01.06.2014: I managed to do a tour with my older daughter today, after having been on vacation for nearly three weeks. There were quite some clouds the closer we got to the mountains, but that did not really matter.
I gave her a first “flying lesson”, and she did really well considering the slightly turbulent conditions.
When returning to Lommis we had a look at the latest SportCruiser, which has been imported to Switzerland, it will go to a flying school in Neuchâtel.
08.06.2014: Today I flew back from Madrid from one of my business trip, and had the chance to have a window seat on the right side. The routing on this flight normally goes via Toulouse and Geneva, which means the alps are on the right side.
Even though the flight was quite late in the evening there was still some light when we flew over Geneva, which meant we had a great view of Mont Blanc.
13.06.2014: Even though this week only had four working days I still managed to do three business trips abroad, probably a new personal record. While the weather was very nice in all three places, and very warm, there were impressive clouds during each evening flight requiring some deviations from the planned routes. They are:
from Budapest
from Prague
and from Paris.
18.06.2014: A long time ago I promised my brother in law to go flying, but we never found an opportunity to actually do it. Today however we did. He lives near the airfield of Wangen-Lachen (LSPV), so we agreed that my wife and I would fly there so that I could do the little tour with him from there. Wangen-Lachen is only around 20 minutes by plane from Lommis, but more than an hour by car as you have to pass a small mountain range.
Wangen-Lachen airfield is just at the border of the Lake of Zurich, which makes it a popular destination for hobby pilots.
They have one thing in common with Kastrup airport in Copenhagen, which is the issue with ships crossing in front of the runway. Here it’s the sailing boats entering the harbour, and one really has to pay attention as the runway stars only some meters from the water. Also the runway is relatively short, so you should not touch down too late.
The other special thing in Wangen-Lachen is that there is a seaplane base. It is the only one in Switzerland, and as far as I know not open to non based aircraft.
We took off towards the alps. where there were more clouds than in the plains.
This made the flight quite different from the usual “blue sky” fights, but in my opinion also more spectacular.
Below the tower on the Titlis near Engelberg, where we could still see skiers on the slope.
Next we flew past the Eiger, which was partially hidden in clouds…
…and then over the Jungfrau Joch, the usual tour. It is always a spectacular sight, even if you do it many times.
Below one can see that we flew more or less “on top”, but there were always some “holes” in case one would have had to descent.
21.06.2014: I did a “little” tour of the alps again this morning, but this time alone. I worked way too much during the last few weeks, and there is nothing more relaxing for me than a flight over the alps.
The weather was different from three days ago, with nearly unlimited visibility as soon as you climbed above 5’000 ft. There was a quite strong wind from north-east, around 30 kts at 10’000 ft / FL100, so I climbed straight to FL125, around 3’800 m. Up there the air was very calm, and the view spectacular.
I flew first toward the Glarus mountains, and then all the way to the Matterhorn and back. Here two pictures taken in the same direction, with only a few hundred feet difference in altitude. They nicely show how the haze typically has a pretty sharp upper limit, and how visibility increases dramatically once you get out of it.
Below a few impressions from the flight, all taken from FL125.
Here the Matterhorn from quite a distance (picture enlarged), it really is a mountain that has a spectacular appearance.
The picture below was taken from much closer, at 3’800 m one is still nearly 700 m lower than the peak.
Also in Zermatt people were still skiing, as far as I know the upper part of the skiing area it is open year round.
On the return flight I passed the Aletsch Glacier on the south side….
…in the back again the Jungfraujoch, but seen here from the south.
The observatory can be seen in the centre of the picture, but this time I remained on the south side, flying east back towards Lommis.
Coming from FL125 one has to start descending quite early, at 500 fpm the descent to 4’500 ft (which is necessary due to airspace restrictions near Zurich airport) takes 16 minutes, or around 30 miles.
Total flying time was 2 hours 40 minutes as I did quite some detours, and that with only around 40 l of mogas. A Robin or Piper Archer would probably take around 80 l of Avgas for the same tour, which means that the fuel alone costs three times as much.
We did by the way convert the Robin and Archer fleet to run on Mogas, as the price per litre is around 1 CHF or 0.8 € lower. With approximately 400 h each of our three Robins fly per year the conversion pays off in less than one season
21.06.2014: A fellow homebuilder visited Lommis today with his RV-12. I was his initial flight test adviser until one located closer to his homebase could be found, but had never seen the plane assembled (the wings can be taken off for transport and storage).
22.06.2014: I learned today that the SportCruiser I took a picture of the on the 8th June crashed yesterday into Lake Neuchâtel, with both occupants being fatally injured. The aircraft is a PS-28 Cruiser, the current factory built model of the SportCruiser. This is very sad news, also as we did some maintenance on the plane only recently and for this were working with with one of the two occupants.