Bedford Real Run

Well, the day finally came. Having practised all night playing Grand Theft Auto, I was sure to get second, or at worst third place. Of course I had also planned the flight carefully, making sure to remove any dependency on Satnav or other artificial devices, as per my previous post. Today would be about sheer guts and skill.

08:30 Ben turned up bright and early, and we set off for Earle's Colne, to pick up a machine to fly to Bedford.

09:00 Ben and I seemed to be stuck in traffic, somewhere near Clapton.

09:30 Ben and I seemed to be stuck in traffic, somewhere near Clapton.

10:00 Ben and I seemed to be stuck in traffic, somewhere near Clapton.

11:00 We made it to Earles Colne. Simon had left the keys with the folks there, who seemed unfamiliar with the Rules of the Air, and it took a bit of persuading to give me the documents for the machine. In the event of a crash, they said, there would be nothing left. And also that they would be closing at 6pm, after which we'd be landing on our own.

11:30 Realised we'd have to push the machine out of the hangar, and have to put the handling wheels on first.

12:30 A nice flight, good Basic Service from Farnborough, and no mess ups from me. Ben took a bunch of photos, the one below sums it up:

It took about an hour to get there. A circuit to see where was good to land, and I plopped the machine down on an H. A lady turned up in a car to take us to reception and lunch was.

The food was quite nice. We checked out the crowd - it was all of us, Simon's heli crowd, versus two or three groups on corporate outings.