I had been contracted to fly a business client from Stansted to Guernsey every day for a couple of weeks whilst his normal pilot had a holiday. Sometimes I had to drop into Fairoaks to collect a colleague en route.
The first few trips were routine and the complexity of the C340 having 7 fuel tanks (2 tip tanks, 2 wing tanks, 2 nacelle tanks and 1 engine locker tank!) and remembering to transfer fuel in the appropriate order so as to save the embarrassment of actually having a ‘stoppage’ in flight was becoming less onerus.
I collected ‘Mike’ at 0730 from the Executive Terminal (North Side) at Stansted and as usual, he sat aft reading the paper. On this trip I was having to drop into Fairoaks to collect his colleague and I took off and acquired Special VFR into London CTR to cut the corner towards Fairoaks. Heathrow released me and Fairoaks reported ‘Fog in vicinity but runway visible’. Hmmm I thought, the nice ATC man said I could choose either direction but the fog bank was nearer the eastern end so I elected to land easterly. It was quite interesting landing this quite ‘hot’ aircraft onto the numbers and then transitioning into a fog bank. It was so thick I actually had difficulty finding the taxiway. However, by then I had slowed to a brisk walking pace! The remaining flight was uneventful to Guernsey and in fact I came back empty that afternoon having been told I was not needed until the next day at the earliest.
As usual in aviation, plans change and I was asked to return for an early departure to Southampton the next morning. It was now 1630hrs and a Cold Front was approaching from the west with Guernsey giving 190/20-30kts in rain. I was airborne by 1730 having sorted Special Branch and Flight Planning and it was dark by the time I reached Southampton and very bumpy and windy. Passing ORTAC Jersey Zone transferred me to Guernsey Approach with the ATIS giving 190/30kts. Obviously right across the runway.
I had just finished responding to Guernsey when an Air UK Fokker was pointed out to me by approach. They saw me and to my astonishment a voice asked ‘Gunning is that you down there?’ I was so taken aback I simply replied ‘Yep’ to which Pat Corry responded: “meet me in the terminal.” It did occur to me that he was obviously optimistic I was going to get in! The turbulence and crosswind took up the rest of my concentration and at 2miles on the ILS I was having to work hard keeping the C340 the right way up! Fortunately this aircraft is a delight to fly and with plenty of fuel I had Dinard available if it became too difficult. Down she went, with a combination of wing down and crabbing so that my landing lights were shining towards the Tower.
After landing I texted my client, letting him know I was there then met Pat in the Terminal and off we went to St Margarets Lodge for dinner; I think we had Beef Wellington. He told me the F27 did not have an autopilot and they had hand flown it from Stansted and had a very rough ride with several passengers being ‘sick’ and he asked me what it was like in the C340. I lied, telling him I was on autopilot drinking coffee!
Pat had been an instructor with me at Panshangar along with Shads Awal, Jonathan Auckett, Simon Wells and several others in the late eighties and all had gone onto Commercial Jobs. Pat a Captain with Air UK and I think Jonathan and Shads with BA. We had a laugh about old times, especially the Princess I had started to teach to fly who used to turn up in her yellow Rolls Royce. One morning with a VW Golf tied to her rear bumper! Her home help had run out of petrol and not wanting to be late for her flying lesson she towed the car to Panshangar with her poor employee literally crying as she had hit the bumper several times…
I finished my two weeks with 12 trips to/from Guernsey in varying weather and coincidentally met ‘the client’ again in recent years as he was working for Bidwells; 20+ years after flying him!
When I handed over to the ‘normal’ pilot after his holiday I was amused to find out he did not realise this particular aircraft had 7 tanks, he knew about 6 of them…!