I could hardly beleive it, but my plan to fly from Bournemouth to Guernsey unfolded exactly… as planned. We flew the route that I described in previous post, and the approach to Guernsey went fine. Both flight plans (Bournemouth to Guernsey and Guernsey to Waltham with a leaving) were accepted by Brussels without any change, and we received no slot.

When studying the Bournemouth departure, I noticed that there was no guidance to the THRED intersection, but only a ground track, after the initial turn. This was not a problem in flight, because an airliner was landing shortly after our departure, and we received radar vectors to bring us out of this possible go-around way.

We rapidly got IMC after take-off, and the climb was between different cloud layers. Such intermittent IMC is the probably the worst possible condition for IFR pilots, as one tend to constantly switch between instruments and natural horizon.

The temperature at FL080 was approximately 5 degrees Celsius, so icing was not an issue. Shortly before reaching FL080, we reached VMC on top conditions, making the flight more pleasant, even if there was nothing but clouds to see outside. No chance to see England’s shores…

The en-route navigation, managed by London Center, was all based on radar vectors. The route was to THRED, then ORTAC, and GUR VOR, but not under own navigation. Thanks to the GNS430 display, it was easy to guess what the controllers were doing.

The descent clearance came early, and put us into IMC again. We had some intermitent VMC when passing over the other Alderney, but no real opportunity for good pictures… except if you like islands in clouds.

The question regarding the use of the GUR VOR holding for track reversal was solved exactly the same way than the one about Bournemouth departure: we got vectors to the ILS. The intermediate descent, and final approach were all in clouds and rain, not to mention the winds…

We broke off clouds and got runway in sigth at approximately 700 feet. Well above the ILS minimum, but rather low for an approach with a single engine aircraft.

As the weather was not exactly ideal for flying to Jersey and Alderney VFR, we had coffee and cake before flying back to White Waltham. The flight home was like the flight to Guernsey. Departure in IMC, then wonderful VMC on top.

We descended after coasting in, and left IFR once clear of the Southampton TMA. This long flying day (5h05 total, including a Waltham – Southend – Waltham flight in the morning) was finally blessed by rainbow while approaching Waltham.

Thanks to the simplicity of IFR procedures, this flight was uneventful, except that I had to fly most of it manually, because the autopilot was not able to maintain altitude with 100 feet precision – a very good basic IFR handling exercise indeed.