After finishing my latest report of my little solo adventure to Aubenas, it’s time for a new journey. This time a short trip to Norway. 
We’re going back in time again towards Summer 2019, where a spontaneous international trip was easily possible, without Covid-19, testing or quarantine restrictions. One of my best friends from Switzerland (Alex) was visiting me in Germany for a long weekend and we had planned to do a little 3-day tour with the Super Dimona. The destination was still unknown, however, we definitely wanted to go north, so we came up with Helgoland or Sylt. Searching for some good accommodations was not quite easy, and quite expensive on Sylt. “For this money, we can fly a lot more far away” said Alex and I couldn’t agree more. “Well, why not go to Denmark? Or Sweden? Or even Norway?” That’s indeed a good question! After checking the weather I saw serious options for southern Norway, but I had simply zero experience in flying through Scandinavian countries. The only thing I did was some general preparations for a possible flight somewhere in the future, but certainly not in short terms.
During this time, Germany was in the middle of a heatwave, with daily temperatures between 35-40°C. Denmark and Norway had however around 15-25°C. We couldn’t wish for a better place to cool down! After studying some more weather charts and the general forecast, I said: “Let’s just do it!”
Unfortunately, there was no airplane available directly on the morning of the planned departure, but the Dimona was only blocked up to the afternoon. That was not so bad after all, since it was an extremely hot day and my friend wanted to visit our aquapark once, as we’re both also big fans of tube rides. So on the morning of our departure, we headed for Aquamagis by car and enjoyed the nice tube rides with one of the first looping tubes in the world, made by the Swiss manufacturer “Klarer”. Around 12 pm, we’re enjoying a nice hot tub and discussed the flight details, where other persons in the same tube looked at us, as if we were aliens.
After 2 pm, we had enjoyed the Aquapark enough, so it was time to drive to my home base. On our way back, I got a WhatsApp message from the pilot how was flying the Dimona before me. “We have a problem, the engine won’t start due the heat. Expect a bit delay.” Upps… That is not something you want to hear before a trip like this, but after all, the pilot kept us informed and he returned just one hour later at the airport as planned, so we delayed our flight plans also by one hour. The engine was running fine during this trip back, it was just the extreme heat, which prevents the Rotax 914 engine from starting. After refueling and packing up the plane with our luggage, we needed also some patience, until the engine was willing to start again.
Refueling the Dimona before departure from EDKM
As expected, the climb out of Meschede did take some time and I needed to stop my climb around 4.500 ft, to give the oil some time to cool down a bit, until we climbed further to FL65 and opened the windows to enjoy some fresh air. The one-hour delay was not so bad after all, since it was still almost too hot for a canopy and every hour earlier would make the flight more a little torture. At least the climb-out.
Finally reached FL65 in the German summer heat
The first leg would bring us in 2,5 hours to Billund (EKBI) and was quite unspectacular. We had zero controlled airspaces to cross (Bremen Class D goes only up to FL60), so a simple contact with Langen Information was enough. The first part was even quite boring, but after passing Bremen, the flat landscape had some nice rivers and fields to show, including a lovely view on the North Sea and Hamburg-City. Before starting our descend towards Billund, Copenhagen Information handed us over to Billund Approach, which automatically gave us permission to enter and descend within the class C TMA. There was quite some commercial traffic going on at Billund, but the very friendly and motivated controller managed us very professionally between two airliners towards runway 27, without the need for 1 or 2 holding orbits.
Bremen-City with it’s international airport (EDDW)
North Sea in sight!
Former Vandel Air Base (EKVA) on downwind for Billund (EKBI)
Shortly before turning final
After the landing in Billund, we opened the canopy by 20°C outside… The refreshment was like heaven on earth! Refueling at Billund was easy with a self-service fuel pump from Shell, which accepts creditcard payments. In the C-office, the bill for the airport fees was already printed on the desk: Only 13,40€! Within two minutes, all the administrative paperwork was done and the friendly guy from the C-office offered us a cup of coffee. That’s what I call a very GA-friendly airport. Next time, we’ll come back for a visit to Legoland!
At the Avgas 100LL fuel station
View on our Dimona from the C-office lounge
After a 45 minutes break, it was time for our second leg to Kristiansand (ENCN). For this flight, I made again a flight video, which completes the first part of this report, including ATC and the story around it. Enjoy!
P.S. Don’t forget to turn on the English subtitles, in case YouTube doesn’t do that for you automatically when your pre-defined language is not German.
You should have filmed the horror in a German’s when he realizes the price of a single beer in Norway. Haha
Great video. Very helpful for future trips.
Thanks a lot.
Fun to hear so many differents accents I never heard before
Thanks a lot! Yeah, after this short trip, I know that Scandinavia is great for flying and overall very GA-friendly. I cannot wait to come back! More of that in my second part of the trip soon.
Yes, the Super Dimona is a nice all-rounder, I like to fly her a lot on my trips. The number of planes I can rent in my area for a few days or more, is quite restricted though. The Dimona has mostly the best availability, as our aeroclub uses her only for some glider training weeks as additional tow-airplane, or for people how want to add TMG to their SPL license.
The two beers in the video were almost as expensive as the ordered food. But if we’re on vacation somewhere, we always need to try at least one local beer, regardless of the costs.
Frans wrote:
But if we’re on vacation somewhere, we always need to try at least one local beer, regardless of the costs.I know the feeling :)
