Beaver

I don't think I've been close to one of these aircraft before, but it is a lovely machine.  Except that its pilot had just flown way too low over my house, which is in the middle of the (large) village of Gamlingay – presumably while arranging his approach to this airfield, Little Gransden.

He had been at about 300ft, well below the 1,000ft required by the Rules of the Air for overflight of a congested area; and it was strange, because this aircraft would be a very expensive one – not the average club hack. So the pilot would have been an experienced individual who would have been quite capable of  adjusting his flight path to avoid the village and still make a safe and efficient approach to the airfield.  We sometimes get inexperienced PPL pilots wandering around the circuit of the airfield using the village as a waypoint, but forgetting to avoid overflight, but this chap had no such excuse.

So I called the airfield's owner and complained; he's anxious to avoid local complaints because he carries out frequent aerobatic practices in the area and he wants to be able to continue without local antipathy.  But this time he was a little irritated, either because it's the third time I've called him in four days, or because this is a visitor from Duxford and he knows that he should have made a better fist of joining the circuit at his airfield.  So the owner asked me to report the infringement to the CAA.

I don't normally report first offences to the CAA: I prefer to contact the pilot and to ask him or her to watch their height over the village.  This approach works pretty well, although one chap swore blind that he had not been over the village, and one helicopter owner has offered me a flight.

Finally, I think that the owner of the airfield, one Mark Jefferies, was having a word with the pilot when I got there to speak to him, so I merely took this photo and left.