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

Best is to go after a cold front passage

Tha’s exactly my intention

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Tigerflyer wrote:

The C177RG is not the best climber at all but all in all with two people and 200 Liter of fuel it was ok for that day. We climbed up to 9500ft from LOIH through the valley to Innsbruck turned left to the Zugspitze and returned to Friedrichshafen (EDNY).

Our old NA 177RG was not that bad and we did achieve FL170 immediately (*) after t/o at max gross on an ISA+10 day. Perhaps the modified engine with high-compression pistons helped. I guess we became used to 200fpm climb performance at altitude…fact is we did eventually get there. With 2POB and half fuel FL150 with decent climb rates was easily achievable…and that’s really all you need to comfortably fly anywhere in the Alps VFR

(*)Well, actually more like 40 mins after T/O

Some pics from our EDNY-LFLG formation trip a decade back…biggest issue was formating the 177 on the slower, fp prop CAP-10, that they managed to progressively get to FL160 (no big deal for our 177, which we had to throttle back to 2200rpm with flaps10)

JungfrauJoch inbound Aletschgletsher

Antonio
LESB, Spain



Representative climb rates for the trip…

Matterhorn

enroute to Mt Blanc

Mt Blanc summit

Oh, boy…do I remember that one…

All I can say is, if you are comfortable with mountain flying and you have a good day, try and get a formation companion for air-to-air pics!

Antonio
LESB, Spain

Might potentially give some ideas, but the UK Channel 5 Scenic Railways programme showed the Bernina and Glacier Express lines with some spectacular views in valleys up to around 7 000’.

Stapleford, United Kingdom

It looks like I will do this in February, and combine it with skiing somewhere.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Don’t miss the opportunity to fly around the Mont Blanc



LECU - Madrid, Spain

Beautiful. From where is it possible to do these? Annecy is a good airport for the French end but with winter movement restrictions. Of course there are others. Even Colmar is just “up the road”.

One has to be VFR and I don’t have current VFR charts for the Alps, and some of the airspace is full of restricted areas, and airspace to which I could never get into when I used to fly VFR, which is why I want to fly with a local. If I could be sure of a route or an area, I could do it myself.

I cancelled this weekend (was going to pop down to Sion tomorrow) due to the weather – hard to be sure of being able to get back home in the next few days. Also could not find any local co-pilot.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The day I took those pics, I departed from Gap LFNA. As has been already mentioned in this thread, it’s a good base for exploring the Alps area. I followed the valley of Grenoble and Albertville up to the Mont Blanc, and returned to Gap. Very early in the morning, so the atmosphere was calm. Strong wind up there but pretty laminar indeed.

LECU - Madrid, Spain

Coolhand wrote:

Very early in the morning, so the atmosphere was calm. Strong wind up there but pretty laminar indeed.

Thanks for the pics, really impressive, 100% worth an early weak up for me !

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Yes, really beautiful. And no ugly skilift disturbs the picture.

Berlin, Germany
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