Having waited for the huge winds to ease we finally set off to head down to Jersey from Norfolk

Our ‘normal’ routing is, shortly after takeoff, to slot between RAF Marham and Mildenhall and USAF Lakenheath …but … today .. part way through the route the US air traffic suddenly changed their mind and asked me to turn around and head the opposite way as 15 US F15 fighter jets streamed in for landing.

The resulting detour and headwinds to get back in track left our generous fuel reserve somewhat lower than we would like … an hour from the South coast to Jersey would only leave us 40 mins to get down ..and low visibility was forecast

Goodwood advised they were closed to fuelling so a hop further along the coast to Shoreham who welcomed us with a nice tight overhead join to descend left hand down to their into wind runway .. some 34+ mph winds !

The quick refuel and last hour down to Jersey had 2 temporary diverts in the direction of Guernsey as Jersey dropped below limits. The second divert we opted to hold N of the island as it looked like clearing and we have good fuel reserves .. after another 20 min hold we got a slightly higher cloud base and in we went 😊

The flight home was still pretty bumpy the following day but the Eastern route … going around the bottom of Gatwick and then up between Stansted and Southend

Arrival back after the much quicker flight back …34 mph 30 degrees off the runway .. made for an interesting approach