Month: July 2017

I received in my inbox an inviation of Luxembourger Arny Weber and his spouse Carine who are preparing to leave for Fayence as school holidays are starting in Luxembourg. What a nice initiative. 

Sounds so good, reason that I emailed Arny that we’ll join the kick off party for the summer of 2017 between pilots

As the readers of my blog know, I have been flying since the early 90’s regularly at the airfield of Fayence-Tourrettes, one of the best places in the world for gliding  ! The last two years, I have been focusing rather on motorflying as I’m lacking time to practise both sports. Likely when I retire (if ever) , I’ll pick up gliding again in Fayence. In the mean time, we’re going to join Arny’s party on July 17th

5 pilot crews confirmed their participation at this new fly out we organized for UPL-AOPA. In order to coordinate activities, a whatsapp group was set up. The weather outlook was reasonably good for most of the traject bringing us from Luxembourg and Trier to Texel on Friday 7th.

Three crews landed safely in Texel. The fourth teaml, Stefan Stefansson, skipped Texel and decided to fly directly to the AOPA fly in in Twente. No worries.

We were lucky with the hotel reservation at the airport hotel of Texel. Sleeping with views of your plane is a great feeling 🙂 But prior to go to bed, the hotel owner, Walter arranged us a seafood dinner at the harbor of Texel. The food proved to be E X T R A O R D I N A R Y . The pictures below say it all

Saturday morning, a weakened rain front was passing. No worries, we had our bikes and have been discovering the island of texel. B I G  fun !! We had mixed feelings as we deemed that our stay on Texel was not long enough. Guido and Dani Peterzelka and their daughter Livia decided to extend their stay on the island. Smart decision, next year we’ll plan a longer stay on Texel as well.

Of course we enjoyed watching planes and discussing the dutch management of AOPA, who did a marvellous job of getting their airfield nearby Enschede ready for general aviation.

We missed Stefan Stefansson, who just left when we arrived. No worries, our fly-out are entirely free, we create a program, but every pilot is absolutely free to adjust it to whatever suits him best.

In the evening hours, we discovered the town of Enschede, a very vivid town with plenty of terraces. We met our friend Maarten Top and his lovely wife Silvia. On Sunday, we all returned to Luxembourg, whilst making a fuel stop in Genk Zwartberg, where my son assisted me. Maybe a future pilot as well.

We were all back home by Sunday afternoon, exept Guido Peterzelka and his family, who was still swimming in the sea of Texel. Guido enjoys the good life. His Beach Bonanza flies up to 150 knots, way faster than our Cessna 172, who cruises the skies at some 100 knots.

They finally stayed until the evening hours in Texel and only flex on Sunday evening back to Luxembourg. With Flight radar 24, the other participants as well as Reinhard Krommes were following his flight as weather was getting a bit stormy in Luxembourg. Via whatsapp, we were sending him live weather updates as the thunderstorm got very nearby. But end good, all good