Today was once more “go eat fish day” 
2 non-LCP/non-cracked (or not visible at first glance…) RVs proceeded amidst plenty of RASH and low ceilings to their destination. Which coincidentally is also the base of EuroGA member @eurogaguest1980…
Inbound to the approach sector S of the field, flying at 4Kft, I observed the Patrouille Suisse (6 of them Tigers F-5E) coming opposite at low level, inbound to the airbase of Payerne LSMP. Probably going there for lunch too. I’m no military nor display fan, but that was a pretty cool encounter, unfortunately too late to reach for a Pic of the Day.
Unfortunately the airfield restaurant went thru a new owner, and probably cook, change. The once delicious “filets de perche” (Eglifilets or perch fillets) and the accompanying French fries have now lost their lustre, or the light crunchiness they deserve, and I guess we’ll try some other places in the future…
A couple of hours later we departed in between showers and rainbow, destination base. A nice day into the week-end
Ref the above, I once more played with SD’s weather/rain feature. It is accurate enough to be of use, and can help one route outside the most severe precipitation areas.
Today I went to finish off what I started 3 days ago, namely the annual inspection. It was supposed to be only a 100h, but since the annual was due early January, I decided to prepone it.
And there goes the biggest advantage of doing one’s own maintenance, not only do you know your baby inside-out, but you can decide when and how.
So, the other day I got done with the engine, today’s turn for the wings, and the tail. Van’s RVs, being made of light gage aluminum, have several SBs requiring the inspection of different part of the tail structure and controls for cracks (nothing to do with what is being discussed in the Vans have made a big boo-boo: laser cut holes thread. For some of those, the use of a borescope is required, such as here, where the outer hinges of the elevator spar are inspected:
Once I was finished I could not help it, but go for a good 2h local flight. I love these kind of conditions, SHRAs, clouds, sunshine, fresh powdered snow on the higher hills and mountains, unlimited visibility. Here’s the St. Petersinsel peninsula in the Bielersee:
And fresh snow on the Stockhorn (7’185’) on the way back:
Dan, you should work for Switzerland Tourism
So you were not flying your own plane to Yverdon ?
How do you manage the different languages across Switzerland ? Do you all chat together in English ?
We had today a weather window in our rainy normal autumn. But a short slot combined with a late departure (plane arrived late and clumsy child seat to install) meant I had only 20 minutes left for flying. So I did 3 circuits to extend passenger privileges. A humility lesson !
We try to make Remembrance Day special (usually mass & memorial service) but the only free slot for flying was a the same time.
Let’s not forget the sacrifice of so many for us.
Hey Dan. I hate to break it to you, but I think you have an ailen living in your stabiliser!
Let’s hope it takes good care of its area!
Come on guys, this ain’t my thread, but yours
So you were not flying your own plane to Yverdon ?
How do you manage the different languages across Switzerland ? Do you all chat together in English ?
This time I flew my own steed, but was not alone…
Generally speaking, all fields in the Swiss German parts of CHE use English, including my homebase. Strangely enough, fields located on the French part use mostly French, again, really strange…
Since my LP only covers English, I only use English… (that is the official version which I’m sticking to).
@dublinpilot, well spotted… that sure is pretty scary! I hope this character‘s gonna stay put quietly in there, and see that no crack ever sees the light of day
Like Jujupilote a short weather window, If you can call it that, permitted a bit of circuit bashing in the Super Guépard. Just managed to get it back in the hangar before the heavens opened again. Thank goodness its so light so that it can be manouvered into the hangar quickly.
A day of strange events and unusual phenomena.
Therese and I flew back to England from Switzerland on Saturday. It was more of an ‘escape’ in reality. We absolutely needed be home for business meetings by Tuesday, but the conditions in Switzerland were so difficult that we grabbed the only viable weather window early yesterday afternoon to get away. Because our normal airport, Sion, was closed last week for runway work we had had to use Lausanne LSGL. Lausanne is VFR only and when joining IFR one is required to be able to depart VFR and climb to 7 or 8 thousand feet VMC before joining airways to the NW. That was viable only for about two hours yesterday and forecast to shut down again for days.
On the way home we encountered a phenomenon that I had never seen before. We fly a Jetprop, which like all turbine aircraft, are much more efficient and speedy at altitude. When flying into a headwind, over hundreds of such flights, it has always been my experience that the speed gain with altitude equals or outweighs the increase in headwind. Well not yesterday. I had been alarmed looking at Windy to find that yeaterday the jetstream was howling down from the English Channel in a straight line all the way to the Swiss Alps. It also dipped lower than I had ever seen it. Here is the wind profile for yesterday 13.00 UTC, along with the TAS from the Jetprop POH:
Thus the anticipated decrease in headwind of 75 kts between FL240 and FL120 was much greater than the reduction in TAS of the plane of only 44 kts. And so it proved. We had filed the FPL for the unusually low altitude of FL180, and as we climbed we could see that the wind gradient was proving exactly as predicted. So on reaching 180 we asked for and were given a descent to FL120 for the cruise all the way to England. By doing so we shaved about 30 minutes off the flight.
We also heard something completely new over the radio. Multiple commercial airliners asking ATC for wind reports at lower levels, which we were able to help with, and some, like us heading to the UK, asking for cruise levels of 180 rather than the normal 350 or so.
The only previous time I have shared the lower flight levels with commercial traffic was during the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption in 2010, when turbine aircraft were banned from flying IFR due to the risk of ash damage to the engines. During that period the VFR levels across Europe were filled with business jets flying VFR at 10,000 ft and below. It may happen again this week. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/iceland-volcano-earthquakes-flights-keflavik-b2445470.html
We arrived home half an hour before sunset. I was about to put the plane back in the hangar and his hangar mate, the 1941 Piper Cub GPOOH, whispered in my ear that she was jealous and wanted to go flying too. Of course I couldn’t resist so pulled her out and we did a 30 minute sunset tour of the Cotswolds. In contrast to the raging tempest 15,000 ft above, it was completely and utterly still in the POOH levels (ie 500 ft). A few people were burning piles of wet autumn leaves and we captured this lovely shot of the smoke drifting lazily in a circle around a local village.
And another of the mist starting to gather in the Chedworth valley, right in front of one of the best preserved Roman villas in the UK.
Done my round-trip flight to EGTK Oxford for my night currency on Friday (flight back was at night).
How people manage to do the night photos from their phones? And what to do with the light reflections inside the cockpit?
Aylesbury at night:
Thus the anticipated decrease in headwind of 75 kts between FL240 and FL120 was much greater than the reduction in TAS of the plane of only 44 kts. And so it proved. We had filed the FPL for the unusually low altitude of FL180, and as we climbed we could see that the wind gradient was proving exactly as predicted. So on reaching 180 we asked for and were given a descent to FL120 for the cruise all the way to England. By doing so we shaved about 30 minutes off the flight.
A screenshot from Windy – yesterday afternoon at FL300.
