Thursday 28th August 1986

Qualifying Cross Country

Thursday 28th August 1986, I am 17 and my mum and I live in a first-floor rented flat in a block on the edge of St Annes, our next door neighbour is an electricity substation. She works as a waitress in a hotel, starting breakfast shifts at six in the morning and sometimes not getting home until midnight or even later. Yet still, somehow, she managed to give me the money to finish my Private Pilot’s Licence and today I did. I flew Piper PA-28 Cherokee G-BASL of Air Navigation and Trading at Blackpool Airport to Barrow-in-Furness and then to Carlisle before bringing it back to Blackpool. My qualifying cross-country.

Air Navigation and Trading

Yesterday I flew from Blackpool to Carlisle and back with a chain-smoking instructor, today I flew the route myself and landed in Barrow-in-Furness, too. Just as I was leaving the clubhouse to walk out to the aeroplane, the club’s owner, Keith, caught up with me and said:

“You’ve never flown a Cherokee solo before, have you?”

“No,” I admitted, scared that he was going to stop me flying the last flight for my licence.

“Well, do one circuit and come back. If it feels okay, do a touch and go and head off on your cross country.”

I was out of the door before he had the chance to change his mind. I did my checks, started up and taxied out. Today the smaller cross runway was in use, rather than the long runway that headed straight out to sea. The runway was the furthest that you could taxy at the airport without going through a fence and onto a golf course. It’s the St Annes Old Links golf course at the edge of Blackpool Airport. In fact, Blackpool Airport is actually in the parish of St Annes as is a bit of what is generally thought of as Blackpool, including Pontin’s holiday camp. The parish is, I believe, actually called St Anne, Heyhouses on Sea but nobody ever calls it that.

Anyway, sat at the end of Runway 31, I didn’t care, I was off on my qualifying cross-country flight. First, though, a circuit. Off over the houses, into the parish of Blackpool, turn right, right again and back into St Annes, do my downwind checks and turn right two more times to line up with the runway, all looks good. Put down the flaps for landing. Coming down, coming down, round out, hold it off, hold it off, a squeak from the stall warner then a squeak from the wheels. A beautiful landing. Open the throttle and off again, off on my flight first to Barrow-in-Furness.

G-BASL

Hang on, though, the aeroplane’s not climbing.