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

I was going to do this flight today but cancelled, due to

• Biggin Hill (the only alternate which opens late nowadays) is closed in the morning for an ILS replacement; if this slips then I will have no alternate should I have to refuel because the other places are either shut (Lydd) or shut at say 5pm (Southend). And staying in France overnight would trigger a quarantine in the UK, and possibly France before that which would be a massive disaster, even though I had a tent with me.

• I need to make sure French refuel options are NOT self service because as a non French speaker I cannot work out the fuel pumps. I have never succeeded. Even with a UK AIR BP card you get English text initially and then it goes back to French. In one case (Cascassonne) even a French speaker could not make it work, ATC would send send help, and only a phone call by a well placed person to the airport manager produced a help who turned on a hidden switch. A 1-2hr delay would be a disaster these days, with so few airport options. Specifically I need to check that Bale LFGJ, Lille LFQQ have bowser fuel, or an assistant. It might be easiest to just stop at Aosta LIMW where they have an assistant but if there is fog in that canyon, I won’t get in.

• A risk of fog today. In fact solid fog right now – as forecast. A solid refuel stop is needed and probably needs to be done anyway because of the poor alternates.

• Not enough sleep

• The PHE form website is broken – just keeps sending you email links for verification and every one of them fails; this is sure to bring half of the local police dept to the airport… but I was going to fly anyway, with screenshots of the failed attempts printed off

I had already cut out the Matterhorn to reduce the distance a bit, down to 900nm

and was going to do just Jungfrau (shown as WP1) Monch and Eiger, but with a fuel stop I can do some other places.

Yes; Aletsch glacier was suggested.

The Matterhorn is another 50nm or so, adding 5%.

I need to email those airports to check out the fuel facilities – unless somebody here knows the current situation.

Le Touquet is also a great option – some 10 USG before Shoreham – but they need prior day’s phone call for the pump man to turn up. I don’t have the TOTAL card and anyway the self service pump would be all French.

I have had that for a few years but found it to be variable in whether it works or not. The explanation I’ve been given is that the Google offices have too many couches.

Rather good wx down there right now – Jungfrau has a really classy webcam (expect no less in Switzerland )

Not so great back here but “forecast to clear”

Mountains under cloud

Lille forecasting CBs at around the refuel time (well slightly after, but I might well be departing into this stuff, and likely embedded)
LFQQ 030500Z 0306/0412 VRB02KT 4000 BR NSC TEMPO 0306/0308 2000 BECMG 0308/0310 7000 NSW TEMPO 0317/0412 3000 SHRA BKN040CB PROB30 TEMPO 0317/0320 28020G30KT TSRA TEMPO 0400/0410 1200 BR PROB30 TEMPO 0400/0408 0200 FG VV///

Solid fog here; will probably dissipate. But these are fog-forming conditions, and getting stuck in France (the likely outcome of UK s. coast fogged-in, and not enough in the tanks to go further up) would be a disaster.

Winds at FL100 have gone up

Not going today

I will keep everything packed and ready though. Both Lille LFQQ and Dole LFGJ say they have someone do or help with the refuelling. Dole looks especially friendly, although it would be quite an “early” refuel.

On a zero wind day this flight (minus the Matterhorn) would land with 15-20 USG in the tanks. The Matterhorn is another 4 USG.

Jungfrau webcam today

It is actually a really high grade camera, with a great low light performance.

I had another go at this today, cancelling at the last moment before driving to the airport. The Jungfrau webcam showed this

and it still shows the same. The IR image for Switzerland shows the cloud allright and it has been slowly clearing from the north, but too slowly

Tomorrow there is more wind. It looks like a 20kt tailwind on the way there and a 20kt headwind on the way back, with only a small delta possible by flying at different levels. This has a significant effect on a 140-150kt aircraft.

The Jungfrau webcam got hit by some sort of freezing rain some days ago, and is only now thawing out (sublimating, I am sure, because the OAT there can’t be above 0C) and with some ice still hanging on it, last night it produced this awesome image