As mentioned in my previous post, I’m speeding up preparations for the UPL-AOPA fly-out to Spanish Melilla in Northern Africa early May. Every weekend , I spent some time on this. This early April 2019 weekend, I booked a flight with Flight Instructor peter Ulenaers in Genk-Zwartberg. Peter suggested me to prepare a flight for Le Touquet.

Nowadays, flight preparation has become way easier that back in my youth when I was a student-pilot. We now have powerfull tools such as the Skydemon software I use. Of course, one need still to check the so called “Notice to Airmen”, to check the flight restrictions of the areas we”re about to cross.

Flight preparations

Whilst making my flight preparation, I worked out a flight at Flight Level 80, which stands for some 8000 ft. I’ve taken some IFR waypoints and plotted my flight directly above the CTR of Brussels hoping Brussels departure ATC allows me to climb over Brussels.

The flight preparation took some hour and this is for me an enjoyable part of being a pilot. Taking the time to prepare a flight is as enjoyable as the flying as such.

FI Peter Ulenaers arrived early afternoon at the airfield of Genk Zwartberg. I showed him my preparations and we took off after having topped up the AVGAS reservoirs.

We had a tiny cloud layer to cross, but were able to fly VFR all the time. ATC proved to be helpful and so we were enjoying a beautiful view of Brussels at high altitude.

Flying to le Touquet

Le Touquet was only 70 minutes of flight from Genk Zwartberg and the views of approaching the North Sea were stunning.

The cloud layer approaching the coast became thinner and we performed a touch and go at Le Touquet prior to landing

It has probably been 20 years ago I landed at this airfield, also called Paris-plage. It was nice to discover one could rent bike here. Good to remember for a next visit.

Landing at le Touquet

After a short break, we took off again and followed the same way back home to Genk-Zwartberg.