The London Airshow and Yorkshire Airfields

It was quite a hectic weekend for us as we managed to fit in a trip to "Fly" the London Airshow by car and airborne visits to both Sherburn and Sheffield airfields.

It was third time lucky this year as three of our group, myself, Stephen and Niels visited the Earls Court Exhibition Halls on Saturday. I'd been wanting to go for two years but this year I actually made it. We had planned to fly down to Elstree and go into central London on the tube. But it soon became apparant that the weather had other ideas. The visibility was around 4000 metres and the cloud base 700 feet, conditions unsuitable for us to fly in.

So we set off in the car at 8:45 am and got there around 1pm after leaving the car at Tottenham Hale tube station and riding two trains to Earl's Court. Never again. We were tired, hungry and thirsty! Still, after a drink and meal we enjoyed the show and looked around the many exhibits. I was impressed by the Diamond Twin Star. It looked magnificent with its glass panel and shiny paintwork. I made a mental note to check out renewing my multi rating in this fine looking machine.

Here it is looking the bees knees ...

The air show put us in the mood for some flying and by Sunday morning the weather had improved enough for another trip. Me and Steve were tired from the previous day so we decided on a couple of fairly local places to fly into. Any ideas where you might find the sign post in the photo below?

Well it's Sherburn-in-Elmet, a very nice little airfield I've visited many times. It's a good place to take someone for lunch as it's not too far from Barton but far enough to make it a bit of an adventure for a non-flyer's outing. Since my last visit the club house had been refurbished and looked very welcoming and the tuna sandwich and coffee were good.

Stephen spotted a Bell 47 helicopter giving trial lessons and taking students and immediately wanted to fly it. But they couldn't fit him in as they were so busy. I'm sure we're going back again soon so he can get to fly it. The flying club had some brightly painted trainers on display as you can see below.

Here's the new restaurant area at Sherburn. We'll be back again to sample the food.

I flew the arrow from Barton to Sherburn and was also in command for the short hop down to Sheffield City, another great airfield with friendly people and good facilities. We often come to Sheffield as the landing is free if you buy 50 litres of fuel. But this time we had free landing vouchers from the aviation magazines so both Sherburn and Sheffield cost us nothing to use.

Here's the view looking over the Sheffield City apron to the control tower from my vantage point stood on the wing of our aeroplane.

The smart terminal building at Sheffield City is shown below. Inside it's modern and clean and has a good snack bar, an essential requirement for visiting pilots.

From Sheffield we took the long way home which involved flying down to the Trent VOR navigation beacon which is slightly out of our way before turning towards Winsford and going up the Low Level Route back to Barton.

We were both tired now after yesterday's trip to London so called it a day even though I would have liked to call in at Wolverhampton as I still had a free landing voucher for there as well! Best to quit while you're ahead though.

So I'm a bit more pleased as I've managed to fly two weekends in a row. We'll see if that becomes three next week.