A trip to the Alps to get nice photos (and a video)

After a number of cancellations, I finally did this flight. 6:50 airborne time. It almost didn’t happen again, due to a front affecting Shoreham

and due to Biggin Hill having lost their ILS in the upgrade (or whatever they were doing with it)

C1918/21
ILS RWY 21 U/S DUE INSTALLATION OF NEW SYSTEM.
FROM: 01 MAR 2021 06:30 TO: 26 MAR 2021 23:00

With the other places like Bournemouth, Southend, etc, closing early due to CV19 lack of business, Lydd being shut (except for locals doing engine exercise; I didn’t enquire whether they park vehicles on the runway to prevent emergency use, and nobody answers the phone or the radio, and the ILS signals are gone), a refuel in France would mean landing either at Shoreham or at Biggin, and if both became inaccessible then you are totally screwed. Even if Lille turned the refuel around fast, there would be only Gatwick, at some £2000 and no avgas so massive logistics to get the plane back out of there in addition to the £2k contribution to the Signature handling cartel there. So one is pretty well boxed in. An emergency landing at Lydd – a notamed-closed airport – risks a CAA sanction or prosecution because they can go after you for poor planning (and due to this and me being an admin here, they would definitely go after me).

I checked Lille very carefully by email (before each date on which I planned this trip) and they assured me they can do avgas without a need for a TOTAL card / understanding French (the latter has a few times stretched a refuel to a few hours, when nobody wanted to help). A good airport, I reckon. Dole was also really friendly but less preferred in this case due to being quite an “early” refuel. I once did such a refuel at Cannes and only just made it back home in ~50kt headwinds, and had to divert to Biggin then too (9pm). Le Touquet needs a prior day’s PN for the fuel man to turn up, with a phone call, and since I can’t speak French this is not something I would risk (a misunderstanding on the date, for example). If one lands in France in CV19 times and can’t get fuel fast one is in huge trouble, since a UK quarantine and tests would result. I carried my tent and the whole sleeping kit in the plane just in case but that would only make it CV19-safe for me to sleep somewhere (probably in bushes just outside the airport gate, since “wild camping” is illegal just about everywhere); it would not avoid getting trapped in the quarantine back home. The only really good scenario for the tent would have been landing at Biggin, when it would avoid me risking a taxi back home (which is best part of £100 anyway, each way) by enabling me to fly out of there the next day. I am damn sure one can’t camp on the grass airside at Biggin, but there are plenty of woods just down the road…

Actually Shoreham is a really great airport which has been brilliantly managed through the CV19 times, with a real can-do attitude. I booked a closing time extension to 2000 UTC there in case I found much more wind than forecast and had to refuel in France, but this is preferred only Mon-Wed, today was Wed, and anyway the rest of this week the wx is too bad, and then next week we are getting this £5000 fine for travelling, or attempting to travel abroad which will kill excursions into “foreign airspaces” unless the term “destination” is defined as a place on the ground. With the £5k fine I don’t want to be the first to test it.

So “today had to be the day”, with the next chance being maybe some months away when the UK removes the new tight controls (probably along with some vaccine passport scheme, in late May or so).

A frame from the HD video

I got quite a lot of hassle from ATC on this flight… for another day when I have the pics processed

Getting back home was a bit of a challenge, evident in the last hour or two. The last-1 EGKA TAF was rubbish, followed by a much more accurate one. A diversion to Biggin was avoided fairly narrowly although RNAV 02 would have worked too with the 8kt tailwind. Actually the TAF was an old one, the Autorouter mixed them up

EGKA 241020Z 20007KT 4200 BR FEW028 SCT041 11/08 Q1022
TAF EGKA 231359Z 2315/2320 22012KT 9999 FEW025

The real stuff:
EGKA 241450Z 22012KT 8000 FEW012 10/08 Q1021
EGKA 241359Z 2415/2420 22005KT 9999 SCT025 TEMPO 2415/2420 8000 BKN006 PROB30 TEMPO 2418/2420 4000 BR BKN003

I had emails with the police here for some months while planning this. They were totally out of their depth (e.g. not knowing whether the virus can be passed on while flying at 10000ft) and had to get head office guidance. They want the GAR (which is totally meaningless) and the PHE form (which is even more totally meaningless) and I filed both of these. The police meet up every flight which went to say France to fly a training IAP but they didn’t turn up for me. I had everything printed off and ready; the CAA guidance, the DfT guidance, the Lyco SL for engine running, the police emails, etc…

Here are a few pics.

First a bit of background, in addition to what is posted above. I had been planning this flight for some months. The routes were looked at here. The Autorouter is not capable of developing any remotely usable route for a circular trip – e.g. it cannot produce a route made up of two routes which do individually validate for A-to-B flights – so I had to do hand editing and seeing what validates. Well, if you have two routes which validate individually, it’s a no-brainer VFR sections were used at the UK end to get the shortest departure from the UK (otherwise one gets sent all the way to TRACA first, when actually you want to go to BILGO) and were used for the mountain section because only VFR allows you to get low enough, and to fly at various heights as required. You can see the route chosen at that link:

Regarding legality, the current UK law doesn’t prohibit this type of flight. There is a restriction on leaving your house without a good reason and the law lists some acceptable reasons, but the list is non exhaustive so it doesn’t mean much. You would need to be prosecuted and a court would determine whether your reason was good. There is of course guidance and pilots, being pilots, have made a complete hash of this on UK social media. Some knobs asked the CAA for “guidance” so of course they got some… Here. Note at the very top of page 1 is the word Guidance while the rest of it reads like law… So one needs to dig out the Lycoming requirements for engine running – Service Letter L180A which says min 1hr every 30 days max. And that SL is your blanket permission to fly the plane. No need to dig further, and no need to ask the CAA for guidance on whether you are allowed to wear pink underpants (I am sure some UK pilot did ask the CAA exactly that). I had everything printed out in a folder. Ultimately, the max fine is £200 for a first offence; I had that ready too in case the alternative is a visit to a police station (a ~90% chance of catching CV19 because they basically take no precautions and have all got it).

I had earlier contacted the police here to find out what documentation they require for a circular flight going outside UK airspace. They were out of their depth and had no idea, so they asked head office and came back that the GAR form and the PHE form are both needed; both of these are nonsensical for a circular flight and there is no legal basis for demanding them, but you never argue with the police. In addition they confirmed I can refuel abroad and provided I remain in the plane I don’t need to quarantine; this is actually standard practice in CV19 times for commercial pilots. In fact they can stay in hotels too although in many/most countries they need CV19 tests for that. I was doing everything to avoid an overnight situation and carried a tent and everything needed to stay overnight. However the tent would merely avoid having to find a hotel (which can be a challenge in provincial France even in normal times, if you arrive late) plus an overnight stay abroad would definitely trigger a quarantine back home.

So this flight had to be done nonstop with a very high degree of probability.

I had been watching windy.com for days and weeks. Some calculations showed that winds up to say 20kt would not be an issue at all, on a circular flight on which the wind didn’t change much. You could get lucky by flying clockwise around the centre of a High and get tailwind on both legs, but Highs move very slowly relative to a 6-7hr flight and an oval route was not possible in France due to the whole east part of France being totally blocked in by the Paris TMA on one side and military areas on the other side, and French ATC almost never (IME, 99% never) allow any transits of these. In fact it is obvious they almost never even try to coordinate, despite telling you they will ask. ATC gets a lot better in the SE corner of France, next to Switzerland, but the mil areas there are still almost totally no-go. Probably better on a weekend but my base has 2hrs shorter opening times at weekends, and I needed the full opening times, with just 2hrs to play with.

I was watching the Alps webcams, notably this very high quality one at Jungfraujoch. These had to be clear to depart, otherwise there is no point.

A few opportunities presented themselves over the weeks but usually there was some issue; for many days the mountains were in cloud, etc. Or the winds were far too strong – say 60k at altitude. Or I had to be at the office. Or I had a medical booked…

Eventually, yesterday, it looked good. This was apparent on windy.com a few days before. I shot off emails to Lille and Le Touquet re a refuel – mentioned above. Lille looked by far the better organised one, not needing to speak to the pump man in (presumably) French, or needing to operate a French-only self service pump (the google translate app on the phone often fails to work in the camera mode; no idea why, but while it is ok for restaurant menus one clearly can’t depend on it for flying against a deadline). And organised a late closing extension at Shoreham… good only if Shoreham is accessible wx-wise, of course. Biggin was the alternate, but with a duff ILS which is a really poor situation which caused me a lot of worry the night before (I got just 2hrs’ sleep). Lydd has an ILS but is “closed” and they turned off the signals to make sure nobody uses them. All the other airports (except £2000 Gatwick with no avgas) would be closed by the time I might be arriving following a refuel in France.

2am in the morning on the day or departure the Jungfrau webcam looked clear so I went back to bed but didn’t get any more sleep

and the IR image was likewise clear

with the corresponding webcam

Other webcams there looked good also

This was the wind picture

Finally, metars and tafs – mostly not covering the required time span

Metar
EGKK 240720Z 08003KT 3500 BR NSC 01/01 Q1021
EGKA: no results found
EGHI: no results found
EGHH 240650Z 34002KT 3500 BR FEW017 BKN039 06/06 Q1021
EGKB 240720Z 19011KT 5000 HZ NSC 05/04 Q1021
EGMD 240720Z AUTO VRB03KT 8000 FEW006/// 03/03 Q1022

TAF
EGKK 240500Z 2406/2512 22003KT 9999 FEW030 PROB30 TEMPO 2406/2410 4000 BR TEMPO 2410/2418 7000 -RA BKN014 PROB30 TEMPO 2415/2421 BKN008 PROB30 TEMPO 2421/2508 4000 BR BKN004 PROB30 TEMPO 2508/2512 7000 SHRA
EGKA: no results found
EGHI: no results found
EGHH 240658Z 2406/2415 20008KT 3000 BR SCT030 BECMG 2406/2408 9999 NSW TEMPO 2408/2413 8000 -RA BKN012 PROB30 TEMPO 2408/2411 4000 RADZ BKN008
EGKB 240653Z 2406/2415 20009KT 9999 FEW030 TEMPO 2406/2410 4000 BR TEMPO 2410/2415 7000 -RA BKN009
EGMD 240459Z 2406/2415 24005KT 9999 FEW030 TEMPO 2406/2409 7000 PROB30 2406/2408 0300 FG BKN001 PROB40 TEMPO 2413/2415 7000 BKN014

Bear in mind the flight would be 0900-1600…

So, a chance of low cloud but there were some options, including the RNAV02 at Shoreham and a tailwind landing.

So off I went, with a flask of Justine’s mocha and enough camping gear in the plane to sleep on the North Pole. 2 oxygen cylinders, 2 1st stage regulators, 2 2nd stage O2D2 demand regulators. 2 layers of Merino wool thermal underwear in case of camping. Spare batteries. And four pee bottles…

Somewhat hazy day

Cloud tops about 3000ft

The name of the game is to fly high if there is tailwind and low if there is headwind. ASAP, I got onto Lille and got an IFR clearance (much sooner than the filed point) and a climb FL90, later FL110 and FL140 with Paris.

Not a short flight About 950nm total distance as filed.

Landing fuel on board (LFOB) 26 USG which is loads, but I had some 13kt tailwind. A quick calculation indicated that if the winds hold up, more or less, I will land with about 15 USG.

Vatri airfield, with some bizjets operating

Further down, the tailwind dropped off, as predicted by the windy.com image. TAS was about 135kt, with the engine at 2200rpm and slightly LOP for the very best economy. No chance of a shortcut to JUNGF (my user waypoint) due to the French military areas permanently active; presumably expecting the USSR to invade and steal all the Sanofi vaccine

Not much to see on the ground

I had earlier programmed a user waypoint for Jungfrau but had this Swiss VFR chart running on the tablet just to make sure I found the other two in the planned sequence (Mönch and Eiger) and for an idea of nearby elevations

The Alps approaching – always a special sight

Here is gets more interesting. Mountains are deceptive. They always seem higher than you are, especially if there is haze in the distance so you can’t see behind them. Then when you get really close, their heights are as you would expect from the chart and from your GPS altitude

Interlaken

Another chart

Jungfrau is now underneath – 13642ft and about 1000ft below me

The glacier next to it

At this point Swiss ATC, who earlier cleared me for anything below FL150, went somewhat ballistic and demanded a descent below FL130 due to an imminent military exercise. I replied I can’t do it for a while due to the terrain being above that! They kept pressing me, so I started a slow descent (on autopilot, so I could take photos easily) to make it look like I was following orders…

Finsteraarhorn – 14022 feet. I was just below that, at this point… probably, maybe…

Having done Jungfrau and Mönch, I went over the Eiger and turned straight back to England. The Eiger was hard to find. In fact I was not sure I found it at all. It isn’t an “obvious” mountain even when you are sitting at the Eiger Restaurant below it and from above even less so

No photos really but here are a few frames from the external camera. Mönch is immediately ahead in the next two, with the Eiger behind it. But I didn’t know this at the time; I thought the one ahead was Jungfrau.

The Matterhorn was in the original plan but would have cost a few more USG… I will do it on my first flight to Croatia, as soon as we are able to do that sort of trip again. There are some close-up pics of it here which was my last non-circular flight, nearly 6 months ago! I had to sit out a 2 week quarantine after that trip, which was a PITA.

Time for a lunch

I tried to get a good DCT from the mountains but I was still VFR then and Swiss just warned me about a French mil area across the border – LFR158A – which I could not immediately find on the chart, so I asked them for a vector and an IFR clearance, and the result was a dogleg a long way to the west… Another lesson re-learnt many times (if you cancel IFR, do it only for as long as absolutely necessary).

Headwind as forecast; now down to FL070 but the headwind didn’t drop as much as windy.com forecast (it rarely does). LFOB 18 USG and actually we have a little tailwind here

You know then you are approaching England because the wx turns crap

I had been getting wx continuously along the flight, both using the telegram Autorouter bot (on 4G – available very intermittently) and using the Golze ADL satellite system which is great at about €25/month. The Autorouter bot often gets “jammed up” if you ask for an image which it can not download in one go and then you can’t use it for tafs/metars, but the ADL is reliable.

23kt headwind now, with LFOB showing 16USG, but nearly home. IFR was never formally cancelled even though the flight plan called out for that; no need to since I got the direct route I wanted (this bit usually works). I ran down the left tank to the LOW warning light (which comes on at 8 USG in that tank) plus another 20 mins, which would leave me with about 4 USG in that tank, switching to the nearly half full right tank at the N French coast

I descended continuously across the Channel. Here are the cliffs near Seaford, hazy as hell at about 2000ft

A visual circuit and a tight left base

With the wx issue at the end of the flight, it was absolutely wonderful to be back on the ground.

The route flown, from Flightaware

Airborne time 6:50. Landed with 15.3 USG which is about 1.5hrs’ flying time. I have done longer flights but not much.

I expected massive police presence because they had been meeting up every single GA flight which went outside UK airspace – some people have been flying practice approaches in France. But there was nobody…

I have 150GB of HD video which I will try to edit when I get a bit of time. And I have the GPS track if anybody is interested. And of course ATC audio

[ edited for mountain names mixed-up ]