Well, he’s there now…
There was thunderstorm in the METAR of Caen:
METAR LFRK 181230Z AUTO 27011KT 9999 -TSRA FEW015/// SCT038///
BKN052/// ///CB 15/12 Q1014=
FL210 is quite impressive in summer in a normal aspirated SEP.
JasonC wrote:
Bet he needs the toilet by now.
Three Coke bottles 
Weell, Summer? Maybe where you are, here fall has arrived big time. Actually, 15° at Caen is pretty much ISA.
lenthamen wrote:
FL210 is quite impressive in summer in a normal aspirated SEP.
Maybe he entered the storm and it was the updraft?
Flight was 99% sunshine but very hard work to avoid lots of stuff.
Got a lot of images over the XT satellite phone and came in through a gap; basically behind the main chunk.
Tops were mostly FL220-250. Almost no sferics and definitely no TS where I was. Isolated CBs but not really striking.
FL210 was easy; below MTOW and -28C. It’s a good tool for these jobs where you have troughs depicted which usually produce this type of wx.
More bad stuff coming here.
These charts (which I didn’t see till now because I filed the FP and went straight away) are pretty accurate
A few more pics to finish off this report…
Bastia may have been sleepy the night before but everything was super efficient in the morning. It took minutes to pay up and go through. The cost was about €25. I met up the guy in charge of GA the night before (because I had problems getting off airside and ended up committing the ultra crime of walking towards passengers getting onto a “mini airliner”) and he gave me his contact details. It was agreed I would let him know when I am on my way to the airport. I don’t think any of these communications worked (nobody ever responded to anything, emails or SMS, so what is this “PPR” about?) but it doesn’t seem to matter because if you just turn up, it all happens quickly. This item in the AIP is clearly totally disfunctional so why put it in there?
Mind you, Spanish airports also rarely reply to any communications. I think one gets a better chance if using the local language but that doesn’t make sense for an international airport.
Nice morning at Bastia, with just some cloud layers around
I got a NORKA6N SID and they were pretty specific to make sure you flew it, watching you on radar. Curiously, vectors to the ILS are not available, however.
The only IMC on the whole flight
Looking back
Calvi (last September’s EuroGA fly-in) is coming up on the left, and the LFOB of 20 USG is spookily close to the final figure I landed with.
The last of Corsica
And here is France
French ATC were totally rigid on routing and I got a DCT STP which took me way off to the west. They said above FL140 there was a direct route but when I asked for a climb to FL140 they repeatedly ignored the call. The FP was validated at FL100 but in retrospect I think this is wrong in as much this is yet another case of a country not telling Eurocontrol their full internal rules…
Eventually at STP I got a DCT MTL which was a lot better. The headwind was constant, 10-30kt, but being from the NW it was obviously less on a northerly heading
The mountainous central part of France; FL120 now
Heading to MOU
Stuff ahead… time to climb above it. This was the first part of the band of wx which was to get a lot thicker near the UK
These were not very powerful CBs, with tops around FL250 and only one or two strikes on the stormscope
Squeezing through a gap while climbing FL190
Climbing FL210
Well to the left of the route, to get behind the weather which was moving west-east
At FL210 it was doing about 130kt TAS at about 7.5 USG/hr. It’s not a viable way to fly but it is a viable tool to get above this sort of weather.
The Thuraya XT phone worked pretty well on this flight. I had to top up the balance ($170) because the stupid google cache spyware plug-in in IE10 wasted the previous one. It’s a great way to manage a flight in bad wx
The wx was always above minima but if there was a huge TS nearby that might have been a problem. My Plan B was to descend below anything, over the sea, and continue at say 1000ft
EGKA 180920Z 26005KT 9999 VCSH FEW010 SCT018 BKN025 15/13 Q1010
TAF EGKA 180801Z 1809/1818 24008KT 9999 SCT025 TEMPO 1809/1818 6000 SHRA PROB30 TEMPO 1810/1818 4000 +SHRAGS BKN012 BKN022CB
EGKB 180920Z 30005KT 230V350 9999 SCT010 13/11 Q1010
TAF EGKB 180801Z 1809/1818 22005KT 9999 FEW025 TEMPO 1809/1818 6000 SHRA PROB30 TEMPO 1809/1810 BKN007 PROB30 TEMPO 1810/1818 4000 +SHRAGS BKN008 BKN015CB
Here is a rather crappy video from FL180
Finally we are the other side of it, and it cleared up so I started a descent
The only way to reach Shoreham was to go through the “permanent” danger areas. London Control were very helpful. There is almost never any activity there anyway; they keep them because if they don’t use them they lose them…
Shoreham was sitting under this stuff but the way in was clear so I went straight in on runway 02
Great to be back home
Landing FOB was 23.5 USG – enough for 2-3 hours in cruise.
It was absolutely brilliant to meet up with everyone – thank you all and let’s look forward to the next meet-up
Peter wrote:
It was absolutely brilliant to meet up with everyone – thank you all and let’s look forward to the next meet-up
This must have been your most “social” and more versatile (in destinations) set of flights since you left Shoreham !
When possible wrap it up in a write up in your website because in this thread its interrupted by other stuff.
Congratulations.
) IFR – always in the weather.
