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Report:
 Our
arrival in Brest was a night landing which didn’t
afford us the luxuries of a proper view. So today’s
departure allowed us to fully enjoy Brest basking
in all of its morning glory. And delightful she
was! As the Brests (or perhaps, "Brestians"?)
awoke in the morning, yellow lights showcased
the gentle topography of the area as we climbed
through 3,000 ft. We snapped some stellar shots
of the Hopper over some incredible ground textures
(courtesy of Ruud Faber’s outstanding FScene),
and made our way to England.
 It
wasn’t long until we were out over the English
Channel, we went through a small patch of clouds
and had a moderate tailwind around 15 kts around
6,500 ft. Our flight path took us directly over
St. Peter Port, which is the capital
of Guernsey; billed as the Channel Islands’
most beautiful town. This area’s remoteness
from France made it a desired port, with a plethora
of ship builders and merchant adventurers. Notably,
Guernsey is also home to the oldest manmade structure
in Europe, which sadly didn’t appear on our
in-flight software which is supposed to point
out such things.
Our
flight path took us over the Channel for quite
some time, certainly a much longer path than the
famous
area that those gonzo swimmers cross it at.
Once over the UK, or England or Great Britain
or the British Isles or whatever those Brit’s
refer to it as nowadays, we noticed some soft
rolling hills around Littlehampton.  Getting
closer to London we realized that our onboard
landmark computer might need to be calibrated
in such a dense area. While it was clear there
was a lot to see in London, reading the big red
mess was another story.
As
predictable as Seattle rain, we waded inland and
met a very proper London Fog. This natural phenomena
was not listed as a landmark, but certainly was
quite the ego hog blocking the view of all of
the London sites. We did make a pass over Heathrow
at 2,000 ft and flew around in circles a bit,
driving the local ATC crazy. We're good like that.
 While
we’d love to give the Hopper credit for clearing
the fog, it was probably due to other meteorological
events beyond the scope of this text (See: MS
Weather Inaccuracies and other phenomena.) We
passed over Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and Trafalgar
Square before lining up for an exciting mini-Hong
Kong like approach
into London City airport, whose approach
is closely flanked by a few rather tall buildings.
Quite a view those folks get no doubt, but usually
all they get to see are BA/e
146's.
 We
had a spot-on landing on RWY 10, put her down
right on the centerline. 40 flight hours later
and I’m finally getting ahold of this plane;
doesn’t help that I’m drunk 90% of the
time though.
We
taxied and parked, large buildings behind us,
and headed off to grab a six pack of Fuller’s
London Pride.
A
few hours later and back on the tarmac, we fired
up the trusty Hopper for the second leg of this
journey up to Newcastle, home of Newcastle Brown
Ale, one of my personal favorites.
 The
first half hour proved to be quite boring in terms
of terrain, but then the rolling hills appeared
amongst some scattered clouds. The weather was
nice most of the way, although we did encounter
low visibility and rain on our visual approach
to RWY 7 in Newcastle [EGNT]. I set her down just
past the threshold, and again favoring a bit left
of the centerline. <Sigh>.
We’re
off to see the Newcastle brewery and enjoy the
area for a bit. Our flight out next
week takes us across the North Sea to Bergen,
Norway – where it may be difficult to locate
beer. Perhaps we'll be breaking out some
of that Fall specialty beer that Dogfish Head
sent us! Stay tuned...
GB
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