A few “flying” pictures from Africa from the last 2 weeks.
Flew to Elgå ice airport today (at Femund Fjellstue). It’s more snow now, and we could see the strip at least 10 miles away on the bright white lake. We (my son and I) came from the north from ENVA, straight over the mountains, and entered Lake Femunden at the northern end, close to Røros. We had a strong head wind, 30 knots or something judging by the GPS and lots of turbulence over some of the distance, but blizzering weather.
Tone and Rolf Eriksen could tell that a German/French TV team has been there. A TV program about Elgå and the strip will be aired in Germany and France sometime this autumn. I’m sure it will be interesting for all French/German EuroGA readers (and others of course). I hope it also will be aired here as well.
The hospitality is first class. Tone came and picked us up. Then we ate lunch (moose burger with egg. Elgå means “moose river” in Norwegian, so moose for lunch is a must 
). Due to forecast of 30 kt gusting cross wind at ENVA today in the afternoon, we had to fly back right after lunch to be reasonable sure to get back before the gusting started. But, when we arrived at the plane, the right main wheel was flat. For a moment I could foresee a day extra or two at Elgå repairing tire. A called Tone, and within 10 minutes, he and a neighbor (an old air force helicopter pilot), came with a compressor. I filled the tire up, and saw that it (at least seemingly) could hold the air, so the leak must be tiny (weird nonetheless, because I checked the tires before the flight to Elgå). Anyway, thanks to them we were able to leave only about 40 min late. We arrived at ENVA, no gusting reported, and landed. Just before taxing off the runway, the wheel sort of lost all air, and we were standing there. The tower said to get it behind the red strip, and someone would come and help us. A minute later the airport crew came and towed the plane to the club hangar while we walked beside steering it. Lots of thanks to them as well
A few pictures also:
That’s amazing scenery!
A few contributions from me for what it’s worth. Some from the upper end of GA and some from rock bottom!
Sunset over the med
In Malta, you never have to request a sightseeing orbit over Valletta, they just make you do it when there’s a Ryanair 737 15 miles out…
A town that looks a lot better from above than it does from the ground, Marsaskala.
Interesting myth behind this one. I found it at a helicopter strip in Gozo. Apparently the markings are fake, and it came under radar from Sicily only a few feet off the deck before meeting an ugly end near Gozo. Speculation around Malta is that it was drug running.
Passing the extended centreline over Catania.
Backseating one of my best friends as he gets his SEP revalidated.
Flying over where Maltas famous “Azure Window” once was. It collapsed the day before leaving absolutely no trace.
I was lucky enough to blag a ride in this. I didn’t even know that Citation Latitudes were actually being delivered to customers until I was offered a flight in one!
Boeing calls them blended winglets, Airbus calls them sharklets, Cessna calls them… swooplets.
Absolutely no editing done on this shot! Somewhere northwest of Andrews air force base.
Nice Garmin suite up here. Took us 16 minutes from applying takeoff power to levelling off at FL410.
During the past week we have had record low temperatures across Hungary and lots of precipitation. In the hilly/mountainous areas this translated into ca. 50 – 80 cm of snowfall at 500 – 1000 m AMSL. I wanted to check it out myself earlier, but due to logistical reasons I could not do the flight before today. Snow has been mostly melting for
2-3 days, but you can still see a considerable amount on the ground. Certainly not usual here in late April.
Peterborough
Just a few days ago… massive amounts of fresh snow in the Austrian Alps…
The snow is amazing, but a friend has just been skiing there and said the snow, albeit plentiful, was poor, full of water. It was OK at over 10,000ft…
Great pics though.
Flying a 1947 “straight” V35 Bonanza today, the oldest Bonanza in Europe. Exactly 70 years old today… and flying wonderfully.
Shoreham Airport today, showing the pop concert which closes it for a couple of days each year
