by Lyall Smith, Gordon MacKenzie and Neil Houghton
Last June we embarked a flying holiday adventure with two other pilots, but instead of departing from Dundee in Scotland, we elected to fly commercially from Edinburgh to Limoges, capital of the Limousin Region in France where we would collect our rental aircraft, a modern well-equipped Diamond Star DA40 four seater aircraft known as Fox Victor Echo.
This was no ordinary leather-clad light aircraft, our rental was kitted out with the very latest in avionics technology.
Sipping 18 litres of Jet A1 fuel an hour (approximately £12), our 4 cylinder, diesel-engined aircraft could cruise along at 140 mph and fly for 750 miles on one tank of fuel.
Fortunately, there are no speed cameras at 5,000 feet but navigating our way around Europe for 7 days avoiding numerous missile protected Nuclear Power Stations and Low Level Military Airspace demanded our highest levels of concentration to ensure we didn’t stray into highly restricted airspace, which would result in much more than a fixed penalty fine from the local Gendarmerie!
With lightning strikes and thunderstorms to the south, our first day took us initially to the north west of Limoges. In glorious weather, a very pleasant 30 degrees, blue skies and puffy white clouds we departed from Limoges to Quiberon, a very beautiful seaside resort situated on a west coast peninsula. En- route we landed at La Rochelle, La Baule and St Nazaire Airports.
Smitten by the spectacular Atlantic coastline, day two of our adventure would take us to a remote island, the most north westerly point of European France, Ouessant. The island’s buildings have an uncanny resemblance to properties found on Orkney and Shetland.
Reluctantly, we departed the next morning from the tranquil island of Ouessant and headed east to Deauville for fuel. At Deauville, we had a chance meeting with the Captain of a Citation Jet, a friend and former flying instructor from Dundee, it’s a small world. Our afternoon flight to Le Touquet was followed by an evening of flight planning for the next day which would involve crossing two international boundaries and numerous air traffic control zones.
We knew this next flight would be a much more demanding test, navigating our way through complex French, Dutch and German Airspace.
With a modest tailwind, our groundspeed peaked 160 mph and whilst navigating our way around Schiphol International we were cleared ‘not below 5,000 feet’ and few minutes later, we were instructed to ‘fly not above 1,250 feet for 5 miles’ before being allowed back up to 3,000 feet. The controllers were basically separating our four-seater from numerous 747 Jumbos and Airbus 340 Jets which were either flying instrument approaches to land or taking off from Schiphol Airport.
We landed at Holland’s Lelystad Airport for lunch. Once fed and watered, our afternoon flight crossed the Dutch border with Germany and we navigated our way to Wilhelmshaven, which is situated in Northern Germany, 75 miles west of Hamburg. We even managed to get to our hotel bar in time to watch the Germany vs. Turkey Euro 2008 Football Match, with the Germans!
Fully rested and adhering strictly to the rule ‘8 hours between bottle and throttle’, the next two days would see us fly our Diamond Star DA40 almost 600 miles from Northern Germany to attend Jersey’s 2008 International Air Rally.
Entering Jersey’s busy airspace and being afforded Special Clearance to land at an International Airport is a very interesting experience for any private pilot. With a northerly crosswind and a dozen Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 aircraft at different stages of landing and taking off, the private pilots need to use all of their training and experience to impress the professional airline pilots and air traffic controllers. If you can manage Jersey’s airspace, crosswind and approach on a busy Friday afternoon in June, you’re doing well!
Apparently, the secret at Jersey is to land long and avoid any wind sheer.
Each year, Jersey’s Annual International Air Rally attracts hundreds of aircraft and pilots from all over Europe and one of the highlights is a formal dinner attended by the Island’s Lieutenant Governor.
We were presented with The Tom Clarke Trophy by His Excellency, Lieutenant General Andrew Ridgway. This trophy was presented to the crew of Fox Victor Echo, in recognition of the distance travelled by our aircraft, prior to attending Jersey’s 2008 International Air Rally.
Our last day of flying involved another 350 mile hop from Jersey to Limoges, where we reluctantly handed back the keys of our Diamond Star DA40 aircraft before catching our commercial flight to Edinburgh.
France, Holland, Germany and Jersey – 2,500 miles at 2,500 feet is a pretty special adventure, one of the best flying holidays I’ve experienced.
Many thanks to Sue Virr and the Aéroclub de Limoges
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