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This is an overview of
the route that we took, starting at Lasham in Hampshire, over the Isle of Wight and across the ‘og wash
to Cherbourg and on down to La Rochelle for a first stop. Then, via Biarritz, on to Valladolid in Spain and finally on to Portimao in the Algarve working our way around a Spanish military area.
All in all a distance of around 1050 nm each way.
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The planning in the
previous couple of weeks had gone reasonably, we were able to find
accommodation in Alvor at a discounted rate thanks to Viv and the LAA
publications on the web gave the addresses for the Spanish and Portuguese CAAs (to whom we had to apply to fly a Permit to Fly
aircraft over their territory). There are a number of suppliers who will sell
you maps of Europe, and once you can get them to be honest about
their stock the required maps arrive in a couple of days. From now on I think
I will stick to the Jepp European series as there
is no switching from one national style to the next – its
even difficult to get an Portuguese produced map, everyone down there seems
to use the Jepp LP. But that’s the same the World over
– the amazing number of maps needed for long distance VFR flights, although
in the US the $8 per throw is easier to stand!
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We had planned a
reasonably early get away, but some self inflicted delays meant that we
didn’t get off until about 09:40 (local) on Friday 2nd May,
despite jumping Casper from the strip where he lives to Lasham the previous
evening. Cloud base was acceptable at around 2000’ asl
(forecast was better – as always), but I assumed it would rise over the sea.
As it was, it dropped to1000ft over the southern half of the Isle of Wight, but it looked clearer over the Channel, so we
climbed through a hole in the thin cu layer. I got in the habit of climbing
when at all possible when I lived in the US and find it by far the best plan almost always. We
had started off talking to London Info to get our flight plan open – what a
friendly bunch they are – then changed across to Solent who handed us off to Plymouth Mil for the crossing. The western
ranges were closed so it was up to 5500ft for a good view of the shipping.
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I was going to put a
hazy picture of the Channel in here, but I’m guessing you all know what a
large ship looks like when photographed with a camera with a small lens on a
hazy day (a fuzzy dot in the middle of the picture), so I thought better of
it!
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Deauville was the next frequency; he cleared us down to 2500
ft to get below the cloud on the French side and was very keen to get rid of
us as soon as we were clear of his area. Once again the cloud base started to
drop – the fields were very wet so there must have been as much rain in France as in England in the preceding few days. After not very long we
once again got fed up with descending and climbed up between layers for a
much smoother ride. We wanted to go by the airfield at Avranches
as many years ago we used to go there each year at Whitsun and camp with a
few friends – and have a really great time. It looked just the same through
the clouds (so no picture), perhaps the tarmac was a bit longer but that was
about the only change. Happy memories.
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South of Avranches we talked to Rennes and Nantes, but things were really quite straight forward. La Rochelle were relaxed, gave us a
squawk and asked for a report at the CTA boundary (about 8 miles from the
airport). By now the upper level cloud had largely melted away so things
started to feel like we were on holiday. As we landed Rick Morris in RV-7A
RMRV was just about to depart (from the pumps – there’s a clue there). The
flying bit so far had been quite straight forward, we were about to find out
that the ground bit can be just slightly less so!!! We had been there once
before, probably 12 years ago in our Jodel, and had no bad memories, so had
assumed things would be OK … Flying time enroute was about 2h10.
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The diagram opposite
is from the French AIP and shows the parking areas at La Rochelle. The airtraffickers will
tell you to park in Area E, on the grass at the east end of the ramp. Flight
plan filing is in the base of the tower, using the friendly Olivia system,
and customs is in the terminal (if Les Douanes are
actually there). Fuel is close to the taxi way to the runway. We parked up in
area E, filed at the base of the tower for the next leg and wandered down to
see customs, who weren’t there. The lady on duty
asked if we had a pilot’s licence & passports before opening a door and
ushering us through … into the main terminal where we didn’t really want to
be. So we rang the bell to be let back airside. The problem was my licence
was still in the aeroplane, although we did have passports. Diana was held hostage with the passports while I walked
back – probably 400 yds each way, and then back
again to taxi down to the pumps. By this time Tom & Vicky Storey in their
RV-9 had arrived and (knowing the form) parked on the pumps. As the fuellers were just coming off their lunch break it took
then a while to remember how all their complicated equipment worked (!)
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All in all it took
them something close to 45 minutes to get fuel into Tom’s aeroplane and to
allow him to pay. We were a bit quicker after watching Tom’s tribulations,
but we were still on the ground for over an hour and a half!!! Fuel price was
€2.40 /lit (ouch), we loaded up 82 litres. I was quite surprised how much
fuel we had used, perhaps I hadn’t quite filled the evening before at Lasham
– things had been a rush as it was. Landing fee was €11.70 – not too bad –
although I have been warned to keep my landing fee receipt for several months
(others have received a bill for non payment many months later with
associated fees & charges).
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The flight down
western France was uneventful. To avoid the Caseaux
test ranges we routed in land over head Bordeaux. Once clear of their zone the very helpful
controllers cleared us direct to Biarritz. At Biarritz the controllers asked us to report at
a couple of VRPs. We had been warned that would be
the case and had printed off the relevant page from nav2000 – but in the heat
of battle couldn’t find it! Luckily the Jepp chart
had the points marked. The north Spanish coast is quite different from the
French west coast – cliffs as opposed to golden beaches, so we flew along the
coast for a while before turning inland.
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The Spanish
controllers were also quite friendly, although we had been warned they
sometimes didn’t bother taking to you. The chap after the San Sebastian local controller wanted to know if we wanted to
work Bilbao or Madrid – I had no idea, the Jepp
maps were not that much help (or I didn’t know where to look for the
information). All I could do was state our route (via a couple of VORs),
which seemed to do the trick. The second refuelling stop was Valladolid in the middle of Spain. Clearly a reasonably important airport going by
the size of the control zone around it. I wasn’t really sure how to pronounce
it (and didn’t want to make a cock-up on my initial radio call and really
piss off the controller. I knew from our time in Texas that ‘ll’
in Spanish is ‘y’, so guessed at ‘Viedaaalid’.
Luckily someone else piped up after I chopped across to the frequency –
sounded more like ‘Viedolee’, with the middle of
the word completely swallowed and the end disappearing somewhere. Oh well,
the wonders of rural Spanish pronunciation. Anyway we didn’t get any penalty
vectors (straight in approach from 15 miles), so I can’t have done too badly.
When we got to Portugal others told of having to fly at 1000’ agl for many miles, but we had none of that. Once again
Rick Morris was just ahead of us we heard him taking off just after we joined
the frequency. When we arrived the ramp was empty except for a Russian Tupelov version of a 727 (that looked like it had been
there for a while) parked in one corner. A man dressed head to foot in day
glow yellow appeared and marshalled us to a parking spot. Anticipating a few
problems we asked for fuel as soon as we had shut down. Flying time for this
leg was 2h40.
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Diana was in need of a loo so she stepped off a high
speed for the terminal, only to be apprehended by day-glow man for not
wearing a yellow jacket. We dug one out of the bottom of the aeroplane and
everything seemed fine. After a while the fuel truck arrived. The driver
decided this was going to take a while. We conversed in French for a while,
not too successfully as my French is rather poor (but better than my Spanish).
The only way we were going to get any fuel was if I showed the fueller my passport. Diana had inadvertently taken both passports when she
went to the loo – and also had our only yellow dildo jacket, so I was struck
by the aeroplane. Little did I know that she was stuck in the ‘arrivals hall’
as the door did not open from the inside!! Eventually Diana made her escape and the fuelling process
commenced. Then followed the paperwork – it seemed amazing the amount of
paper that had to be generated… The only good thing was the fuel price €1.82
per lit, we had 95 lit. The fuel consumption still seemed high at around 35
lit/hour.
As fueling
was just about complete Andrew and Tony arrived in another RV-9, we managed
to steer the bowser in their direction and, after a
short chat, disappeared inside.
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The next adventure was
filing the flight plan. There was no-one in the ‘arrivals hall’, so we
wandered through into the terminal. It all looked quite swept up with a few bing-bong announcements and a couple of hundred people
milling around. Thankfully the chap on the info desk spoke some English and
was able to direct us to the flight ops office on the 1st floor.
Flight planning was by computer that validated your inputs before accepting them, it made you select an alternate, but did not require
a route for a VFR flight – just an EET at the international border – ie LPPC
the Portuguese FIR boundary. The office was manned by a very helpful young
man who spoke very good English, while Diana chatted him up I got to grips with the planning
computer. The ops office also took the landing fee – a whole €4.55,
apparently a fixed fee across Spain (very good value – the flight planning guy was
worth that on his own). He would not let us go until the flight planning
computer regurgitated a copy of our plan and he put his large stamp on it –
that seemed a bit unnecessary … but wait!
So, downstairs and
back into the melee – through the departures security check (bugger I’ve
brought my nav bag with Gerber tool, and a whole host of other things, with
me). The police men wanted to see something before allowing us through, not
passports, not pilots licence … aahhaa! The stamped
up flight plan! Bag through the scanner – no problem! Next a
passport check by a border guard, & also declare where we had come
from and were going to. All friendly but time consuming. Now how to get to
the ramp?
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We were parked – next
to this at Valladolid – I want one!!
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A few yards further on
and we were into the ‘departure hall’, full of the 200+ people who had been
in the main airport earlier. How do we get out!?! A gate check agent was just
closing a door, but wouldn’t let us out. We had to buzz ‘control’. Control
opened the other door, by the time we got there it
had closed again! 2nd time lucky and out on to the ramp … WHHHAAATTT! Where did all
that heavy metal come from? Well, what did you expect at 6pm on a Friday evening!?! I guess those people had to
go somewhere.
The RV-9 guys had
decided to spend the night after taking a fair while to refuel, so we wished
them a good flight and set off. As time was drawing on, and not being sure
what time sunset was I decided that this leg would be at full throttle at
FL75. The sun was quite high in the sky, but it was about a 2½ hour trip and
the headwind had been steadily increasing through out the day.
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I wasn’t entirely sure
of how to route down to Portimao from Valladolid. There are several large Spanish restricted areas
(similar to Danger Areas, or MOAs)
in the way. Anyway I picked a route and set off. Vall
ditched me to a 7000 squawk once clear of their area, I talked to Salamanca for a while, but they didn’t seem too interested.
Just short of the border I started to try to raise Lisbon Info. Neither radio
elicited any reply, so we flew on – I had in the end entered a route of
flight on the flight plan, and we were about on it. I soon heard other
traffic talking and after a while heard the controller also. But he wouldn’t
talk to me. Another aircraft even relayed my transmission, but the controller
wasn’t going to talk to us. No F-16s came up to greet us so we continued on
enjoying the Portuguese countryside. Whereas Spain had been quite similar to Texas, Northern
Portugal was much more
mountainous and greener.
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All of a sudden
someone was calling us! The radio had been quiet for a few minutes so I had
forgotten about it. Something had happened so that the airtraffickers
had decided we were now worth talking to. Had I been on the wrong frequency
further north? I don’t know, he could have given me
the correct freq if that were the case! Anyway, we were given a squawk which
lasted all the way to Portimao. As the sun slid down the wind abated and our
groundspeed started to increase, I think about 165kt was about the best we
saw, which still indicated just a few knots headwind.
There’s rather a large
hill just to the north of Portimao, so we slid around the east side to allow
a more manageable descent, we probably should have gone to the west to put
the airfield down sun and make it more visible. As it was we spotted it from
a few miles out for a non-eventful arrival, at about 19:58 after 2h25 airborne. Apparently the airfield
closes at 8pm – good job
no-one told us we would have been panicking all the way down!!
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There was quite a
welcoming committee waiting for us, led by Viv & Rich. They quickly had
the aeroplane unloaded and put to bed, followed by a swift welcome drink, a
ride to check in at the hotel, then back to the airfield for a lift to dinner
at a restaurant inland (that had thankfully few Brit customers). I don’t
remember too much after that as I was quite tired from a full day’s flying. I
do remember that we got back to the hotel after mid-night and had been locked
out!!!
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The hotel was at the
top of the town of Alvor, so we spent Saturday morning wandering around
doing the tourist bit, and collecting some answers to a quiz that Viv had set.
Saturday lunch was back at the Sky Café, welcoming the two RV-9s with the
rest of the afternoon spent talking aeroplanes and taking pictures of Yaks
& Extras from David
Broom’s RV. Somehow
I got volunteered to be the camera man in a 3 ship formation with a Yak 50 formating on an inverted Extra300, and David & I
taking photos. I’m quite surprised they came out as well as they did!
Local flying in Portugal is a bit of a performance. You have file a flight plan (by fax) to the local large airfield,
and have to have a squawk assigned before take off (no radar at Portimao).
The local radar controllers (at Faro) are waiting for you to call them,
but are quite friendly. So we took off from Portimao individually, called
into Faro, reported that we were staying local to Portimao so were chopped
back to the Portimao frequency (and could stop squawking). A quick call to
Portimao kept them happy and the allowed us to change to an air-to-air
frequency to take the photos. Sometimes we don’t know how lucky we are in the UK.
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Sqn Ldr Michie discovered that the chap who owned the hangar
where Viv & Rich kept their RV also owned a Chipmunk (and a Yak 50) and
managed to plant his back side in the front seat for half an hour with the
owner in the back – the pretext went something like “…arrhh
a Chipmunk, I haven’t been in one of these for 40 years since I trained at Hamble, what a good looking example, what a fine
aeroplane, how this brings back the memories …”. Flattery gets you
everywhere!
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Saturday night –
Fly-in banquet (well barbie). Yours truly getting the ‘best white RV’ prize, or something
similar.
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Evidence of people
enjoying themselves!!! Food wasn’t too bad either!
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Too much enjoyment?!?
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These guys were stars;
Viv & Rich West for making the fly-in a really great event and Umberto
& Cico who run Sky Café on the airfield who
made us all feel very welcome.
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We weren’t the only
visitors to Portimao airfield. These House Martins had all built their nests
on the terminal building, it was incredibly difficult
to get a photo with one of them in it! They move very quickly and certainly
help to keep the local mosquito population under control.
Sunday was a quieter
day with a few departures. David & John left, so we took over their car
rental (much cheaper than starting over) and did a bit of shopping. In the
evening the owners of Aero Algarve, Ken & Phyllis, invited those of us
who were left out to their house, 15 minutes inland, for supper. It was an
amazing spread, and also a rather nice house! Thank you very much, Phyllis
& Ken.
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Monday we went for a
drive around the Algarve, to the mountains just north of Alvor, to the
Atlantic coast and down to the southern tip.
Racing car – well it
was a Chevvy!
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From the mountains
north of Alvor. Portimao & Alvor are down there somewhere!
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A beach on the
Atlantic coast – reminiscent of the North Cornish coast.
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This is the fort that
is at the southern tip of Portugal
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Stuck on some cliffs
over looking the Atlantic
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Good bye to our hosts
– thanks for all of the oranges, sardine pate, bottles of wine etc etc that made the trip so worthwhile.
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And so to the return
trip – departing from Portimao. Fuel at Portimao was quite expensive at
€2.25/lit, but the kicker was they required payment in cash! We up lifted 70
lit as I knew the fuel in Spain was much cheaper and I had planned a direct route
that should make the return leg to Valladolid around 2h20. The Faro controllers were very
helpful and negotiated a direct transit through the military area at Beja at FL75, but after that things got a bit sticky.
Further north and east the Portuguese and Spanish military areas were active.
These areas are quite large and require a sizeable diversion to route around.
We were offered either routing to Madrid (seemed backwards to go from there to Vall, but could get the map unfolded far enough), or to
go almost the whole way up Portugal and then East. We took the latter route as we had
come down that way ish. I think it put 20 to 30
minutes on to the leg.
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Another view as we
left Portimao.
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I think this is over
Northern Portugal/Northwestern Spain – quite
similar to some of the Texas
countryside.
We thought we might
get out of Valladolid in under an hour this time. The bowser driver was much more friendly,
but the level of paperwork was the same. The flight planning guy was just a
helpful, we even had €5 for the landing fee, and we knew how to get through
the departures lounge (only one regional jet in this time). But it still took
an hour. We loaded up 109 lit, which meant we had burnt 179 for 5h15
airborne, or 34 lit/hr. Almost all of that time was at FL75 and half of it
was at full throttle, I guess that’s not too bad. I always used to plan on 9
gallons US an hour (about 36 lit/hour).
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Over the Pyrenees near San
Sebastian.
The Cu had started to pop by the time we took off from Vall,
so we headed up to FL95 for a smooth ride. In the US we had bought a small
oxygen set as we found that more than an hour above 9000’ in a day meant for
a thumping head-ache the next day. I had assumed that flight at reasonably
high altitudes was not going to be possible, so the O2 was still
at home. Oh well, we opted for the smooth ride and to potentially pay the
price in the morning (as it turned out we both felt OK when we landed, and
the next day).
Routings up to San
Sebastian/Biarritz and on to Bordeaux were straight forward. There were a few large
thunder bumpers around, but quite isolated so easy to skirt around. On this
leg we throttled back a bit as there was almost no wind and it was quite easy
to maintain 150kt ground speed. We had packed up a couple of rolls and other
in flight snacks so lunch came and went watching the imposing scenery of the
Pyrenees slide by.
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We reasoned that if we
went straight to the pumps at La Rochelle we should be able to beat the 90 minute turn
around on the way down. That would have been true if we had realised that
fuel at La
Rochelle
closes at 16h00 local (that is 15h00 English and Portuguese time). We landed
on at about 16:10 to see some
locals filling up, oblivious to the situation. In the end we managed to get
25 litres. One of the fuellers used the ‘reverse
English technique’ – that is shout loudly and gesticulate – I got a feeling
of what it was like to be a foreigner on the receiving end of some English
‘foreign exchange’! I rushed up to the tower to file (with Bembridge as an alternate)! The trip to La Rochelle was just under 2h30 at a reduced throttle setting.
The trip back to Lasham was around 2 hours, the winds didn’t look too bad and
we had just taken on about 45 mins of fuel. So it
would be the equivalent of 3h45 without re-fuelling. I have done that several
times before so was not that worried setting off. This time we chose FL55 and
didn’t bother talking to many people as we progressed north. There was an
enormous CB 20 miles north of La Rochelle, but there wasn’t much else near by so we just
went around.
We got good 2 way with
London Info (what helpful people) on box 2 before coasting out east of
Cherbourg, for a bit of peace of mind. Plymouth Mil appeared to be closed at 6pm on a Tuesday. Mid channel the fuel situation was reasonable, we were clearly going to make Lasham with a
reasonable reserve. Solent cleared me to descend through the eastern side of
their zone (I really like flying straight lines and think that these people
with lumps of Class D should be happy to clear VFR flights through whenever
they can), so we let down straight in to Lasham – taking care to descend a
couple of miles out to skyline the gliders.
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We landed with about
30 litres remaining after a flight of just over 2 hours, so we had flown
around 4h35 from full tanks at Valladolid – without the 25 lit at La Rochelle
we would have been a bit embarrassed (probably would have been pleading for
fuel at closing time at Bembridge). Consumption for
these legs was around 32 lit/hr. We quickly loaded all the stuff into the
car, Diana drove home and I was off to the strip before
(quite an enjoyable J) blast home on the bike.
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Approaching Pompey Harbour – I tried to fly up the middle of the harbour to comply with the
overflight rule!
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All in all a very
enjoyable few days. Interesting flying with scenery we have never seen
before. Very friendly hosts in Portugal, and a really good place to visit in early May.
Warm temperatures, with most people in shorts during the day time, and only a
few mozzies, so highly recommended!
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Overall we burnt just
about exactly 500 litres of fuel and flew almost exactly 15 hours for an
average fuel consumption of 33 lit/hour at a ground speed of about 140 kt –
although I haven’t measured the distance that carefully so the average speed
could be closer to 145 kt. Landing fees were reasonable, but fuel prices were
high, especially in France and Portugal.
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We would thoroughly
recommend this trip to anyone who is looking for something slightly different
from the normal destinations. The flying isn’t difficult and the ground
hassle can be minimized by reasonable planning (or perhaps more planning than
I did!). We very much hope Viv & Rich organise another fly-in next year
and look forward to seeing as many people as possible there.
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