Flying Mickey


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BACK AT LE BOURGET Written: 21 OCTOBER 2007
...but this time I was sitting at the controls. In connection with the Rugby World Cup final in Paris between England and South Africa we had 3 Jetstreams going to Le Bourget this weekend. I flew down to Newcastle with Paul on Friday afternoon where we spent the night. The plan was to fly directly to Paris on Saturday at 10am, but because of the weight and the need for extra fuel in case of holding in Paris, we chose to stop by Manston in Kent to refuel. Because "everybody" was going to Paris on Saturday we were given a slot time which would have delayed us by 3 hours. The purpose for the slot time is to prevent everybody arriving at the destination at the same time having hold and wait for their turn to land. There was not much activity at Manston, so our passengers had the whole terminal to themselves. Understandably they got a bit stressed out and worried that they would miss the game. But after having emptied the plane of beer and stopped by the local Tesco to get more, they started the celebration at the airport. We managed to improve our slot considerably and was airborne at 1345 (original slot was 1530). This is the first time I've flown in French airspace, and except for the fact that they have a tendency to talk French amongst each other, they were er helpful and efficient. We crossed the channel and followed the French coast from Boulogne to Dieppe and then followed one of the arrival procedures into Le Bourget.	Paris seen from the approach. The Eiffel Tower is just to the right of the middle of the picture Final rullebane 07 Le Bourget Our 3 Jetstreams at Le Bourget
We were on the ground at 1530 French time and the passengers got on their way to the stadium. Within the next 30 minutes we had all 3 Jetstreams on the ground and parked in the same area. Kristian came from Stansted with Alistair and the last came from Biggin Hill with George and Aaron at the controls. After having waited quite a while for a taxi we finally got to the hotel where we ate dinner together. I watched the first 20 minutes of the match, but because I don't know the rules I found it hard to get excited about it and tried to get some sleep instead. At 0130 we were back in the air on our way to England. On board we had our 17 disappointed England supporters and 2 happy South Africa supporters. They had paid £ 800 per seat for the flight and god knows what they had paid for the match tickets. We tried to negotiate a direct routing to Newcastle to avoid having to stop for fuel, but we ended up diverting into Southend east of London to refuel. Just before 3am we were back on the ground in Newcastle were we spent the night.
Alistair, Paul, Aaron and Kristian in front of G-JURA G-EIGG is the plane I picked up in Stockholm. It's now UK registred and in new colours	Waiting for a taxi at the airport G-CCPW (which I flew) parked in Newcastle