08.11.2020: I gave it another try today to go flying, but this time I waited for the fog to clear before driving to the airfield. That’s one of the advantage of having a webcam at thei airfield. It was already 15:15 when this happened, and sunset is at 17:15, so I rushed to Lommis, got my plane out and took off at 15:50.
I was rewarded for the rush to the airfield with an empty sky, apart from some ballons there was no other man-made object visible.
My new mobile phone has a wide angle camera built in, with a broad aspect ratio, which allows me to take pictures I could not have taken with the old one, or even with my SLR. Below a picture I took when approaching the Sàntis, with the full instrument panel visible.
Below some more pictures I took when circling the Sàntis…
And here a view of the city of St. Gallen, with the Lake of Constance hidden below a layer of clouds. Lommis does have quite some fog in autumn and winter, but St. Gallen airport, which lies directly on the shore of Lake of Constance is worse. For the few scheduled flights which operate there per week, as well as for business jets the have an ILS, but for hobby pilots that often cuts the season short.
The air was extremely calm, and the views and color spectacular, so I continued flying and enjoying…
…until it started getting darker. Below the last picture I took on the right hand downwind to runway 06 of Lommis airfield.
09.11.2020: When doing the post flight paperwork yesterday evening I realised that I don’t have three landings in the last 90 days, so I decided to do two more landings today to be able to go flying this week with my wife. For once it looked like the weather would be even better than yesterday, so once the fog hd cleared I again drove to the airfield.
When I had the plane ready I realised however that the fog started to creep in again. It looked like there would be ample of time to do two circuits, so I took off. After the first oneI noticed that the fog only moved very slowly towards Lommis, so I dediced to stay up a bit longer. I however stayed near the airfield, just in case the situation would change.
Below a view towards Lommis airfield, which is located in front of the bigger forested hill in the centre of the picture, with the fog moving left to right. It looked like some fingers trying to grab the airfield.
Below a picture I took of a balloon nearby, the long building straight below the ballon are the hangars of Lommis.
I spent another 20 minutes in the air, but then I noticed that the fog started moving again, so I landed.
Below the standard “post flight” picture I took before putting the plane back on the lift in the hangar.
Only maybe 10 minutes later a flight instructor and his student wanted to do a short training flight, but while they run up the engine and taxied to the runway the fog moved in. It came in from behind them, so they couldn’t see it until they lined up…
…so they straight taxied back to the parking area. Looking in the other direction it looked as shown below.
13.11.2020: Now that I have my three landings in the last 90 days I can again go flying again with my wife. Today the weather loooked reallly good, much better than during the rest of the week. There was not even fog in the morning, which is usually the case in November in our area. And on top of that I also had no meetings scheduled for the afternoon, so we left after lunch for a bit of mountain flying.
Also in the mountains the weather was perfect, apart from 20 to 30 kts of westerly wind which made it a bit bumpy if flying too low. As usual I however flew at around FL100 to FL120, where there are typically no turbulances except in the lee of tall mountains.
Two weeks ago around 1 m of fresh snow fell in a single day in the moutains, but that’s gone again. Even at FL120 the temperature was still +1 C.
Below a picture of the famous Äscher restaurant, which made it on the front page of the National Geographic Magazine in 2015 as “the nicest place on earth”. Not surprisingly I have never been there myself, even though I have been hiking in that area quite a lot. The picture isn’t completely sharp, as I took it from FL100 through the canopy and it is an enlargement of a much larger picture.
Looking south from the same location one can see the mountains of the Engadin area.
We then continued to the west, below a picture taken near Disentis, looking further west towards the Valais.
On the way back towards Lommis we passed overhead Mollis airfield, where the runway was already partially in the shadow of the Rautispitz 1.5 nm / 2.5 km to the west, it, which towers it by 6’000 ft / 1’800 m.
Passing the Säntis we noticed a hot air balloon at quite an unusual altitude, probably around 8’500 ft or 1’000 ft above the summit. I rarely see them flying that high, usually they fly rather low in our area.
Below a nice view of Lommis aerodrome from above, taken when entering the overhead circle for landing. As can be seen I wasn’t the only one taking advantage of the nice weather, quite some traffic for a Friday afternoon. Even though this picture was taken at only 15:25 local time the shadows are already pretty long. Sunset is at 16:50, end of sunset at 17:20, but by that time it is already pretty dark here. That’s however not too surprising, as the shortest day of the year is only five weeks away.
21.11.2020: Another day of flying, I’m taking advantage of the few November days without fog. As predicted the fog cleared alreday in the morning, so I drove to Lommis for a longer afternoon flight.
Below a picture taken from the cockpit taken just before starting the engine. What looks like a militrary truck on the right is our Jet-A “fuel station”, a second hand fuel truck from the Swiss Air Force. Some years ago the club bought a diesel powered Robin DR-401 (a second one has been ordered this year), so providing the right type of fuel became an issue. As we considered the diesel powered Robin a kind of experiment we did not want to invest the money to burry an additional underground tank next to the two we already have for Avgas and Mogas, so the fuel truck was chosen as a temporary solution.
When taking off I noticed the shadow of my plane, luckily I had my camera laying next to me on the passenger seat.
The weather was very nice, but a bit chilly as we had our first frost this winter.
There was a thin layer of haze towards the west, below the Hörnli with the radio antenna, behind it the Pilatus near Lucerne, some 85 km / 45 miles away.
The higher I climbed and the more I flew into the moutains the clearer the weather turned, below the Julier pass from Bivio to the Engadin valley…
…as well as the Engadin valley itself. I had hoped that the Larches would have turned yelllow by now, but they still looked pretty green.
I then turned west towards the Tessin valley, taking care not to infringe Italian airspace.
When reaching Bellinzona, where I am once a week for a research project (with trains, not planes), I turned north via the Lukmanier pass towards the Tödi mountain. I passed aradar station located on top of a mountain, as shown below, with the Tödi in the background.
Once I had passed the Tödi I flew back torwards Lommis, below a view west with the city of Zurich at the northwestern end of lake of Zurich.
As I was still flying at FL115 I decided to pass via the Säntis, which was only a short detour. The last few times I passed it I noticed that there were always quite a lot of tourists on the viewing platform, enjoying the spectacular view. Only a few days ago I read in the newspaper that they had record numbers of visitors this season, one of the effects of Covid as many Swiss people spent their holiday in Switzerland, instead of going abroad.
Below another picture of the famous Äscher restaurant, this time with a thin layer of fresh snow. Next time I take my tele lense with me, as flying much lower is not an option. The valley to the left is pretty narrow and climbing steeply.
Below another view of Lommis from the overhead circle. Even though it was only 16:00 when I landed, the shadows werre already pretty long.
In the end I was airborne for two and a half hours, just enjoying the scenery.