Sunday last week, I had a rendez-vous with the mighty Morane and a meetup with a new pilot friend. Some nice pictures of the Bundesland of Hessia (Hessen) to boot, so here we go: The mighty Morane, parked at Mainz (EDFZ) and ready to go.
After takeoff from Mainz, crossing the Rhein, south of Wiesbaden.
Approaching Wiesbaden. It’s the capital of Hessia (Frankfurt isn’t). About 300,000 people living there.
The architecture in the residential parts of Wiesbaden is extremely beautiful.
St. Bonifacius-Kirche, Marktkirche, Schlossplatz, Hessicher Lantag (parliament), Rathaus, the Warmer Damm (park) the Hessisches Staatstheater. In WW2, Wiesbaden hasn’t been destroyed as much as other German cities, such as Frankfurt.
Somewhere over the Hinterer Taunus.
The mighty Morane, trawling along at just over 80 knots,
Crossing overhead Giessen-Luetzelinden (EDFL), a rather active German GA airfield (ultralights mostly).
Approaching our city of destination, Marburg.
Marburg features a beautiful old town, and also has a big university. About 75,000 people living there.
The city’s airfield, EDFN, is to the north of it and has a wide, 750-metre grass runway.
On short final for runway 04:
Whilst I am waiting, a few more Morane pics…
A couple of minutes later, my meetup buddy arrives. @Frans has flown in from Meschede (EDKM) in a Super Dimona motorglider. (Check out his youtube channel here.) Time for a few alc-free beers and pilot stories at the airfield’s Biergarten…
After a couple of hours, we decided to give each other short rides in our very different airplanes. Frans in the Morane.
After that, I got to get a taste of the Rotax 914-powered Super Dimona. A very impressive and versatile machine, I have to say.
After that, Frans left for Meschede and I left for Mainz. So, we decided to fly the first few miles in loose formation, taking a few snapshots of each other with our cellphones. I did a poor job, but anyway…
Frans did a better job…
A short video of me flying back home. It was a bit bumpy, but still such a pleasure…
Approaching the Taunus from the North…
Crossing the motorway A3, north of Wiesbaden:
And another pic of Wiesbaden:
In the foregound: Biebrich, a district of Wiesbaden. In the centre: the Rettbergsaue, a natural island in the river Rhein, belonging to Wiesbaden as well. In the background, the capital of Rheinland-Pfalz, Mainz.
Mainz (which had the Johannisfest going that weekend, the biggest celebration of the year for Mainz. After Carnival (“Fassenacht”), that is 
The football stadium of FSV Mainz 05. From there, it’s only about two more minutes into the circuit of Mainz-Finthen airfield.
Very nice pictures as usual! You really seem to have found a great club where you can fly a variety of aircraft. Do you still fly the SR22 at all?
Nice trip report, great advertisement for flying in that part of the world. Glad to see the tin parachute lives up to its name in cruise.
What beautiful weather and excellent visibility for what has been an incredibly hot summer so far!
Hot, but also very dry. I have found most of these days offered excellent visibilities.
NinerEchoPapa wrote:
What beautiful weather and excellent visibility for what has been an incredibly hot summer so far!
From my office window, I normally see the other side of the fjord about 5km away, but today I cannot event see this side, too much cloud and rain! And with only +7°C, I cannot really say it has been an excellent summer around here so far :-) Not a problem though since my favorite airplanes are all in maintenance anyway…
Well, well… almost overseen this tripreport from our meetup. It was a great day, and flying the Morane was definitely something special!
The views over Wiesbaden are gorgeous, I did some Frankfurt CTR crossings, but never took Wiesbaden in mind. Definitely adding this into my next routings when crossing the Frankfurt-Area.
Yes, meetup to be repeated soon!
Maybe we can all see some pics of your wonderful trip up north?
For sure! As soon as I receive the pictures from my buddy how joined me on the trip to Norway. Some videofootage from the trip has also been made, so many good stuff will follow soon. First, the next episode from Slovakia comes up next week.
