I set myself two simple objectives – try to fly around the entire coastline of Britain, as accurately as possible AND stand on the each of the extreme points of mainland Britain along the way. In five days. Simple right?
This wasn’t just a filming project to create a mini-series for my YouTube channel. It was also an opportunity to get back to some hands-on flying after my brain surgery grounded me 5 months ago. Adding the challenge of standing on the most Easterly, Northerly, Westerly and Southerly points of mainland Britain also meant we could have some fun problem solving on the ground and give ourselves the opportunity to see parts of the country we otherwise would never have had a reason to visit.
So together with my friend Philippe Polman, the Founder of Echelon Air who provided the aircraft we were flying, we set off from Biggin Hill on a Monday morning to try and fly around Britain… with a twist.
What was our routing?
To fly a complete loop of the country we had to choose a coastal waypoint to act as our start and finish line. I ended up choosing Brighton Pier for a couple of reasons – it’s close to our departure / destination airport of Biggin Hill, it’s in uncontrolled airspace, and sticking out from the coast into the English Channel makes it very easy to spot. From Brighton Pier we flew an anti-clockwise loop of the country trying to stick to the coastline as accurately as possible.
The daily legs are shown in the map below excluding a few positioning flights like our flight from Land’s End Airport to the Scilly Isles, or our flight from Newhall Mains to Oban. But the main legs we flew were as follows:
- Biggin Hill to Beccles Airfield
- Beccles Airfield to Newhall Mains
- Newhall Mains to Wick John O’Groats Airport
- Wick John O’Groats Airport to Newhall Mains
- Newhall Mains to Oban Airport (positioning flight)
- Oban Airport to Blackpool Airport
- Blackpool Airport to Land’s End Airport
- Land’s End Airport to St Mary’s Airport (positioning flight)
- St Mary’s Airport to Land’s End Airport (positioning flight)
- Land’s End Airport to Biggin Hill
Interactive Google Map of our flight tracks
Zoom in and pan around the map of our flights. You can also click on each of the tracks to get more stats on distance, time, speeds, and more.
What aircraft did we fly?
We did this trip in Echelon Air’s Cirrus SR20 G6, with the registration G-YYES. It has a 4-cylinder Lycoming engine, Cirrus Perspective Avionics, and cruises at around 135kts TAS. It gives us around 4-5 hours of flight time before reserves and is a very comfortable and capable aircraft for the low-level Visual Flight Rules (VFR) flying we did on this trip. It also gives us many options for flying under the Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) which we had to do on this trip a couple of times as well.
This and other aircraft are available to hire through Echelon Air – ask for Philippe and tell him I said you can get a free pair of Echelon Air sunglasses if you hire a plane and mention this website*
*this is not true, but I’d 100% suggest you ask him for a pair anyway
How did we track the flights?
Each of the flight logs you see in the map above were automatically recorded using my Garmin D2 Mach 1 Pro Aviator smartwatch. The watch was set to auto-record each flight when a) we had a GPS signal, b) reached a certain altitude and c) were climbing at a certain climb rate. This meant that the beginning of some flights were slightly clipped as not all parameters were met until a short distance into some flights. If you’re tracking flights using your watch you can resolve this by manually starting a flight log during taxi or at the holding point for example, but I had my watch set to auto-track hence a few tiny gaps here and there.
To create the Google maps widget with all our flights on one map I exported .gpx files from Garmin Connect and imported them into a custom Google ‘myMaps’ map. I believe this service may not be discontinued soon, in which case I’d suggest exporting from Garmin Connect into Google Earth and creating a custom map that way.
Who actually flew the aircraft?
Because Philippe is a Certified Flight Instructor it meant that I could fly the aircraft, manipulate the controls and make radio calls, as he was present at all times acting as a flight instructor. However despite having my own Commercial Pilots License, because of my medical currently preventing me from acting as PIC, I cannot log those hours as PIC time. Instead I would have to log them in the same way you would if you were a student pilot on a training flight.
We shared the responsibility of flying the aircraft with Philippe doing pretty much all of the radio calls and me flying most of the time, except on occasions when I would want to focus on filming in which case I would hand over control to Philippe so he could fly and I would film. This is achieved by a simple “your plane” / “my plane” statement in the cockpit so we always knew at any one time who had primary control of the aircraft, despite the fact that technically Philippe was PIC for the entire trip!
What were those bikes we were riding?
Last mile transportation is a big part of General Aviation travel with regional airports and airfields often being a short but un-walkable distance from your hotel, or in our case, from extreme points of the mainland that we wanted to stand on.
We took two electric Brompton folding bicycles with us on this trip which allowed us to ride to most of our destinations after arriving at an airport. Echelon Air provided these bicycles which are also available to hire for your own trips as your own personal last-mile option. Once you get the hang of folding/unfolding them which only takes a few minutes, they’re quick to assemble and the removeable battery pack clips into the attachment on the handlebars giving you three levels of power assisted pedalling.
Range is very impressive – we rode from Beccles Airport to Ness Point and back (16 miles / 25 kilometres) and still had plenty of battery power available at the end of the trip. Plus the removable battery packs mean you can leave the bikes in the aircraft overnight and just take the batteries to your hotel to charge overnight when travelling if you wish.
Why stand on the Extreme cardinal points of mainland Britain?
So why do such a silly challenge? Well mainly to give us an excuse to explore parts of the country we’ve both lived in at some point in our lives that we would never otherwise go to. Why else would I visit Dunnet Head at the very top of Scotland for example. But because I gave myself a reason to go there I ended up seeing nesting puffins in the wild and learned that the lighthouse there was built by the Grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson, the guy who wrote Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde and Treasure Island. Who knew?
Also I would have never otherwise considered going to Ness Point in Lowestoft where not only could I stand on the most Easterly point of mainland Britain, but I could stand there in the shadow of the tallest wind turbine in England – a huge, towering structure locally called ‘Goliath’.
Same goes for the amazing helicopter ride we took to the remote Westernmost point – Corrachadh Mòr – which I doubt I would have done otherwise but I’m sure will long be one of my most enjoyable aviation experiences of all time. And then there’s the Cornish Pastie fuelled road trip we took from Penzance to round off our challenge by standing on Britain’s Southernmost point – Lizard Point. An emotional conclusion to our adventure that reminded me why I’m fighting to get my medical back so I can visit more places like this in the future.
Standing on the four extremities of the mainland really was a secondary benefit of this trip. Seeing fascinating wildlife, beautiful coastlines, engineering marvels, landing a helicopter on a remote Scottish headland, and enjoying time with a good friend motivating myself to get back to flying as soon as I can turned out to be the biggest benefit of them all.
Extreme Britain mini-series
I’m really proud of the “Extreme Britain” mini-series that I made about this adventure. It’s a fun story with lots of problem solving, diversions, weather issue, moments of nostalgia, lots of flying of course, puffins, whales, and two friends having one big adventure trying to reach each of the cardinal points of the mainland. Oh and lighthouses and castles, so many lighthouses and castles!
I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed making it. Thank you.