07.07.2013: I wanted to fly to Môtiers aerodrome (LSTO) today, but the aerodrome is PPR and neither my online request for a landing permission nor phone calls where answered. So instead I decided to fly to Courtelary (LSZJ), another small aerodrome in the Jura mountains.

The weather was announced to be very nice, but even at 11 in the morning there were still 7/8 clouds at around 3’500 ft. We took off non the less, but I dropped my intention to cross Zurich CTR due to the low clouds and opted for a route passing north of the CTR of Zurich.

The more we flew west the better conditions were, and near Courtelary it was nearly all blue sky.

The aerodrome lies in a quite deep valley, with the downwind parallel to the hills on either side, and the downwind altitude around 1’000 ft below the hills crest, so nothing for an untrained mountain flyer. The runway is however quite long (500 m), so no challenge there. Courtelary is essentially a glider aerodrome, but they do welcome powered planes too.

Shortly after landing we could observe a glider with an electric motor taking off, technology is definitely making progress.

We walked to the village, which is only 15 minutes away, with the intention to have lunch in a restaurant, but the only one they have was closed. The only shop in the village had closed 45 minutes before we arrived, but when the owner saw us looking through the window he came out and told us we can still buy what we need. So instead of a nice lunch in a restaurant we ended up with a picnic on a bench along the small river that flows through the village, which was however very nice too.