Frankfurt to Madrid in 5 easy steps ...
DAY 1
It had been long – very, very long. I never knew I possessed such patience. At the end of March, after many moons of thinking, dreaming, planning and scanning the classifieds, I had found a Motor Falke in good condition and, most importantly, at the right price. I flew to Frankfurt to take a look at it, fell in love, and decided to buy it on the spot, thereby ignoring our club chairman Olly's sound advice and breaking the first rule of aeroplane buying: "don't take the first one you see". But hey - when it's love ...
The second part of my cunning plan was to fly my new toy back home to Madrid with my adventurous septuagenerian father, who has been flying gliders and occasionally motorgliders for over 5 decades, has 1000s of hours, and was, as usual, game for the adventure. The fact that he has flown this route a couple of times before in his self-starter Ventus was also reassuring. Frankly, being a newbie with only about 5 post-license hours under my belt, I would not have considered doing this on my own, and would have probably looked for a trailer to hire and prepared for a long drive. Much better to fly though!
So for the last 3 months I had been the proud owner of a shiny (in places), good as new (well, almost - it's a 1970 model and therefore 39 years old) Falke, paid up, insured, and ready to go. Only problem, it was parked in a hangar 60km north of Frankfurt. Torture! For 3 months, I have permanently had one eye on the weather, the other on the budget airline websites. But as I now know, European weather is basically misery with some very occasional sunny patches thrown in. Plus my dad had various events on his agenda, and despite having a very understanding employer, my own work commitments got in the way a few times. Finally, I managed to extricate myself early one Friday morning in early June and hopped on the plane to Frankfurt, with solemn promises to be back at work the following Tuesday (yeah, right). The weather forecast looked ok, albeit sort of marginal over France (lots of cloud cover, and a bit of rain predicted). We were hoping that it would be good enough to make the trip.
The second part of my cunning plan was to fly my new toy back home to Madrid with my adventurous septuagenerian father, who has been flying gliders and occasionally motorgliders for over 5 decades, has 1000s of hours, and was, as usual, game for the adventure. The fact that he has flown this route a couple of times before in his self-starter Ventus was also reassuring. Frankly, being a newbie with only about 5 post-license hours under my belt, I would not have considered doing this on my own, and would have probably looked for a trailer to hire and prepared for a long drive. Much better to fly though!
So for the last 3 months I had been the proud owner of a shiny (in places), good as new (well, almost - it's a 1970 model and therefore 39 years old) Falke, paid up, insured, and ready to go. Only problem, it was parked in a hangar 60km north of Frankfurt. Torture! For 3 months, I have permanently had one eye on the weather, the other on the budget airline websites. But as I now know, European weather is basically misery with some very occasional sunny patches thrown in. Plus my dad had various events on his agenda, and despite having a very understanding employer, my own work commitments got in the way a few times. Finally, I managed to extricate myself early one Friday morning in early June and hopped on the plane to Frankfurt, with solemn promises to be back at work the following Tuesday (yeah, right). The weather forecast looked ok, albeit sort of marginal over France (lots of cloud cover, and a bit of rain predicted). We were hoping that it would be good enough to make the trip.
After the usual trains, planes, more trains and finally automobiles, I arrived at Pohlheim gliding club at lunchtime. CAO was tucked deep into the back of the hangar, so the first job was to cart out half a dozen planes. Then a good rinse to get the dust off, and what would become a daily challenge: packing. Motor Falkes are not really that big on the "touring" part of TMG, so some very creative squashing and tying was required to fit our tent, clothing, snacks, sleeping bags, big satchel of maps, and everything else. By the time it was all packed, the inevitable fiddling with routes and flight plans, then the obligatory jump-start, and a quick circuit just to get the hang of it all and to assure ourselves that we could actually take off, it had gone 4:30pm. We still had a few hours of somewhat overcast daylight left.
At 16:45 we finally took off from Pohlheim and headed SW towards France. What a feeling! 1600km to go! I had dreamed about this for months, and now it was finally happening. Truth be told, the first part was pretty stressful. Unfamiliar terrain, overcast sky. Anxiously scanning the temps and pressures, then slowly relaxing into the experience. Due to the flight plan (Germany no longer requires it for EU border crossings, but France does), there was lots of talking to ATC. With a 44 litre tank and 10 litres of fuel burn that gives, with reserves, 3 3/4 hours of endurance (if your backside can last that long), so we aimed SW towards France.
We flew across the winelands of Germany, the Luxemburg border, then finally into the flat plains of northeastern France. More to the south the sun came out, and for a while it was a beautiful cumulus day. Later some cirrus came over, but also brought a substantial tailwind, so that the last hour or so of the flight we had smooth air and a ground speed of up to 160km/h. We knew that the weather was going to deteriorate the next day, so we pushed on as far as we could, until we eventually made out the small town of Troyes, about 120km SE of Paris.
France is heaven for sport aviation, with well-maintained airfields practically everywhere - lots of options. We picked Troyes because according to the map, the airfield is practically in the town, so it would be easy to go in for dinner, supplies etc. The airfield even has a tower, although they evidently had gone home by the time we arrived, as there was no reply on the radio. Unmanned field procedures then. The surface wind was still humping, so we landed on the grass cross-runway at 8pm and taxied to the apron. Ears humming and backsides aching, we got out. Not bad - about 420km, 3h15min - that tailwind really helped. As we knew that a front was approaching and the next morning might bring some winds and possibly a bit of rain, we pushed the plane into the lee of a big hangar and pitched our little dome tent next to it. Turns out the town is not actually as close as we thought, so our little dinner stroll turned into a rather long power walk, but with a delicious meal and some French wine at the end of it, I didn't mind. We crept into the mini dome tent around midnight, and I fell into a deep, happy sleep.
Not for long though. Little did I know, but Day 2 was going to start kind of early. It all began with a delicate little drip...drip...drip sound.
Not for long though. Little did I know, but Day 2 was going to start kind of early. It all began with a delicate little drip...drip...drip sound.
DAY 2
3:34am
Drip.
4:21am
Drip drip drip. Oh well, looks like we might be getting a bit of rain.
4:53am
Quite a lot of dripping going on.
5:22am
Despite the rain, someone is starting up a twin-engined plane. Brave soul; guess they must be IFR rated. Or maybe the rain will stop soon. Lengthy engine warm-up ensues more or less next to my head. Eventually they take off and I slip gratefully back into warm sleep.
5:51am
I have a damp sensation on one side of my face. Hm, tent must be leaking a bit. I move more toward the foot end. My father is sleeping peacefully.
6:06am
I now also have a damp sensation by my feet, where the bottom of the sleeping bag is touching the tent. Evidently the leaks are not just confined to one side. Mustn't touch anything. I try to get both my head and my feet more towards the middle, but it's tricky. It's a very small tent and there are two of us in here. Restless wriggling ensues.
6:12am
Ok, fully awake now. Big puddles of water near my head and my feet. In fact, big puddles of water everywhere. Sleeping bag wet. Head wet. Clothes wet. Shoes wet. Seat cushion (my mattress) very wet. Faint wine headache. We huddle near the middle of the tent, trying not to touch the canvas. Would love to get out of here, problem is I can't think of anywhere dry to go.
Ok, fully awake now. Big puddles of water near my head and my feet. In fact, big puddles of water everywhere. Sleeping bag wet. Head wet. Clothes wet. Shoes wet. Seat cushion (my mattress) very wet. Faint wine headache. We huddle near the middle of the tent, trying not to touch the canvas. Would love to get out of here, problem is I can't think of anywhere dry to go.
Eventually we crawl out of our pond and sit under the wing. I fantasize about camping equipment we don't have, like a canvas sheet to make a roof with. Or a gas cooker to make tea with. At least there is no wind, just a steady soaking drizzle, alternating with a steady downpour. Nice. Hope the Falke is waterproof, good thing I had taped up the airbrakes with electrical tape the night before - just in case.
Around 8 it lets up a bit and we find the airport met office. Up on the 1st floor of the tower, with windows all around, nicely heated and surrounded by a bank of plasma screens with satellite images and weather models, sits the Troyes Aerodrome weather man. He is a very friendly little fellow, with fuzzy blonde hair and very large boggling eyes behind round steel-rimmed glasses. He makes sympathetic tut-tut sounds and rolls his eyes alarmingly as he explains the forecast to us in French. Even without the benefit of much Gallic vocab I can see from his screens that the prognosis is not good. The damp air that was supposed to have been a couple of hundred km further south has decided to visit us in Troyes. The satellite shows banks of thick, heavy clouds racing in. Boggle-eyes hopefully assures us that around lunchtime things would lighten up a bit, but I'm not holding my breath. We'll need to sit it out for a while and see.
Fortunately the small airport cafeteria is open. (Did I mention that France is heaven for sport pilots?) Coffee, breakfast, newspapers, charts. Outside it rains. Time passes. We are the only customers. Ok, we'll have lunch. During a period of steady drizzle rather than solid downpour, it occurs to me to check on the plane. Oops, the canopy is steamed up, which means it must be wet inside as well. On inspection it appears that the water is entering in streams at the front of the canopy, right over the instruments. Major design flaw, I would say. We open the canopy to discover that the whole panel is soaked and most of the dials have water in them. This could be quite bad ... a space blanket becomes our emergency rain cover to at least put a stop to the deluge. Another visit to the meteo man confirms that today was not going to turn into a flying day. During the next break in the weather we remove half the instruments, the radio, transponder etc, swallow our adventurer pride, bundle all our wet stuff together and scootle off like wet rats to the Novotel on the way into town. Why suffer unnecessarily, I say? The Novotel room is expensive but right now a warm, dry place seems like the most desirable thing on the planet. Everything gets hung up to dry and I attack the radio and instruments with the complimentary hair dryer. A lengthy afternoon snooze completes my restauration, and when the sun finally pops out in the evening, my happiness is once again complete. Another French dinner and a comfy bed round off the day. Tomorrow is looking good; we're going to fly far!
DAY 3
The morning starts overcast with low cloud, but Boggle-Eyes is looking much more cheerful and the forecasts reckon that by 11 we'd have sunny skies. We look for someone responsible so that we can fuel up with Avgas and pay the landing fees (if any). The airport manager / tower operator is a shortish guy with little bowlegs and a bad attitude, who immediately reminds me of Rumpelstiltkin. First he wants to know why we landed in the rain without calling him on the radio, then when we explain that we actually arrived 2 days ago he looks even less delighted. Parked up next to the hangar he had not seen the Falke and evidently was a bit taken aback with the nerve of these lawless aviators in their precarious motorglider. 24 Euros landing and parking fee is the punishment. Ho hum.
Back to Boggle-Eyes for a detailed weather printout. Still not ideal: no more storms are forecast, but a 20-knot headwind worries me. Also on the preflight I see that we seem to have consumed a lot of oil on the first flight, so I have to trudge back into town for a couple of tins of 20W50. At lunchtime we are finally ready to bid our farewells to Boggles and Rumpelstiltkin. The wind is strong, so to be safe I decide to again avoid the lovely long tar strip and rather take off into wind on the grass crosswind runway. After the shortest takeoff run I can remember we are airborne and immediately discover that we are not going forward all that much. Feels like paragliding all over again ... for safety I prefer to fly a bit higher where the wind is unfortunately even stronger, and eventually we manage to squeeze a ground speed of just over 90km with a good 130-140km/h on the ASI. But at least the sky is glorious - sunny with post-frontal cumulus everywhere, visibility to the end of the world, nice areas of lift, and the promise of lighter winds the further south we go. Spain here we come!
Sitting out a storm in Aubigny
Short-lived joy it was. After an hour, the horizon in front of us starts turning black. Headwind still 40km/h. We dodge this way and that, and even venture into a bit of a shower (with plenty of height) to see if there is more sun behind it - apparently this is an old glider pilot trick. But behind the first shower it looks worse, so we turn tail, now shooting along at 180km/h, back to the aerodrome of Aubigny we had passed earlier. We need to sit out the storm front. Once on the ground, the storm suddenly seems to dissipate and the skies lighten, so that we take off again less than an hour later.
Refuelling in the company of a Spitfire
Skies are clearer, but the headwind remains. The rest of the afternoon is spent fighting to go forward and dodging the odd thunderstorm. Once or twice the engine starts running rough closer to cloudbase. Fortunately GVE had thrown every kind of engine cough and cut-out in the book at me during my training, so what was presumably some carburettor icing is easily cured with judicious carb heat. By 18:30 we are approaching Limoges, a big town towards the south-west of France. The airspace is complicated, but fortunately there is little traffic, and an ATC lady with a sexy French accent and a sweet voice guides us straight in without even a circuit. And hardly surprising - this place looks more like Johannesburg International, or at least the runway does - it's over 2km long and at least 50m wide! The "picture" is so different and I am now so used to cruising at 140-150km/h that I completely stuff up the landing, coming in waaaaaay too fast and bouncing about 10m back into the air after the first touchdown. Probably destroyed all my chances with the ATC lady, must have been quite a sight. Mademoiselle gracefully refrains from commenting on my landing, asks politely if we are going to stay the night (tempting ...) and directs us to the fuel pump and parking bays. Surrounded by bizjets and 100-seater passenger planes, I am feeling slightly out of place in the modest Falke as we roll along the endless taxiways and past the gleaming modern tower. At the Avgas fuel pump, a surprise awaits - we are 4th in line, but behind - wait for it - and real, proper Spitfire, an American P-40 and a WW2 Yak! There had been an airshow somewhere further south and these gentlemen were in Limoges to refuel on their way back home. Crowds of people are standing behind the fence with telephoto lenses. (I of course do my best to push the Falke into the foreground.) The pump jockey raises one laconic eyebrow when, after refuelling the WW2 monsters with who knows how many 100s of gallons, we do business for a whopping 22.1 litres of Avgas. The roar of the Spitfire when it started up I will never forget. As a parting shot, he does a low pass of the runway and then a victory roll at full power - incredible!
It is now 8pm, we have 90 min to sunset, the sky has calmed down and the air has that wonderful soft evening warmth. I am keen to push on a bit more, and after paying the landing fee of 3.40 Euros the nice ATC lady sends us on our way. Our goal is the medieval town of Bergerac (yup, the one of "Cyrano de Bergerac" fame), only 130km away. It's a beautiful, smooth evening flight along a railroad track winding over the French farmlands. 20 minutes before sunset Bergerac is in sight. Again no answer on the radio - these Frenchies obviously like go home early. Overflying the field (quite a big tar runway, with a shorter grass strip in parallel) and doing the circuit calls, it strikes us that there are quite a lot of cars around. I opt for the little grass strip to save the tyre (it is a glider, after all) and we exit the runway in front of what looks a bit like a brightly lit restaurant of some sort. There are people milling around on the lawn, and hello - there is a braai going and bottles of wine being waved. Some joker directs us to park right next to their fence, as if we were a passenger jet. We get out, ears ringing and heads spinning, and find ourselves in the middle of what turns out to be the Bergerac Aeroclub annual dinner and piss-up. I am still dizzy and a bit spaced out after almost 6 hours of flying, but after no time at all we are seated at a long table with many merry French aviators, talking routes and planes in pidgin, and eating and drinking up a storm. We had timed it perfectly, the main course was about to be served and the good wines were being opened. Regaling them with inflated tales of adventure and derring-do, we pass a roaring evening in the clubhouse. We're invited to pitch our tent on the lawn, given the door key so we can use the bathroom and generally treated like visiting royalty, until at around 11 everyone pitches in to clean the dishes and move the furniture back for the flying school in the morning. Then they all politely say goodbye and head home, leaving us two strangers in charge of the club house. Lovely people, these French.
The Bergerac Aeroclub annual dinner with fine French wine flowing freely
Repeat of Day 1: tummy full, eyes heavy, crawl into the tent (oh so comfortable when dry) and fall into a deep, deep sleep, dreaming of open horizons, a steady 140km/h on the ASI, and a picture book landscape sliding by beneath. We are now only 150km from the Pyrenees - if the weather holds we should be able to cross over the last big hurdle, and tomorrow we'll be in Spain!
Or maybe not ...?
Or maybe not ...?
