03.09.2014: I am back in my “Europe hopping mode”, today going to Brussels. Nothing unusual, but in autumn often a chance to get out of the clouds and see the sun for an hour. This was the case also today, with a great view of the alps shortly after takeoff.
I usually only take my small iXUS camera with me, which only has a 4x optical zoom, but I managed to take a nice shot of Mont Blanc.
I honestly can’t understand people who willingly don’t want a window seat in a plane….
16.09.2014: Only my third trip abroad so far this month (I have also been to Berlin since my trip to Brussels), this time to Paris for one day only. And even though the Air France pilots are on strike the chaos at Charles de Gaulle airport was not different from any other day there. On the way home we flew over Zurich airport to join the approach to runway 28, which is not really a standard route, so I could take a nice picture of the airport at night.
19.09.2014: We had a couple from Australia visiting, and of course I just had to go flying with them, especially as he is learning to fly and just short of finishing his PPL. I decided to try the tour to the Jungfrau, even thought he weather was not as good as when I did it last time. This however made it even more interesting, as the mountains look even more impressive than under blue sky conditions. Below just a few impressions from the two flights I did, each one lasting a little more than two hours.
24.09.2014: I had to go to Bilbao in Spain for three days, with changing planes in Munich, respectively Frankfurt on the way back, as there are only direct flights from Zurich in summer. That’s quite unusual for me, as I can normally reach whatever destination with a direct flight from Zurich. On the way back from Frankfurt to Zurich there were some great views of the clouds when looking towards the sun, as can be seen below.
29.09.2014: It’s really a pity that our friends from Australia didn’t come ten days later, as the weather was much better today than last Saturday. The Swiss Air Force organised a fly-in at their Alpnach Airbase, home of their transport helicopter units, and that’s a chance I just could not let pass. You normally can’t fly there with a civil aircraft, so I immediately registered when I saw the advertisement (which was only sent to a selected number of nearby airfields, of which we are one). My application did get accepted, with an assigned arrival slot early in the afternoon.
The last few days we had fog until around noon in Lommis, but today was an exception as the day started with a nice blue sky. This remained so during the whole day, with temperatures around 25 degrees. Even at 12’000 ft the temperature was still around 5 degrees, quite warm for late September.
We took off just after our lunch curfew and headed south, with a layer of haze near the alps that is clearly visible in the picture below. As soon as you climbed to around 3’000 ft visibility became nearly unlimited.
Below some nice pictures of the mountains, I just can’t stop taking pictures even though I probably already took thousands of them over the years.
The haze got slightly thicker the closer we got to the mountains, but the impression is slightly misleading due to the opposing sun. But even in the haze visibility must have been more than 10 km, so no issue for VFR flying.
Below a first view of Alpnach airbase, not easy to spot looking into the haze against the sun. Below the sun effect can be seen nicely, in the first shot the airfield is hardly visible…
…but the second one from the downwind to runway 01 the visibility was much better. The taxiway is behind the long row of buildings, so I did a long landing as I had to leave the runway only at the end. 1’200 m runway is definitely a lot for me. I touched down around halfway down the runway, and then taxied with 35 kts (at 42 kts I normally lift off), but the guy behind me still needed to go around as I did not manage to clear the runway in time.
Below a picture of the taxiway, with some parked planes on the right side and a Junkers 52, as well as the Breitling Super Constellation at the far end.
We parked the plane (note the Super Constellation just taking off behind my plane) and did a little tour of the airfield on foot.
There was a possibility to do sightseeing flights with the Super Constellation, here two pictures of a takeoff.
To walk to the village we had to cross the runway, actually over a public road that crosses it halfway down, protected with electrically operated gates.
Below the Super Constellation comes in for a landing, they used Runway 19 as Runway 01 requires quite a steep turn just before touchdown.
The Junkers Ju-52 was only parked in Alpnach without doing sightseeing flights, I guess it came and departed with a load of quests.
We left again around four in the afternoon, taking off again on runway 01 and then turning right along the valley towards Buochs.
I could not resist to do a little detour, the weather was just too nice, and as soon as you got out of the haze the air was dead quiet.
We checked again whether there are skiers on the Titlis, and indeed we saw a few hardcore enthusiasts.
We climbed to 12’000 ft, where perspectives really change compared to flying at more typical altitudes. We have to carry emergency oxygen bottles above 10’000 ft when doing commercial sightseeing flights, but from my experience 12’000 ft is no problem even for longer periods (an hour or more).
From the Titlis we were heading in an easterly direction via the Urnerboden, a plateau nestled between two mountain rims.
We finally passed the Säntis and then started a long, straight descent towards Lommis, landing after around one hour and a half, compared to the 35 minutes our flight to Alpnach took via the direct route.
Some more shots of the mountains in the haze, just magic.
