25th August 2013, a day I will remember for a long time, no it was not the day of my first solo that is still to come, in fact I was not long into my training on the 25th. This was the day I first got to fly into an air show, although the day did not look promising to start with. The plan was to get to Chatteris at around 10:00 and then fly over to Little Gransden Air show. On the day I was quite excited about this, so I got to the club about 90 mins early, but it was a very grey day and it was looking unlikely that we would be able to fly to the show. As time went by the cloud began to lift and we got the aeroplanes out of the hanger. It was the first time I had been early enough to take part in this, I normally opt for an afternoon lesson. Once we got the Microlights out Mike talked me through doing the oil check and burping the engine on the training one. They have a dry sump so before the first flight of the day you need to turn the engine over on the propeller by hand to get some oil in to the engine, as you do so you get the gurgling/burping sound that tells you have done enough rotations.
Now with the aeroplane checked out and burped it was a waiting game to see if the cloud would continue to lift, while we waited Mike showed me the route we would be flying and how to read a weather chart, Mick was on his phone to someone near or at the show and they said it was OK their end. At around 11:00 Mike said lets go and we all flew out, three C42’s and a thruster all flying the short journey. We got airborne at 11:15 and the flight was uneventful, we flew higher and fast then Hazel’s thruster and I remember seeing it bellow and to one side as we went passed.
Mike took the controls as we turned on to base leg and flew us in, shortly after parking up a Yak 52 landed behind which was great to see.
As we walked around to the reporting point a number of the crowd asked about our aeroplanes and where we were from. As we walked by the display aeroplanes Mike stopped to talk to most of the pilots, it seems everyone knows Mike!
The show itself went off well and was a day to remember after all it’s not every day you can fly into an air show!