North Africa via Spain, Portugal (and Gibraltar)

@Coolhand thanks, I checked with LECN, they confirmed no AVGAS around until late August but the place is still worth a night stop

So next for fuel/custom stop-over will be from Antonio’s list (LEAM or LEGR), GEML looks a bit of stretch on fuel over water with no fuel uplift at LECN…

A long write up on this trip: I had a short holiday, the plan was to take Eurostar to Paris to pick wife, then car drive to visit family in Nantes, then another car drive to visit family in Bergerac, meeting two friends in Toulouse and fly CAT to visit family in Fes as logistics sounded very complicated to do all at once in one week (especially what to do with a spare car), we decided to go for a GA-style trip as my two friends coming along were super hooked but I was not sure everybody will enjoy a long trip in hot weather as I do, especially flying on a hot countries in a South-Westerly headings

Aircraft: Mooney M20J (exactly same age as me)
Outbound: London-Tours-Bergerac-Toulouse-Perpignan-Castellon-Almeria-Fes
Return: Fes-Almeria-SanSebastian-Arcachon-LaBaule-Deauville-London

Direct route: 2400nm, total flight time 20h and average FF is 9.5USG/h

I departed Friday Aug 9, TS weather was forecasted near Lille/Paris so went to Tours(LFOT) instead to meet the wife who took a TGV train, I had a slow ride with Mooney clocking 80kts GS slowing down due to turbulence and 50kts headwinds, flying between 1600ft and 2400ft, luckily no nervous passengers were around in this hell of a ride

Tours airport is really nice, make sure you contact Edeis FBO (not the old military airbase number in SkyDemon), we spent a night at hotel Companile just 800m from the runway, the neighbour is super trendy and nice, I highly advise eating at “Au Bureau Tours Nord” (cricket/horse decoration theme with assiete anglaise on the menu), then watching a film at “Cine-Loire” (le coup du siècle was on the menu) and had the chance to sing rap music and watch some street dancing !

Saturday Aug10, I had to sort my customs (they were not around when I landed but asked to call them next day morning) then we were free to roam to Bergerac(LFBE) with an early departure and just few holes to climb on top, again this year I landed at the same time as that famous Stansted flight to Bergerac but this time I had Total Avgas card for fuel and aeroclub gate passcode, still we were stuck for 1h30min trying to get the keys for the rental car (desk guy told me I was the 36th Brit in his day), then we went for a short drive to Pontours where we spent Sat/Sun with family, for those who like sports in Perigord area I highly recommend boat-skiing along la Dordogne in “Cingle de Tremolat”, for culture “Chateau Biron” and for food “Chateau-Les-Merles” (everybody in that dinner was disappointed by my short pants but PIC comfort comes first )

I am number 36:

Overflying Dordogne and the house at Pontours while on long final to Bergerac

Monday Aug12, flying from Bergerac to Toulouse Francazal (LFBF) to pick my two friends, then Perpignan(LFMP) for fuel, then Castellon (LECN) for the night, they flew CAT from Sweden/Germany to Toulouse Blangnac(LFBO) and they decided to join me & wife on the outbound trip France-Spain-Morocco then spend the rest of their time in Fes/Marrakesh, I was surprised that GA can land at Blagnac (LFBO) but I was warned to expect 30min engine running on ground and 1h to go through security, so I decided to pick them a Toulouse Francazal (LFBF) where the tarmac was full of luxury and shiny Bizjets, only two aircrafts have propellers the M20J & a C212, so my two friends were really disappointed by a SEP mount, then we departed in nice weather that suddenly turned marginal as we were close to mountains, so I had to bite the bullet turn north and climb on top nipping pieces of TMA in the heat of the moment, I got called by FIS for that, I answered: “en plein evitement imc et terrain” (trying to avoid terrain and weather), reply: “pas de soucis monsieur, I will get back with clearance”, then “montee et route a convenance” (= no GASCO course for you ), then we landed at Perpignan on clear sky and zero wind with tower ATC offered 4 runway choices, Perpignan is “strictly PPR” but all can be done at finger tips using an app https://www.mydz.fr/ (gate passcode, payment…) and we put enough fuel as Castellon did not have Avgas

We departed Perpignan, routing along the Spanish coast with a handover to Montpellier/Girona/Barcelona, the latter asked to cancel previous clearance for high routing at 3500ft deep in the sea and asked us to fly their low level VFR route over land via Sabadell, load of fun doing 150kts at 500ft agl in CAVOK, then landed at Castellon which was my favourite airport of the trip, thanks @Antonio / @Coolhand for the suggestions

Tuesday Aug13, we decided to depart early from Castellon(LECN) to Almeria(LEAM) as we were at MTOW with 4pob+fuel+bags with nil wind and 45C forecasted midday, our Mooney has 3 blades that impressers for short/soft fields takeoffs climb and has enough prop clearance for landing but does cost -5/10kts vs POH in cruise but was more than fit to get away from Castellon 600m runway, but I don’t think it did better than the C208 departing before us, on the way to Almeria, unlike in Barcelona where the handovers was seamless, I had a botched crossing/handover from Valencia TMA radar unit to Alicante CTR tower, something was lost in translation and Alicante tower ATC were not happy about us crossing their runway extended lines at 3000ft, so they send us back to 5000ft = TMA/CTR boundary, I was told to expect a phone call on arrival to Almeria but I learned two good lessons: never cross runway extended lines without explicit Tower ATC clearance (even if you speak to god himself on the other side) and always clarify who is issuing your VFR clearance on a handover, I had the call once I landed and all went OK at the end

Next we called Murcia, they were very relaxed with weather avoidance to lower levels and warned on RT reception due to terrain and gave us the next frequency, then we were left in RT silence until we got called promptly by Sevilla but we could not transmit until getting near Almeria who asked us to orbit on top of the tower while awaiting for a CAT traffic arrival without crossing their runway lines?? I was already in the wrong side coming via the seaside to avoid the terrain, so not as I filled in the FPL route and they don’t have radar and are fully procedural, another lesson learned

We landed at Almeria, handling is mandatory (we used Swissport) and fuel is bloody steep at 3/L, we were told at ARO office that Gibraltar/Casablanca are not happy about our VFR route to Fes via Gibraltar and our choice of Tanger as alternate, so we had to file on SD again and then on paper again and then make few phone calls, the ARO team at Almeria were really nice and helpful and took care of everything, the FPL drama was a non event: I had a handheld radio (thanks @Noe for that and also for Oxygen bottle and those Southend circuits with McDonald nuggets, all helped in the trip ) that I used to call the tower and handler while we were enjoying delicious Spanish food and hot swim at Costa Cabana beach nearby, the pitty part I fuelled for the long route via Gibraltar at 3E/L at Almeria instead of 2E/L at Fes

Then we departed to Fes, on direct routing via Houceima and then following Morocco VFR routes, again weather around Houceima due to sea and mountains was interesting so no other choice than climbing at FL120 crossing a long stretch of water felt safe but boring, load of boats if one need to ditch and we did tried the water at Almeria and it was at 37C, so barely any risk of hypothermia unlike the Channel and as pointed by one of my pax we had shark on the menu of Costa Cabana restaurant

We arrived at Fes, all went smooth as expected and we put full fuel, the price was so cheap at 2.1E/L that I asked to check the smell first if it was Avgas and not JetA, Mogas or water

The pumping of Avgas is done manually, that was a nice exercise for the refueller who did one tank and asked the 4 of us to impress him with the other tank, then offered a 0.1E/L discount if we pay cash in Euros

Then dinner in close family house in the old city, with a full moon views:

I will do a write up on the return trip when I have sometime later this week…

Swissport charged us 50€ on way down with 4pob and 40€ on return with 2pob and they were excellent and sent us a breakdown of their pricing (from dealing with other handlers in south Spain what you get on email is different from what you get on a phone call, my wife speaks Spanish fluently so that probably helped)

Yes we enjoyed Fes, old medina calm was very appreaciated after a long trip, pitty we had only one week holiday, Essaouira and Tenerife were very tempting !

Noe wrote:

Was that Fez, Texas rather than morocco?

Spot on, there is more in those pictures that relates to Texas apart from 45C heat
First, that “marlboro hat” comes from Austin and 2nd aircraft comes from Kerrville

The plan for the trip back was to depart me & wife Thursday Aug 15 early morning to Jerez or Badajoz then long trip to Nantes but we got stuck in some friends plans in Fes and decided to go late in evening via Almeria and make few stopovers next day with pax comfort guaranteed with the sun behind our back

We departed Fes late in the day, asked tower for the direct VFR route to make it to Almeria before sunset instead of their suggested big dog leg as the direct VFR route was notammed with zone up to FL200, they asked us to give climb a try and check with Casablanca, took us 40min to reach FL160 thanks to Oxygen from Noe (don’t recall cleaning his cannulas ) but engine does not have it, so we flew around that Notam circle with few vectors from ATC and then direct Almeria making it on time, the aircraft managed to deliver 165TAS at 9G/h, I was happy there until my wife start to fell unwell due to cold and fear of height (no ski this year in Chamonix), I asked to descend to 9000ft and I was reminded to keep ground contact (they mean sea ) and fly route/level as planned if RT is lost with next frequency to Seville

Reminds me of Royston:

Friday Aug 16, we departed Almeria to SanSebastian (Biarritz was closed to GA due to G7 summit), flying in the middle of Spain is fun you have two modes either fly less than 1000ft AGLs or fly plus 6000ft FLs, I did both depending on my mood to request CAS transits or scenery, the problem with AGLs flying is RT does not work at low levels due to terrain when you want clearance to climb back into CAS, this turns to be less of a drama than the UK

Sail & Fly:

San Sebastian was very nice, we had super lunch at “ARRAUN ETXEA” with two Spanish local pilots we meet on the tarmac but fuel was pricey to make full tanks, so we decided to make a fuel stop at Arcachon and we had the good news that we can come at LaBaule as we may be able to depart in middle of an airshow if we are lucky

Arcachon is really nice place tough on our arrival time it was busy as hell

We filled full fuel and departed to LaBaule, weather turned bad as the front is closing as we landed and barely zero visibility while in the car and spent night with family, we went Saturday to the airport but it looked like a clear write-off weather wise but were told there will be no problem for us to depart in the middle of airshow on Sunday

Guess the place?

LaBaule downwind

Sunday we departed to Deauville (Rennes FIS had message for me from Deauville: it will be grass parking for you again ), then my wife took train back to Paris and me I flew back home in what I was told was a “nice UK summer day” (7h ago I was topless on Almeria tarmac with 47C )

Finally in London, home sweet home: