![\"Keyston](\"http:\/\/www.fortyfivehours.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/KeystonFarm_2016_downwind.jpg\")
<\/a>Keyston Farm Downwind<\/p><\/div>\n
I’ve now been here about 3 times, it’s the only farm strip I land at with some regularity.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s easy to find, it’s got a nice slope that will keep you focused but not challenge you so it feels like hard work – and it has a pub just down the end of the track, so upon landing there’s something to do even if nobody is about.\u00a0\u00a0 That pub also means there’s a real risk that on a nice day, someone else will be joining the circuit when you want to.\u00a0 There’s no ground radio, so get on the safety com frequency and make sure you give clear calls of your position.<\/p>\n
My biggest memory about the most recent visit?\u00a0\u00a0 Being about 30 seconds from getting overhead, to hear someone else coming from the opposite direction was about 45 seconds from joining overhead!\u00a0\u00a0 Safety com can save your life, we had a bit of a mid-air “make up your own official phraseology season of who would do what” and agreed between us that I’d orbit east of the runway, while he repositioned for wind and landed.\u00a0 Once down I’d then join the circuit to land.<\/p>\n
It worked a treat, my landing wasn’t the best I’ve ever done, the airspeed was just a bit high with a thump on the back wheels as it touched down but it was stopped in ~250m\u00a0 in time to park it up.\u00a0 Actually I was thankful someone had landed before me, being a lovely hot day the place was slammed and I was the 4th plane to land.\u00a0 You could hardly move for planes – parking was a 3 person job to get the Cessna 172 squeezed in.<\/p>\n
The guy who’d landed before me absolutely trounced me in flying hours experience, yet just flew as a hobby (I can only dream of having the time and cash to get anywhere near what he was flying regularly!), still him and his wife were lovely people and they bought me a drink for payback of orbiting while they landed.\u00a0\u00a0 As this land away was actually done on my lunch break, I didn’t have time to stick around and walked back to the plane with my coke on a lovely summers afternoon.<\/p>\n
Marshland<\/strong><\/p>\n This is a strip that’s 6ft BELOW mean sea level, just up near Ely.<\/p>\n G-HERC (Golf Hotel Echo Romeo Charlie)<\/p><\/div>\n One pretty lazy, sunny Sunday late afternoon (4:30pm), I took G-HERC up there.\u00a0 It’s a great strip, really quite long and flat – absolutely no problems to land at.\u00a0 Except if you miss the runway (~16m wide) you’ll either land on a big ditch\/mound that is parallel to the runway, or you’re in the river.\u00a0\u00a0 But seriously you’d have to be trying or be fighting a crosswind to have any such problems.<\/p>\n I stupidly forgot to bring my camera, so there’s no pictures – I guess I’ll have to go back there! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Being a sunday afternoon there was nobody about, so upon landing I enjoyed the sunshine, had a break, had a kitkat \ud83d\ude1b\u00a0 and then jumped in the plane for the ~10-15 minute flight back to Cambridge.<\/p>\n I’ll go back, but to be honest, it’s flat and there’s not masses of challenge here, it’s probably easier to land then Cambridge Grass 23 if I’m honest (it’s also longer these days)<\/em>.<\/p>\n Hundon Farm<\/strong><\/p>\n All I can say about this place is, it’s BRILLIANT.<\/p>\n Hundon Farm<\/p><\/div>\n I found it by complete fluke actually, a group of us were flying back from the Isle of Wight, a friend was in the left seat so I was just doing a bit of “farm strip spotting” when nearing home I stumble on this place.\u00a0\u00a0 I scribbled a circle down on my chart of roughly where I thought we were, then when we got back on the ground I went searching through the books and internet etc. to try and figure out exactly where we’d been and which grass strip it might be.<\/p>\n Landed Safely<\/p><\/div>\n A few weeks later I’d figured it out and thanks to the trusty Lockyears Farm Strip guide (a fantastic book, essential buy).\u00a0\u00a0 Got the phone number for the owner and a few calls later had permission to land.<\/p>\n It’s about 4-5 miles east of Haverhill, actually really easy to find thanks to the single wind turbine (you can see it in the picture above).\u00a0 In the summer the surrounding crops make it really stand out.<\/p>\n Super flat, big bush things on the approach cut away for landing, no too short.<\/p>\n I really liked flying here and the landing was one of my best, especially considering I took a friend.\u00a0\u00a0 If you fly farm strips with me you’re privileged because I don’t like taking people unless I know they can handle seeing trees and very short bits of grass coming fast up to meet them!\u00a0 It’s a runway, trust me, I’m a pilot…<\/em> \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n If you get a chance, go fly here, I’m excited just thinking about the possibility of flying back to this farm in the summer time.<\/p>\n Stones Farm<\/strong><\/p>\n Wanted to land here since 2015, possibly before, but the few chances it came up back then something or other always got in the way.\u00a0\u00a0 I came close once, but it hand been raining in the weekends running up to it and the owner rightly didn’t want me planting a 172S on his strip and churning up what was left of the runway etc.<\/p>\n Stones Farm ~800ft<\/p><\/div>\n A few more calls, like all farms, you always seem to call the mobile phone number you find for PPR with no idea if it really is going to be the land owner you think it will take you to – then inevitably their wife answers and that always makes me more “hmmm this is going to sound bonkers, but……I’m calling about PPR for….??”\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>I shouldn’t be though, it’s almost always got me through to the right person and “I’m a pilot” will get you out of any awkward situation, even if they don’t own the place “Oh really, wow…” that sort of thing.\u00a0\u00a0 Worth the \u00a312,000 training costs all on its own \ud83d\ude1b<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>