Phil,
I'm still trying to work out why everyone else gets recorded messages saying the French restricted areas are inactive, and when we fly there everything is active.
Unfair!
Penguina,
I didn't know you were going, or I would have talked to you about Calais etc. Mind you, I've now talked to lots of people, and I'm still none the wiser.
Apparently no-one else is either; just before we came home, a couple in le Touquet asked us about flying in France, and I don't think our answers made much sense to them. And it turned out they'd been there before, but still didn't know, which was why they asked us!
LowNSlow,
Australia in KF sounds nice, but as you say, maybe a little ambitious.
OK, to continue...
Thursday 27th May
The forecast looks OK, no cloud below about 5000 ft, so we expect to make Salzburg by lunchtime. But it isn't to be. Five minutes out of Biberach we fly into cloud, 500 ft above the hills. We try to fly around it, but it's obvously getting worse. Time for a 180 and back to the airfield. KF is definitely a VFR aircraft; we only have basic instruments, plus an AI which takes ages to gear itself up to work, and a VOR which sometimes sticks; it works fine till you try to fly over the top of a VOR; then it can't cope with going accurately from "to" to "from". Everything is just...old. Anyway, we land back at Biberach, where everyone says the cloud, which wasn't forecast anyway, should lift later in the day. We spend one of those days that happens so often in aviation - sitting in the cafe, checking weather at frequent intervals, asking everyone who flies in what the cloudbase is. Eventually, at about 4pm, the airfield manager tells us we won't make it; he has a forecast for Salzburg which looks pretty bad. We cancel out booked room in Salzburg, and re-book our hotel in Biberach. It's back to Biberach for another night. We like the place, but not forever. Still, they say tomorrow is forecast to be good, and we don't have to be at the FEWP conference till tomorrow night, so no problem.
Friday 28th May
The weather looks good...but not for Salzburg. We get a phone call from A and C, who are in Nancy, and had also hoped to make Salzburg for the FEWP conference. They\'ve phoned Salzburg, who\'ve said don\'t fly in; the wx is horrible and not expected to improve. We decide to go down to the airfield and check. This was the Salzburg TAF:
LOWS 280900Z 281019 03008KT 9999 SCT020 BKN045 TEMPO 1019 4000RA SCT012 BKN025 PROB30 TEMPO 1216 34015G25KT 2500TSRA SCT012 SCT025CB BKN030
Well, who\'s going to fly in a very basic C150, to a town in the foothills of the Alps, over a 3000ft plateau, with no very close diversion airfields, with a low cloudbase, gusty winds, and thunderstorms? Not us anyway. We had always realised we might not make it, and decided in advance that if we were fairly close we\'d hire a car and drive to the conference. We tell A and C we\'re planning to do this; they ask if we can wait for a bit and they\'ll join us, since the hills between Nancy and Biberach are clear. We do this, and they turn up around lunchtime. The local car hire place only has small cars, without room for much stuff (A and C have loads of luggage, because they can) or...a Mercedes!!!! Well, what a shame - we have to take the Merc
We tie down both aircraft, tell them we\'ll be back Sunday, and join the bank holiday traffic for the drive to Salzburg. We arrive there in early evening, delighted to see that the hills are covered in cloud and it\'s raining; we would have been furious if it had been clear. We find the hotel and catch a taxi to the planned evening meal, a little late, but no real problem. Quite a few other people had planned to fly in and not made it; several had come some other way, one had diverted to Landshut, and a group from Italy had somehow made it in, VFR they said, though God only knows how. We\'re a wee bit disappointed, but that\'s aviation for you. We wander round Salzburg, then collapse into bed.
More later, but not tomorrow as I have to drive to London for a meeting about my proposed Gobi camel trek; phew, I need a rest someday.