Short trip to Corse and Sardegna

One the year I’m doing a long weekend-trip together with one of my buddies. He is flying and I can feel like an active passenger. After beeing in Spain and France four years ago, followed by a flight to England, Ireland and Scottland, then last year to Sweden and Finnland, we decided this year to go to Ajaccio (LFKJ), Cagliari (LIEE) and Calvi (LKVC).
We departed with best weather at EDDS and used the most direct routing heading south over the alps on vfr.

Coming closer to Italy we had to pick up IFR because we got some clouds coming from the south. But anyway it was our planing to use IFR to stay high overflying Milano airspace.

Not a usual view of passing aircraft when flying IFR.
When coasting out to Corse the weather start to get better again and we got some nice views when reaching the northern part of Corse. We where routeted along the west coast to LFKJ.



Ajaccio is a small town, nice to walk around for one afternoon and enjoy the good food there. Take a hotel in the old town, that serves best.

The Germans will know why we like this bus stop.
Next morning we startet early to go to Cagliari. Although we read that the airport is expensive and VFR flying in Sardegna not very popular we were curios to visit the town. So we asked for PPR 24 hours ago, got an answer within minutes, choosed Aeroservice for handling, got no answer at all, but when we arrived Bruno was there, did a good job and the pricing was absolutely reasonable: 86 € alltogether for 1 night with the BE33. Bruno gave us his private phone number and when departing earlier on Saturday we gave him a call and ten minutes later he arrived from home on the airport.

Bonifacio, Corse

Approaching LIEE

Bruno doing his job. The days after we could see his colleagues at Calvi doing it the french style and it ended up in a total mess. At Calvi the gave us a “not to park here position” in the deep grass with the order to push back the aircraft by hand. When I adressed, that this is impossible they told us I should do what I want, but I do have to park it in the row. Finally I convinced the french guy to shut up, restarted the engine and showed him how he should do his job next time better. Unbelievable, but at Calvi the story wasn’t over …
But back to Caligari. We got a nice B&B in the town and because the town is build on a hill we joined a segway tour for the sightseeing.

In the morning when we woke up it rained. So we decided not to go to Olbia, which was our first intention, but to go to Calvi. Good idea regarding the weather.



Calvi was our last stop and finally it was the highlight too. I have been there several times and I like the location beetween the snowy mountains, the beach and the old towns castle. And everytime when we have been there we found a very good place for dinner. This time it was the “Table de Sabine”. Excellent.

On Sunday we left and then on the airport the GA Service horror continued. The police guys doing the security check at the GA bulding where unable to take our data correctly. They asked for the destination, I spelled EDDS they wrote ESSD, I corrected them EDDS, they answered no, ESSD is right. No chance to change their minds. Then the lady at the GA counter liked to fill out the form I filled out the day before. She asked me bout the destination. EDDS. She wrote EEDS. No chance to argue. Finally in the aircraft I got via radio the information, that our flightplan is not valid. It was filled by autorouter and acknowledged. I told them, we had to wait and to wait and finaly they said we had to call AIS. I told them again about the acknowledgment I got by SMS. Suddenly she said, okay start up approved.
To me it looks like that the guys in France do not work together with Eurocontrol anymore. Four flights in the last month, four times filed with autorouter or DFS, four times acknowledged and allways when in flight or before departure the flightplan was missing. Once they closed them in flight because, as they told us on radio, you are two hours to late. After I insisted that I have a copy with me and we are exactly in time and I will continue to Germany without a not necessary landing, they said they had reopened the plan.
Back to the end of the Calvi story. When reaching EDDS they had to flight announced with our Callsign one coming from LFKC and one from EEDS. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?
Here are some last pictures from the flight back to EDDS. We departed IFR and finished VFR as soon as reaching north of the alps.

Milano

Getting out of the clouds.


Nearly at home.
I hope you like the story about our short trip southbound.