The German North Sea coast / East Frisian Islands (Langeoog & Bremerhaven)

I have just noticed that there are zero trip reports here featuring the East Frisian islands, off the German coast in the North Sea. …That’s a shame, since they are beautiful and six of them do each have a cute little airfield. These islands are visited mainly by German pilots, plus some Dutch pilots and maybe a handful a year coming from Denmark, Austria and Switzerland. But not much else.

First of all, here is where they are:

This is what they look like in satellite view:

And this is the aeronautical map view:

In particular, pilots from the Ruhrgebiet and the Münster/Osnabrueck and Hannover/Hamburg areas visit very frequently in summer, since it is only about an hour’s flying from there, at C172 speeds. From the Frankfurt area, it’s quite a bit further, and not too many PPL pilots “do” these islands as a day trip, or even as an overnight trip. (By the way, it is difficult to get any accomodation there in summer, at short notice). At C172 speeds, it would take almost two and a half hours each way, which not only takes away a lot of time, but it also costs a lot of money, particularly as a renter. Well…, having the Beech Debonair…

…at my hands sure helps with the flying time (1.5h each way only), but unfortunately doesn’t help with the dosh required to do this flight. (In any case, in our club’s Piper Cherokee, the flight would cost pretty much exactly the same).

I have previously landed at all of these islands, except Norderney. My very favourite is Juist, but this time, I chose Langeogg (EDWL) as my destination. This past weekend was ideal for a trip from the Frankfurt area to the North Sea, since the weather was rather foul in the south, but gorgeous in the north.

The flight up north from Mainz (EDFZ) was flown more or less in a straight line (with both ends of the flight under VFR, filing an IFR flightplan didn’t make much sense). Plus, the airspace structure is pretty simple anyways. The route stays clear of the Cologne class C airspace, and after that, any altitude above 2500 feet would keep me clear of the Paderborn, Muenster/Osnabrueck and Wittmund CTRs. Hence, the only bit to pay attention to was to step climb in order to stay clear of the Frankfurt class C on departure.

A few pics from the flight:

After the first half an hour though, this route becomes very boring, scenery-wise, so no more photos. Maybe a few short video clip?

Approaching the shore here. Lots of windfarms there, unfortunately.

Anyway, there is the sea, with Langeogg ahead!

Here is a zoomed-in satellite view of the western part of the island. You can see the runway (600 meteres of concrete) more or less in the centre of the island.

There was a sporty crosswind, but no problem in the Debonair, which is really easy to land. Here we are:

One of the ~15 aircraft parked there. Love those classic point jobs on those classic C150s…

As you can see from the satelitte view above, it’s a very short walk into the centre of town and to the beach.

And here is the beach (check out the white sand!), the dunes, and the sea:







As a light lunch: Döner Kebap, “Frisian style”: a roll filled with North Sea shrimps and some salad:

After more swimming in the (astonishingly warm) sea and more dozing on the beach in the afternoon, I walked back to the airfield in order to fly to my nightstop on this little trip, Bremerhaven. It’s about 20 minutes of flight heading southeast from Langeoog. This here would eventually turn out to be the track flown:

Anyway, back at the airfield of Langeoog, a view from the “tower”:

In the meantime, an immaculate F33A (with a modern G36 paint scheme) has joined me at the parking area.

Anyway, let’s go. Lined up for departure on 05.

The (mostly uninhabited) eastern part of the island.

The “next” island is Spiekeroog, which is the only major one of the East-Frisian islands which does NOT have an airfield….


… but the next one after that is Wangerooge, which does have an airfield, EDWG.


After this I turned southeastbound, directly towards my destination airfield which was now only 5 minutes or so away. The story about the city of Bremerhaven (where the river Weser flows into the North Sea) and aviation is that they used to have a great little GA airfield, with everything a private pilot could wish for: asphalt runways, GPS approaches, runway lighting, good opening times, low fees, a restaurant, and a short taxi ride into the city. Unfortunately, that airfield, EDWB, was closed a couple of years ago, without any real alternative being offered. At the very least though, some sort of alternative has been created by individuals, in the form of Blexen (EDWT) airfield, which however, is:

• located across the river
• grass only
• VFR only
• normally weekend ops only.

In other words, not really an everyday practical alternative. But, if all pans out (i.e. if it’s a weekend, you have good weather, plus some time to spare), it can be a (very pleasant) way of visiting Bremerhaven. Here, you can see the location of the airfield, just inside a dike, protecting the town of Blexen behind. (The circuit depicted in Skydemon is the glider circuit; powered aircraft fly a northerly circuit).

Here I am, approaching the airfield, from the northwest:

Short final 09 (the runway is a thousand metres long and in good shape):

Parked up for the night, and well protected by the dike:

It’s a 25-minute, very pleasant walk to the jetty of the ferry to Bremerhaven and then a 15-minute ferry ride.

Bremerhaven is a typical seaport… a bit shabby, but also with lots of heritage and therefore a lot of things to see.

Later on, I caught a really beautiful sunset, so I’ll just let the pictures speak…

The next morning, after breakfast, it was the same procedure in reverse, i.e.: walk to the (Bremerhaven) jetty, take the ferry across to Blexen, and then take the walk to the Blexen airfield. This time, I even took the longer way, along the outer dike, directly along the shoreline. A beautiful walk indeed, and always in good company

As expected, Debbie was still in her place.

Weather-wise, this was going to be a bit more interesting, at least for the final 30 minutes of the flight. Here is the weather radar image, downloaded before departure. As you can see, there was a band of light rain across my route, about 20 minutes out from my destination, EDFZ. Also, I would have to cross the Taunus mountain range just before EDFZ, and I knew that they were obscured early in the morning. However, I couldn’t wait too much either, since there were strong showers and thunderstorms forecast in the Mainz area in the early afternoon (see that cell in the EDFH area there… well, we’ll get to see that one again a bit later..). I just had to hit that weather gap, so the best I could do was to take off at 10:20 local time.

There was nothing worthy of showing you during the first hour of the flight, so fast forward to when the weather got more interesting. That first band of precip that I mentioned really wasn’t a problem at all. I just aimed for the weakest spot in the depicted rain, and I hardly got any rain drops on my windshield. But watch that cell creeping towards Mainz on the very left of the Golze image…

After that, I managed to squeeze myself over the Taunus, just north of Mainz and Wiesbaden, joined the circuit of EDFZ and landed on runway 26, in dry conditions. I took my time putting Debbie into the hangar, tidying her up, and sure enough, 40 minutes later, it started pouring down.

Didn’t stop for over an hour. Here are two more images I downloaded at the time…

Time for some Kalbsschnitzel in the (excellent) “Tower” restaurant at Mainz-Finthen…