Discover the world of European General Aviation !
Attending a European AOPA meeting is truly instructive. The themes covered are quite technical, but one gains a better insight in policy and regulatory topics related to the world of General Aviation. This year’s Edition at Rovaniemi (Artic Circle) was no different.
I am on my way to Rovaniemi in Finland for the 141st European meet8ng of IAOPA. This is the second time I’ll attend. This year, the event is organised by AOPA Finland at the Xmas village
The next morning, we discover the Parma area. Not many tourists around for mid -August. This region is so beautiful and full of historic buildings. Wonderfull! We enjoy it very much. Mimi brings us to “La Rocca”, that seems to be the best store to get ham and cheese from Parma.
We are in Cannes right now, preparing to take off for Parma this morning. According to Aeroweather, skies are clear, but on the satellite picture, it tells me something different. Maybe a thin cloud layer in the Bay of Genua. Anyway, we’re going for it. It is the first time I’ll fly to Italy on this route, With all the digital tools and AIP, it was not too complicated to find how to plot a route. I also consulted my friend Maurice whilst preparing my flight.
After take-off in Cannes, I’ll follow some kind of corridor north of the Nice airfield. I plan to do so because of the break-in procedure of the Mooney. 5000 feet is recommended and I can not pass over 8000 ft.
As we’ll fly over the sea for quite a while, we have to put our life jackets on. Enough writing, time for action and taking off.
There’s a lot of rain on its way to Luxembourg on this long August 15 weekend. I planned to go to a pilot’s fly-in in Kalinigrad initially and meet there with a Polish pilot, and attend an AOPA supported event, but as I fly VFR, seems not to be a good idea to go that direction due to the poor weather.
Time to work out an alternative plan as I booked the Mooney of the flying club in Genk Zwartberg for several days
As it rains on August 15th, I decided to go working and had a long and productive day in my office with the outlook of a nice new flying adventure on August 16th.
I drive to Hasselt to visit my mother, who’s 89 years old now. After staying overnight at her house together with my son, my mother drops me off the next morning at the Genk-Zwartberg airfield. Today, we are going to pick up the Mooney of our flying club. The plan is to fly the Mooney to Luxembourg, whilst trying to land on the new Parking 5 which just reopened for General Aviation visiting pilots
Bad weather followed us to Fayence and the next day looks really bad. Impossible to take off again and so we have to wait until the sun appears again the next day.
My family and me remember late July 2019 in Luxembourg for its extreme hot record temperatures of 40 degrees Celcius. I’ve booked since quite some time a Cessna 172 SP – call sign LX-AIO – at my flying club Aéro-Sport for a long weekend fly-out. I always enjoy when my wife and 9 year old son are joining me for a flight. The extreme hot weather won’t keep me from flying to the French Riviera. Arriving in the Aéro-Sport clubhouse, another pilot informs me that the plane I booked, call sign LX-AIO, has an error with the G1000.
Franky and me enjoyed a lot flying around the Spanish coastline. We rapidly approached Almeria where we considering making another fuel stop. There was a bit more wind in the Almeria region, but the views were absolutely stunning.
This May 2nd became a day to be full of adventurous flying. Every team topped up their planes with AVGAS as we’ll have to cross most of Spain. There will be no AVGAS available for our planes in Melilla, so I planned to make a fuel (and toilet) stop somewhere in between Southern France and Southern Spain. I choose landing in Castellane (LECH).
