Antonio wrote:
What a privilege to fly to Svalbard in the cockpit of a 737. You must have felt exhilarated!
I’ll have to tell you that story in private one day but yes.
DAY3 & ON: SVOLVAER
The flight to Svolvaer had been longer than it needed to be: 100NM or almost 50% more than GC. Flown at around 1000ft AGL (err…in reality AMSL: we did not overfly much ground), avg GS was 130KT GS and we used 11USG for about 9NMPG at 55-65% power settings. Our kind of improvised routing had been rather snakey.We had remained in class G airspace but mostly been talking to Polaris Control throughout (Stockholm Syndrome again?) , extremely good coverage no matter where you are…and briefly with Leknes airport info as we edged their TIZ, and of course Svolvaer (Helle) info on arrival.
Landing fees at Avinor airports are paid online. There are no parking fees for GA under 2tons at most Avinor airports. You can pay a weekly or monthly or yearly fee with unlimited number of landings, or, as I elected, a one-off fee for every landing. I paid about 36EUR for 1814kg…not bad for having an airport 100% available (unscheduled AFIS included) to ourselves! Otherwise the fee is arguably reasonable. Interestingly, I had paid Bodo before departure, but not Rost. I later received a kind email form Avinor asking me whether it had been in error…so I paid post the fact. Just like Montpellier, right? Anyway the system is pretty simple and, since there are no parking fees, the amount is very straightforward, unlike most EU airports where you have to wait and pay in the last minute, or after the fact, factoring parking fees based on actual departure (and sometimes with many obscure additional concepts)
ENSH
The landing at Svolvaer ENSH was interesting as I should have logged two landings (but only paid one): slope on RWY 36 is downhill at average -0.5%, which is quite flat. I would say it is flat for the first 200m, then down at 1-2% then flattish again from mid-runway. This time I had the full 950m bird-less runway available so I aimed for a greaser, mindful of the high landing weight. We touched down very smoothly maybe 150m past the threshold then immediately and before I could lower the nose, the runway dropped down from under us and here we were gliding along the runway 1ft above it, engine at idle, stall warning beeping then touching down again 150m further downhill. Translation: I botched the landing, just to mildly dent an otherwise gorgeous flight. Plenty of runway remaining so no big deal…next time maybe I’ll just raise the flaps or aim a couple of knots slower…
Touchdown#1
Parking instructions were, in pure Norsk relaxed fashion “close to the edge at the corner near the orange airplane”…a beautiful SF260. I could picture it rolling inverted above one of the numerous local peaks. This (the parking, not so much the rolling) would impede taxiing via the yellow line, but AFIS and the firemen did not seem to care…pilots should know where to taxi. Again just like in Spain (not)
I shut down and closed my eyes smiling as if to take in what we had just experienced. Checked with the boys then pushed back into parking and set off to unload all our stuff for the first time since we left Mallorca. We seemed like a group of sherpas carrying our customer’s heavy stuff across the edge of the apron…but the firemen did not seem too bothered. They were happy to chat and we left with them a small token of appreciation from Mallorca. Exit to groundside (and back) is via the fire station.
Our Getaround car was parked as agreed just outside the exit and we immediately drove the 20 mins to our Austenesfjord seaside AirBnB: our home-to-be for the next week.
It was a beautiful house looking much better than in the pictures with nice hiking opportunities around and a short drive to the airport. We dropped our stuff, and immediately I set-off to try the cold fjord waters…
Our host was a local fisherman who lived in the house next to our own. In a totally unplanned way, we were blessed with the best gift we could have had for our teenage daughter: the like-aged daughter of our host. That apparently simple fact completely and positively changed the whole experience for her.
Mum was arriving on the next Wideroe flight from Bodo (and Olso-Copenhaguen-Palma) so we later went to pick her up at the airport and took the opportunity to verify the P210 was properly parked and tied down to a pair of concrete-filled tires. The firemen knew us by then and it was an easy seamless access.
Some pics of the area around our place. Some snow left on the Northern slopes.
For the next few days, there would be some good weather and some variable…with sunny and rainy spells. We spent the sunny days hiking some mountains, enjoying the scenery, and the not-so sunny visiting places like the viking museum (no, they are not all Vikings, those were just the few raiders) , Henningsvaer (nice and touristic), Leknes (not much to see there) some remote beaches, draining the oceans (aka rediscovering long-sunken steamboats in the low-tide), walking around our place, spending some time with our hosts, going on an improvised midnight fishing expedition (you don’t get a 10pm knock on your door with an invite for an immediate, impromptu fishing trip everyday) , and…simply enjoying life’s gifts and the most beautiful of places.
Some pics from our climb to Offersoykammen
including Leknes in the background
Hauklandstranda
Austenesfjord on a rainy day
The Lofoten Links in Gimsoya with the Northern Lofotens in the distance
Climbing the Hoven
Gymsoystraumen bridge connecting Austvagoya to Gimsoya
Henningsvaer
The viking museum and festival
it was not all good wx
berry picking
Leknes airport terminal
Midnight fishing…note it does not get dark at night, it goes from dusk to dawn seamlessly
In the meantime, we were monitoring weather for our next flight to Roskilde. We hade some business to do there the following week so had to try and make it! We were also trying to set up an EuroGA meetup at Trodheim half way to Roskilde, and it was not looking good…
But I’ll leave that story for the next instalment!
That is absolutely awesome. Lost for words really! It’s like on another planet.
Thank you for such great reports.
This format of trip is pretty much my aviation dream, and reading the story gets me even more impatient to finish my training ^^ (the last strech of my PPL training is, as often, slowed down by fall weather and FI schedule, which is frustrating !)
Yes, it is quite a unique place.
@maxbc don’t despair…you’ll get it done and soon you will be telling us of trips of your own! Admittedly, Lofotens is a bit of a stretch for a new PPL, and weather likes to play a lot over there, so you need to be ready to play too! But there plenty of opportunities around France so you can progressively get comfortable with going places. Lots of great advice herein. As to flying with family and friend pax, my advice is to take it slow and easy: non-flyers tend to get emotional about flying and a single bumpy flight could put them off forever.
Dan wrote:
you sure look pretty fit
Oh, no! You blew my cover! I set this whole trip up so I could show off without looking like a show-off ;)
Seriously, that was before I jumped into the water, you should have seen me after swimming in the cold fjord: my chest was twice the size and I felt 10 years younger :)
Wonderful pictures! Love every one of them.
Seeing that no wonder LeSving is not too keen to fly outside Norway. Who would with all this beauty around them.
Keep it coming.
I running out of superlatives! The scenery is just amazing!
How much of your trip could have been done vfr?
Three out of the five long legs were only possible IFR. The rest OK for VFR but a lot more work. You need to be a lot more flexible if only VFR.
Having said that, my impression is that wx up North is a lot lower altitude in Spring and Autumn than summer, and that high-altitude VFR is easy inNorway vs the rest of Europe. You have to be careful not to be trapped on top but doable. Also, some locals advise “VFR” on the coastline is possible, but my experience and my pictures show it is populated by multiple islands.
Short flights, no prob: you just pick your flying days. Long flights VFR, not so easy
All my short flights were VFR
