Waterford, Ireland

There are a couple of magazines in the UK that print vouchers for a free landing at four or five different airfields each month. These vouchers can encourage you to visit new destinations as well as saving you cash to use on other things. The May 2011 edition of “Pilot” magazine had such a selection of free landings and unless specifically excluded, they cover both single and multi engine aeroplanes. Last year I took the Twinstar to South East Ireland and spent some time in the seaside town of Tramore, served by the regional airport of Waterford. This trip I would use a landing voucher to return to Waterford, in the Seneca, and save the thirty euro landing fee. This time I would head into Waterford city centre.


The plan began with selecting the route to take from Blackpool, reviewing the airspace and air traffic contact frequencies and checking notams for the UK and Ireland. The route would be the same as last year’s. This headed south west out of Blackpool to ESTRY and continued on to the CAE NDB at Caernarfon. From here the next point is VATRY where we enter Irish airspace. Continuing to the DIMUS intersection, we then turn right directly to Waterford airport. There are danger areas directly on this route over the sea, but they are only active Monday to Friday. Radio contact frequencies were looked up and a flight PLOG (details of distances, tracks and planned altitudes) prepared. Finally, I filed both the outbound and return flight plans using my laptop on the Friday evening.

A review of the weather on the Friday night suggested that the flight should be possible although strong winds and showers could be expected throughout the day.

The morning of the flight, I awoke in Manchester to low cloud and rain and set about looking at the new forecasts for the UK and Ireland. The Irish Met site showed that Waterford was forecast to be VFR all day but with an increasing strength north westerly wind. This would give us a 15kt direct crosswind on the runway in use which was 03. The Seneca limit is 17kts, so not much margin for error in that! The Blackpool and en-route forecasts were similar to the previous day with a strong surface wind of 20kts gusting occasionally to 30kts, but straight down the runway. Visibility could fall to 7000 metres in showers of rain. I decided the trip was a “Go”.

I drove up to Blackpool arriving at 9am with a flight plan filed for a 1030am local time departure. Steve, who was co-pilot for this trip, arrived at 10 o’clock and we faxed the GAR form through to the authorities. I picked up the aircraft technical log and examined the fuel state recorded in there. The log said we had 295 litres in the tanks, more than enough for our destination and, if needed, diversion airport of Cork. I decided we would refuel at Waterford on arrival.

I pre-flighted the Piper PA34-200T Seneca paying close attention to a visual fuel inspection, and all looked good to go. I also entered the flight plan route into the Garmin 430 GPS navigator, ready to pull up after engine start. I then rang ATC to check they had our flight plan: they did.

Steve and I boarded the plane and ran through the checklist. The left engine was started first and it burst into life with only a little juggling of the throttle. The right engine was soon running too as I switched on the avionics master switch to power up the various electrical equipment. I then called up and activated the GPS flight pan. We taxied out to the holding point for runway 28 and completed the power and systems checks before entering the runway and backtracking to use the full available length.

The take off procedure on this turbo charged aeroplane is to set 40 inches of manifold pressure on the engines, taking care not to over-boost. A yellow light comes on in your line of sight if you apply too much power and you then have to slightly reduce power to put it out! It’s a knack only learned by practise, as when you advance the throttles there is a lag before the manifold pressure increases and stabilises. There is a lot to think about on take-off: that manifold pressure, the propeller rpm, the temperatures and pressures of the engines, whether symmetric power is being produced by the engines, as well as the surface wind and its effect on the takeoff run. You must also be ready to close the throttles and brake should any asymmetry of thrust develop if an engine fails. The rotate speed of 77 kts comes quickly and, now airborne, if an engine fails, you must not only control the plane but decide if you can re-land and stop. If the undercarriage has been retracted when the engine fails then it’s pretty much a go with a failed engine. That requires swift but accurate feathering of the failed engine. It would be a very heavy workload. We train for this as best as we can but not at such close proximity to the ground. All these factors must be considered before the take-off run commences.

Back to the flight.The departure goes well apart from a gust of wind which raised the right wing and made Steve jump! We climbed to 1500 feet to stay below the cloud base and headed towards our first waypoint of ESTRY. Power was set to 34/24/12 which means manifold pressure 34 inches, propeller rpm 2400 and fuel flow 12 us gallons per hour. The indicated airspeed settled to 165 kts. I wanted to remain in visual conditions at least until past the Liverpool airspace which required us to stay below 3500 feet.



On the way to Waterford


 As we progressed against the headwind our ground speed was around 145 kts. The low cloud base gradually rose and we climbed to 2500 feet passing Caernarfon and heading out over the Irish Sea. We raised Shannon Information on the radio and they asked us to report approaching the Waterford class C airspace. During my training it was clear that the Seneca needs to be slowed down early ready for an approach to land as it is hard to descend and slow down at the same time. So as we entered controlled airspace I went down to 1500 feet and then 1000 feet as we approached the runway from a right base position. Bringing the power back to 20 inches gave me airspeed just below 130 kts which meant the gear and first stage flap could be lowered. We then established on final approach and the landing in the brisk crosswind was good.

We taxied off the runway and parked on the main apron waiting for fuel. This took around 45 minutes but after uplifting 140 litres of av-gas at euro 1.73/litre we hopped into a taxi for the short trip to Waterford City.



On the main apron at Waterford



Waterford Tower

 In town, we walked around for a few minutes looking for somewhere to eat, before choosing “The Brasserie” in  Arundel Square. It looked very busy but we were given a table and menu very quickly. The waitresses had beautiful Irish accents that I could listen to all day. Chicken goujons with wedges and salad was very nice - and a large portion too! Steve had bangers mash and chips. We had a walk down to the river and around the streets before hopping into a taxi back to the airport.



On the river bank in Waterford

The security staff checked our paperwork and put us through the scanner but we were the only “customers”. It was very quiet as we walked back to the Seneca in a stronger breeze than earlier. The girls on the Information desk had called Shannon for me as our return flight plan had been lost. A new one was entered into the system and we had thirty minutes to wait before we could depart. I looked over the aircraft and when we had the engines running and navigation equipment set up we taxied to hold Bravo for the power checks. Steve requested a back-track of 03 for me and the wind was reported as 310 degrees 18 kts. This was an 80 degree crosswind on the limits. With full into wind aileron, we accelerated and took off, crabbing into wind as we climbed. The clearance was not above 2000 feet until outside controlled airspace.


Leaving the Waterford Class C airspace we could see that there were several areas of showers around, both on and off our track. Initially, as we routed towards DIMUS, the showers were on track, but further ahead, and the left turn towards VATRY would keep us clear. However, a few miles further on we entered light rain and instrument conditions, with no horizon and very poor visibility. I had to fly on instruments for around 25 minutes. Continuing past the Shannon boundary saw no change in flight conditions but the Llay peninsular appeared out of the murk to our right. We cleared the rain southwest of Caernarfon and had better conditions past the Great Orme at Llandudno. On tuning the Blackpool ATIS we were surprised to hear a report of scattered clouds at 600 feet and broken at 1600 feet with embedded CBs. Liverpool ATIS was fine and, as it was our nominated alternative, we continued and would review the actual conditions when we arrived at Blackpool.

It was clear that the weather at Blackpool had now gone and all was fine, with just the strong surface wind we had earlier in the day. I slowed the plane down and had gear and flaps 10 by downwind and all was looking good. Blackpool has a long runway and we turn off at the end of 28 to taxi in, and I was a little high on my approach speed, holding 90 kts instead of 80 kts on final. This was a mistake. The landing was ok but we had two or three minor bounces on the main wheels before she settled. The Seneca was not ready to land hence the skips as airspeed was too high. Lesson learned for next time!

Taxiing in I completed the after landing checks which include raising the flaps, switching off the anti-collision lights, landing lights and pitot heat and returning the trimmers to neutral. The flight time out was 1hr 10mins, and back we did it in just over an hour, consistently seeing groundspeeds over 175 kts.

The Seneca is far more demanding to fly than the Twinstar, but with those demands comes a sense of real achievement. The airplane’s autopilot is unserviceable which means hand flying at all times in visual and instrument conditions. It is tiring work, and I was pleased Steve had come along as I build my experience in this elderly but fine aircraft.

Anyone for Cork, next time?