thumbs for what seemed like ages before the first of the planes eventually arrived! From then on all went pretty straightforwardly, except for Keith and Sanjiv in Fox-Sierra, who, unhappy with their first approach elected to go around, and promptly lost visual contact with the field. No matter, after a couple of fruitless attempts to find us (to the accompaniment of pantomime cries of ‘It’s behind you’ on the radio), they opted to do the sensible thing and fly back to Framlingham and start again – as a result, they found us again without further difficulty.
The other comedy moment came when Pete and Vrai in NUKA were able to tell Paul, just as he had settled in on long final, that soon after VB had gone off air at Rougham, the instructor at Rougham had radioed to say they’d found a camera on one of the tables. Naturally, NUKA relayed this useful nugget just at the exact point that Paul was looking around himself in the plane thinking ‘You know, I’ve got a horrible feeling I’ve left something behind’…..
VB arrives at Monewden… minus camera
Monewen has a very smart and nicely equipped shepherds’ hut inside which we were able to make ourselves teas and coffees. We were also able to chat to the owners and go for a general nosey around the hangars and the flying machines that live there. Another recommended strip.
Now the next stop was to have been Great Oakley. And with a choice of runways, and being big and active enough to warrant inclusion in Pooley’s, this ought to have been a fairly straightforward visit. However, my attempt to get PPR before we left North Weald had been met with a rather strange response – something along the lines of it being ‘difficult’ and perhaps another day might be better. Not fully deterred I elected not to push a point (airfields are private land after all, and it’s the owner’s prerogative as to whether or not visitors can drop in), and instead thought we could get Paul to try again nearer the time. Now Red One, as you will all know, possesses not only a silver tongue, but is fully versed in the dark art of getting permission to visit places that themselves are often unaware that they give out permission! So at Monewden Paul duly phoned ahead, and….. exactly the same response! Most odd. Perhaps we’ll never know why, but no real reason was ever offered up as to why we couldn’t simply drop in, part with our £10 landing fees, and be on our way.
Idyllic setting at Monewden
Napp’s Field (600m)
With Great Oakley out, this meant a fairly lengthy next hop down to Napp’s Field – a.k.a. ‘Billericay International’!
Albeit VB departed early, and we in FA were last to leave Monewden having stayed to photograph departures, but it says something for the relative performance of VB and FA, especially into a headwind, that VB was able to fly back to Rougham, stop, retrieve the camera, take off again, and still be on the ground at Napp’s Field before us.
Again, despite Napp’s being sometimes quite difficult to spot, lining up in the north shore of the Hanningfield Reservoir and then tracking 260 degrees had everyone on a long final for Runway 26 and in this way, everyone found it without a problem.
In Fox-Alpha our arrival coincided with a minor squall three miles out which obscured the field from view, but as it cleared there straight ahead of us was the runway as planned. Hurrah! The only problem was that off to the right and clear of the runway we could see Pete and Vrai who’d wandered over to take photos, whilst wandering down the middle of the runway was a group of anglers in camouflage gear who’d now stopped where they were in order to watch this funny little flying machine making its way towards them. Interesting(!) Fortunately, some judicious flashing of the landing light (why aren’t planes fitted with horns?) ensured that they finally got the message and cleared off before we had to go around.
Fox-Alpha landing at Napp’s Field
Napp’s Field itself is a quirky little place. I first visited five years or so ago and have been back several times since. Eddie the owner is always very accommodating, even though I’ve never actually met him, and a quick exchange of texts always secures permission to visit.
Unlike the other airstrips we visited that day, Napp’s appears in neither Pooley’s nor Lockyear’s. However, prior to the fly out I had got out my crayons and created a plate of my own of a ‘Here be dragons’ variety for the crews. It did the trick though, and in particular, I was keen that all the crews should be aware of the large tree at the end of Runway 26 – hard to see until you are committed at the runway midpoint and positioned just where you don’t want it if performance is a bit marginal.
Napp’s other unique feature is its resident, very friendly, very daft, and very soft dogs. This daftness manifested itself when it came to time to leave because they thought they’d come and sit under the aeroplanes. Now I’m no expert but dogs and propellers don’t strike me as the happiest of bedfellows and so I got Barrie to hold off firing up FA whilst I hopped out and went to gather the dogs around me and keep them occupied whilst everyone taxied safely away. Why I did this I’m not quite sure because I’m not much of a dog person, and so spending time cuddling the three daft mutts as they reciprocated by slathering spittle and pawing muddy paws all over my trousers as everyone else went through their run-up checks was ‘duty beyond the call’ as far as I was concerned! Added to which, one of the dogs, which I can say with some authority was a male
Fortunately, before I made a friend for life, everyone else was up and away and I was able to jump in Fox-Alpha and be away. Having watched the more powerful aircraft make a mockery of my warnings about the tree by being comfortably airborne and climbing before the mid-point, in Fox-Alpha our clearance was perhaps rather better expressed in horizontal terms than vertical!
Safely back at North Weald, we elected, as is our usual want, to round out our Farm Strips tour by landing on the grass – followed by joining the rest of the crews for a well-earned beer.
Farm Strips flying is all about airmanship, flexibility, and tactical awareness, and this year all of the crews acquitted themselves well despite all the various curve balls thrown at them.
This year’s Farm Strips Fly Out crew with new friends
My thanks to all the pilots who took part for helping make it a memorable and enjoyable day, and to the strip owners for allowing us to visit.
