UniformCharlie
Winding it down (Sunday, 19 June 2005)
Not much left to say now. GT was parked at GAT in Hahn. The night before we were flying in IMC conditions, judging from the number of bugs stuck to our windscreen. The wonderful, superb, incredibly helpful crew of GAT supplied us with a watering can and a rag for some quick clearning. Thanks to both of you - Heike from the night before and the guy in the morning. Sorry I don't remember your name, I should though!
Another Ryanair that had just landed taxiing to her gate
just around the corner from GAT
Just thought I mentioned it: We were not sponsored by Ryanair! We just happened to use the same airports - those where the landing fees are cheap! 
When we requested to taxi - by the way, I was back on the radio - we were asked if we could expedite and get on the taxiway before another Ryanair. Yes we could. So we were taxiing before one of these big birds. LP could not help warning him not to suck us up! 
The big bird's pilot probably did not expect this type of comment in Germany. Well, you know what they said in that really difficult business meeting when they had finally achieved a consensus: "Where would we be without our sense of humour?" - "In Germany!"
We now had about one hour flying time left, back to Mannheim. We went over Worms to have a look at the event that kept us from landing at our home field. A cart race on the taxiways and our main runway. With a bit of careful planning, maybe next year we can at least have the grass strip PPR?
Worms (EDFV) - 06 from the right
A minute or two later it was time to call Mannheim, via Charlie, approach over the city centre and the most wonderful, greatest, smoothest touchdown dead on the centreline of 09. Whow, LP!
A pity WW did not see it! But he came to meet us at our parking position. We were full of it and kept talking talking talking.
LP and WW
Tied GT down as she needed to stay overnight - together with a lot of other planes from Worms that were waiting in Mannheim to be transferred back to Worms on Monday morning.
WW was keen to know how we got on. So we were winding it all down over a few cold drinks - it was incredibly hot - at Fody's. Then WW drove us back to Worms where we finalized the paperwork and eventually went our own separate ways. A great week!
Thank you to everybody involved! The FIS chappies, the TWR ATCs, especially the ones we met personally, but also those we only heard over the radio, like the one in Cardiff who saw us off with a nice "Tschüss", the Frenchie who wished us well on our further travels with "isch wünsche eine gute Flug surück nach Deuschlond", Clint, Sonia, Paul, Neil, Gregor, Michael, Florian and WW. 
Final leg back to Germany - or just about (still Saturday, 18 June 2005)
So we took off from Shoreham. I was quite sad. It wasn't the way we had planned it. How does LP call it? The "get-home-atitis" or something like that ... when you MUST get back. And that was something we had sworn we would not do. And we were right in the middle of it!
Outbound Shoreham we cut inland. The last exciting bit was flying over Battle before hitting Lydd Aerodrome. I am ever so glad we did not make it our customs entry point. It looks such a forbidden place from the air. Although the people on the phone were very friendly when I had made enquiries during our prep. I then felt my mouth go dry. Looking ahead was a thick thick haze. We both went very quiet. Very unusual for us ... both of us. We were in a position neither of us wanted to be in. Pushing to get back, flying into weather conditions that we would normally avoid, because it's just no fun! Look at this:
Visibility was fine, miles and miles, as long as you had something to refer to on the ground. Once the ground was swept from under you it was a different kettle of fish:
I remember LP saying something like "fishing in deep water". We both kept our eyes glued to the instruments, but there aren't that many in GT. Silently we kept pointing out boats to each other as references for altitude, attitude and our "general well-being" as to what was "top" and what was "bottom".
What made us really aware of the situation was a website we had read about pilots on the south coast who frequently crossed the Channel. One of them wrote that it became iffy once you could no longer define the difference between sky and water.
All the time though I was never afraid, I did not panic. LP decided to cross at an altitude much much lower we had initially intended. So we always saw the sea below us. Interesting how comforting that could be. Also, I trusted LP and knew that he would turn around would I express only the slightest doubt about it all. We would then have thought out something different, either shorter crossing or sit back and wait.
Anyway, it was over relatively quickly. And as soon as we were over land again, the haze disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared on the other side. By now we had had a friendly "bon jour" from the French FIS guys. Very quiet on their frequencies compared to the UK.
Usual thing now. We used our old pencil line from the Monday before and followed it past St. Omer, Merville Calonne, Lille, to Charleroi.
If you look closely at the photo you can see GT's shadow at the bottom right with a big Ryanair taxing towards RWY 07:
So it was a bit like coming home. We knew where the fuel was. Where the toilets were. Where we had to pay out landing fees. But we did not know that we both had to show our passports. And that was cruicial for the rest of our day's plan.
Ok. So we refuelled. I chatted up the fuel station guy and he took me up to C to sign for the landing fees. Luckily I took my naff see-through plastic zipper bag with me - which LP despises so much! It held all sorts of things. Money, credit cards, chewing gums, extra pens, pencils, receipts collected over the days, driving license and passport. I signed for the landing fees, GT was already in their computer! Like one of the big ones! I was proud of her! 
LP had sent me with the friendly fuel guy because my French was better than his and because it was a pick-up and only had one passenger seat . Now my French was put to the test. I was escorted in a very friendly way across the hall, up some stairs, down some stairs ... into a big bare room with THREE policemen who all stared at me. I grinned sheepishly and did not know what to say apart from "Bon jour". They kept staring! Then one of them shot off some French which - once it had run it past my brain a second time - was something like: "You have just arrived from the UK. That is a non-Schengen-country. You must show your passport." Ok, out comes my naff plastic bag with the passport. With two policeman still staring at me, I handed over my passport which he scrutinized to the last page and then he popped it under a scanner. "Votre pilot aussi doit presenter son passeport!" Aaaaahhhhhh, ohhhhhhh, how gooooooood thaaaaaaaat sounds! MON pilote! MY pilot! 
LP is going to like that. So back down the apron with the friendly fuel guy to get MY pilot. He wasn't happy, MY pilot! Not sure whether it was because we would lose another 20 mins on our time plan, whether he felt abandoned without his French-speaking support or whether he had acquired the title of "MY pilot" . When MY pilot came back, we hopped in and took off like there was no tomorrow.
We were now under real pressure to get back. We had to get to Mannheim. Our home field was closed due to a cart race. I called WW from Charleroi to see whether he could pick us up in Mannheim that night, I would be in touch later to tell him how we were getting on.
Half way across the Ardennes realisation set in: We weren't gonna make it! No way, Jose! Out came the charts, the books and any reference material we had. We considered Luxemburg. No! Any of the small German fields on the Luxemburg border. No! EDFH - Frankfurt-Hahn! Yes! Funnily enough we never have any arguments about these decisions. From then on the flight was a dream. No hassle, no pressure, we knew where we were going and that was it. Nothing we could do about. And we were awarded with a beautiful sunset, flying low and slow towards Hahn:
Shortly after, another motorglider passed over us. I would have liked to know who they were, where they were going to ....
Eventually we called Hahn TWR and slid onto the runway between two Ryanairs - after TWR ATC wanted us to confirm whether we were really a Delta -KILO ..... KILO being the denominator for motorgliders. Oh, yes, we were!
A sight that you don't get everyday. Full runway lights ... and .... the PAPI spot-on: two red, two white! "Ober-affen-geil" or rather a bit more sedate "cool" .
What a day!
Shoreham (Saturday, 18 June 2005)
We had been listening to the Shoreham frequency for a while and I somehow seemed to miss the very scarce slots where I could have pushed the button and "passed" our "message".
It was a very very busy little aerodrome. I eventually got all my guts together and pushed the button. Back came a blurb of all sorts of instructions, climbing to 2000ft, doing and overhead join and and and. Aaaaaarrrrrrrrrgh I had a mental picture of what he wanted in my head, but knew that LP would not want to climb. So, in not so many words ... I just left the whole caboodle to LP to sort out and I was not a very happy chappy after that.
Just turning into downwind 20
We were number three behind a Cessna and a Piper when we were told of traffic at our 3 o'clock, another Piper desperately trying to fly slow enough to stay in his number four slot. On final, the Piper behind us probably nearly fell out of the sky as he was trying to slow down even further behind us, so LP offered to do a 360 and let him pass. ATC had their mind set that we were number three and told us "negative". But on very very very short final he nevertheless asked whether we could move over to the grass strip, hoping the Piper would make it on the asphalt. Sure, we'll move over! Oh, and in between all this ATC kept asking LP all sorts of questions as to who, why, what, where, how, and whether it was fun, etc. ..... Well done LP! I probably would have cracked completely by then. Anyway, in the end the number four Piper still had to go around. Later, on the ground, he came across and thanked LP for offering the 360! Well, here's for manners! And he was wearing a uniform shirt 
!
Now ... refuelling, filing fight plan on the computer ... which left LP cursing and swearing for a while ..., a very quiet and subdued soup-n-sandwich lunch. Not because of the Piper, or because of LP or anybody else for that matter, but because I was mad with myself about my RT.
Although I would describe my experience there as character-building, to say the least, I love Shoreham and I want to come back!
GT between a twin and a jet!
Shoreham's lovely Art Deco terminal and tower
On the road ...errr ... in the sky again (Saturday, 18 June 2005)
So we tried again. Strip beds, etc. etc. etc. Day's Rental was kind enough to let us take the car out to the airport. They would collect it later in the day. Thanks a million, Neil.
Weather looked acceptable, not brilliant, but feasible. However, one of our big hopes had vanished. Remember? On the way up we had headwinds. Hoping that the westerly winds would prevail we were dreaming of something considerably higher than 50 knots ground speed. This would allow us to "shoot" back to Germany. But no. Of course not. We were battling into the wind again. But one cannot be too choosy.
Met Chris who flies his PA-28, TW, ...
... oh blimey, just lost all the write-up about this day!!!!! 
So here we go again:
Chris had taken me up the year before, a trip around Gower. That's what LP had planned to do, but the weather was against us. So it was very handy that Chris came walking along the apron as we were having a shouting match as to how to put the wings back on. Thanks, Chris, for your help!
We followed TW to the holding position for 10. There was a GROB in the circuit, an air cadet student pilot. They are really posh people, them air cadets. They wear white gloves! In fact, the whole flying community in the UK is quite prim and proper. ATC and especially instructors all in white uniform shirts with dark blue ties, strutting efficiently with their knee-boards and pilot cases long the aprons. Ohhhahhhh, I do like uniforms 
. My god, they do it in style! I am thinking of introducing this at ACL Worms. So, WW, how about shirt and tie when we are flying? That would put you right off flying, wouldn't it?
Although visibility was ok, when we turned out over the sea over Mumbles it was quite a different story. The sea and the sky melted together in a mushy haze. No horizon. Hardly any reference. So we kept along the coastline to Cardiff. But eventually there was just the sea. With our eyes on the compass, the GPS and the sea - out of the side windows - we made it to our next reference point, Minehead. You really can't miss it. But it's quite amazing, how your eyes can trick you. You think there's a shoreline in the distance and all it is, is a shadow of a cloud on the water. So, here we are, Minehead:
With it being Saturday with beautiful weather - once over solid ground again - there were loads of people about on the road. Very satisfying to see all the cars on the M5 going down south, the two lanes were chock-a-block and we were flying past them! 
We were again handed from one frequency to another, along Yeovil and Yeovilton, where I probably made one Flight Information guy's day with my .... let's say unconventional ... RT work. He was still laughing when he suggested to LP ... after hearing what type of plane we were ... that we touch down outside one of those lovely country pubs we were flying over at the time.
As we were trundling along, we were at the same time looking out for these horses and the guy with the big willy which are carved in the hills of Dorset. Couldn't find them although we did leave our intended course a bit, looking for them. Next time!
Down towards Bournemouth it was a lady ATC who let us cut across her zone .... ehrmm that sounds odd ... well, what I meant was, that we could fly through the bottom corner of the Solent CTA. We reported at Sandbanks ...
... and later abeam The Needles, the westernmost point of the Isle of Wight:
The next stretch was one of the prettiest parts of the whole trip:
Lighthouse between New Milton and Lymington
The Solent with two boats having a race.
Portsmouth
Jetskies going wild
Beach near Bognor Regis dotted with sun-worshippers
And still Swansea (Thursday, 16 and Friday, 17 June 2005)
So our standard programme for Thursday and Friday was: stripping beds, throwing them in the wash, getting packed, clear out the rubbish, go up to the airfield, chat to whoever we bumped into, making sure GT was ok and not bored. All this interspersed with visits to Tesco, WHSmith, a stationer's, Cash Hardware in Mumbles to look for Kay, Verdi's, the Beaufort Arms in Kittle, our local pub for pints, our Indian restaurant for curries and more pints. By Friday we were so fraught with nerves and boredom at the same time that we took ourselves off to Borders, the book"shop" in Fforestfach. We sat in our respective corners leafing through books that we wanted to buy, but could not take for weight. LP ended up going through "1000 films you must have seen before you die" with me. Judging from the number of films he has already seen, we'll be putting him to rest soon.
Just some impressions of these two days:
Across Swansea Bay from Verdi's.
Supposedly you can sometimes bump into Catherine Zeta,
who is from Mumbles, Michael and the kids there.
GT with her wings folded, waiting patiently in a Swansea hangar.
For GBP15.00 a night (plus VAT) we can only hope she enjoyed her time with all the other planes.
On the way to Borders, the bookshop.
Swansea log on Friday, 17 June. No movements since we had arrived from Redhill on the Tuesday. On Monday, 13 June, another German plane D-EBWT had stopped over from Lands End on her way to Manston - probably on her way back to Germany. Lucky bastard.
He made it before the weather closed in.
Still Swansea (Thursday, 16 June 2005)
Ooops. So much for our plans to fly today.
But all is not lost. But we were blatantly hopeful. Or rather .... we were stupid .... hoping that the weather at the airfield 3 miles from the house would be better. For some reason, over the curry the night before, we had decided to take ourselves off. Fly back to Germany leisurely over three days. So we had everything packed, beds stripped and in the washing machine, rubbish cleared. Ready to go.
3 miles away, Swansea airport looked like this:
With both temperature and dew point at 15°C you could wring out the air! Although we already had the weather brief and forecast printed from the computer at the house, we were still asking the TWR crew if they knew something the Met Office did not know. "Well, yes, sure", Ieuan said, "the weather is going to improve over the day. We might be able to see the end of the runway by the end of the afternoon." Ha! But he meant it. And he was right! Thanks Ieuan ... nice name ... and so is Hugo .... err Hugh *see, LP, I did mention it! ... sorry for insiders only again*
TWR chat
Swansea (Wednesday, 15 June 2005)
Nice weather. With the car outside, we decided to make some use of it and leave the flying ùntil the afternoon. Where does the standard tourist go who first comes to Swansea? Correct, Rhossili Bay. Despite our weight restrictions I had taken my swimming cozzy. After twenty years of coming to Swansea I was determined to have a dip in the sea. And I did it. Under the puzzled look of LP and his reminders as to what fish do in that water, I ran across the beach and threw myself into the waves. Later on we heard the water at that time of year is about 7°C. Give over, I don't believe it. I would have frozen stiff if that had been right. I spent a bit of time in the water always making sure that I had ground under my feet. The tide can be treacherous and I have a lot of respect for the sea. Walk along the beach.
Rhossili Bay on the Gower Peninsula
Quick lunch, back to the house. Flying?! Well, yes. Hmmm, well, errrhh, bum still hurts. Let's do it tomorrow, plan it properly and go all the way up to North Wales. After all the weather could be better anyway. Ok, alright then. Pint in the pub, a curry around the corner, some more pints. Flying tomorrow.