Flying England to Stockholm

[alex90]

Hi Guys,

I am planning one of the longer routes that I have flown to date, taking off from Biggin Hill, and landing somewhere very close to Stockholm.

I will be flying an arrow, which cruises around 130/135kts with long range tanks. I am not crazy enough (or just not suicidal) to fly over the North Sea, and really its much more fun to fly over the coast. My plan would be flying across The Channel, into Belgium (Oostend area), and then follow the coast up through the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and finally Sweden.

I will need to stop around 3hours / 3hours30mins in, for food, loo, a bit of a break, and maybe some fuel. This amount of time in the air would put me somewhere around North Germany, somewhere which I believe is called Schleswig-Holstein (north of Hamburg, up to Sylt / Flensburg area). Having never been there, let alone flown there.

Can anyone please recommend somewhere to land around Schleswig-Holstein area for a good lunch, with cheap (ish) fuel, cheap(ish) landing fees, no (crazy) handling fees, somewhere we could sit outside if sunny not far from the airfield (as we get another 3+hours after lunch). In that area? I would need around 750m grass, or much less if on a hard runway.

Later on in the flight, we would want to land as close to Stockholm as possible, does anyone fly around there? I have contacted Bromma (ESSB) as a backup should we require to land at an airport with ILS / instrument approach procedures, but having been told that it would cost €250 just for handling and €90 odd Euros for parking for 4 days, I would (surprisingly) be VERY keen to stay away from these kind of fees if at all possible. [The funny thing is that the airport fee is only €32 including navigation fee (which is on top of what I was quoted) weird how they are legally able to do that!] Does anyone know if there is still an aeroclub or maintenance facility or person based there? Could they sort out the handling for us? Alternatively - I have seen that there is an airfield called Ska Edeby, which is quite close, does anyone know what that place is like? Does it have any fuel there?

I would much rather land somewhere nice and welcoming than a boring faceless airport, but should the clouds close in on us, we'd need to go somewhere - preferably not where they rob you in plain daylight!

Also on a side note - I was thinking of perhaps attempting to do a touch and go in every country on the way to Stockholm, perhaps as a little feature added to an incredible trip. Does anyone know how that works? Do we first need to land at a customs airport, and then touch and go everywhere? Would we be able to pay them by phone? How does this work?

ALSO : anyone recommend particular things that we must see from the air on the way, please let me know!

Any suggestions much appreciated!
Best
Alex90