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VFR Trip Report: Camping under the wings in Sweden

In the first week of July, this year’s summer flying trip lead me and my friend Steffi to Scandinavia. Steffi had asked me some weeks ago if I’d like to fly her to Gothenburg around this time where she was going to meet up with her former host parents from a study abroad year in Canada. Naturally, I agreed and we soon realized it would be much more fun to spend a few days exploring rather than a simple “drop-off” flight. As we wanted to spend the money rather on flying than on overpriced accommodation and I’d just bought a tent for a wild camping trip to Oman earlier this year and finally because Scandinavia seems to be a camping paradise, this trip was planned in “tent-under-the-wings” mode. The aircraft was going to be a club-owned (non-UK Sorry – couldn’t resist) nice and slow, basic C172 from EDLP Paderborn that I’d booked for the week. It’s the same one I came with to the Lausanne impromptu meetup in March 2015, for those who remember. Our time constraint was Monday morning to Friday evening: I had a wedding to attend on Saturday after the trip.

Originally, we agreed to meetup in Hamburg on Monday, where Steffi would arrive from a weekend trip to London to see Adele. Yet not only did Adele cancel the final two concerts of her world tour in Wembley stadium due to in-op vocal cords, but also flying into Hamburg turned out to be impossible in the weeks before the G20 circus (there was a notamed ED-R with a 30 NM radius active during the event and all GA activities were banned from EDDH Hamburg as early as two weeks before the event). So we chose EDHL Lübeck as our new meeting point. That was ok for me because a) I had rented a life raft from a Lübeck-based outfit that sells and rents out sea and air safety equipment and b) I spend a lot of time in Lübeck for work so I’m familiar with the area anyway (and I was able to return the life raft during the next week when I was back for business).

In order to be able to fly out early on Monday, I planned to fly to Lübeck on Sunday afternoon already. However, weather initially delayed me and I almost abandoned that idea. Eventually, things cleared up but by the time I was airborne out of EDLP, I realized I wasn’t going to make it in time to EDHL before they closed. These are the moments when you realize how laughable airport opening hours really are. I would have been about 2-3 minutes late, so I couldn’t do it (or pay a hefty PPR fee for the fire brigade and all to stay a little longer). The natural diversion was EDDV Hannover and I didn’t mind much because I hadn’t landed there before (only just read good things about it from @MedEwok’s training flight). Landing and dealing with ground staff in Hannover was indeed pleasantly relaxed. As I stay in hotels a lot for work, I collect those bonus points and that comes in handy when you have an unplanned stopover such as this. I instantly got a room with the Crowne Plaza in the city center, had a nice pizza and a good night of sleep before continuing the next morning to Lübeck, where I would pick-up Steffi and the raft as planned.

At Lübeck airport, we discussed our first destination. We both wanted to leave Germany and I had wanted to visit Femø for quite some time so we filed a flight plan there. Anything further west would have sent us into an area of intense precipitation. We had an hour until the filed time, which we used to load the plane, have a coffee at the GAT and take a pre-departure selfie.

Steffi had flown with me before, but actually became a bit nervous after take-off. It was a reasonably warm day with the occasional bumps and she didn’t appreciate me flying turns, initially. We made it a running gag throughout the trip that I’d have to announce any turn so she could mentally prepare: “Turning left now”. Unfortunately, we didn’t get too far on this first flight. Overhead the island of Fehmarn, we realized that we wouldn’t be able to proceed any further North at this point due to a distinctly mean-looking area of low, grey cloud and precipitation (which had moved in from the West). We could have changed our flight path to the East, but we didn’t like that idea. We could have turned around to EDHL, but we liked that even less. So I started looking for the airfield of Fehmarn, which I was soon able to make out amidst the other green fields thanks to an aircraft taking off! I called in on their radio but we got no response. Still, I thought: If other airplanes can take off, surely I can land here! So we left our cruising altitude to enter the traffic pattern in the same direction as the departing traffic, making several calls on the airfield frequency and trying to keep the other airplane in sight. When we were established on final, we got a response from the other pilot, who we would learn just minutes later on the ground, was Klaus, the airfield owner. He told us “Moin! Na, dann landet mal…” which roughly translates into “Well then, go ahead and make your landing, guys!”.


This is what we didn’t want to fly into.


Once on the ground, I closed my flight plan via phone call and a few minutes later, Klaus had landed as well. Here we were, at what he claims is Germany’s smallest airfield (not: shortest runway). It consists of a runway, a windsock, and an old camper, which serves as the C-office, so to speak. The guy runs and owns this airfield privately and offers sightseeing flights to tourists everyday from 15:00-18:00. There are no other based pilots (apart from his two children, which help out flying guests around) and there was no other traffic at all. We sat with him in the camper and exchanged stories. He is quite a character. Initially we thought we’d be leaving after an hour or two, but conditions didn’t really improve so in the end, we decided to begin our holiday on Fehmarn. Klaus would let us camp on the airfield for another 5 Euros. He then gave us a lift into the next village and recommended some restaurants to us. We chose the Aalkate, a local fish restaurant with a nice terrace (that we couldn’t enjoy because soon enough, it started to pour down heavily). The fish was good, but not great.


We walked back to the airfield after dinner and a few beers. Of course by now, the ground was very wet and there were some thunderstorms in the vicinity. Since Klaus had specifically instructed us on how to open the camper in case we need to get inside, we left the tent packed and spent the night inside. The bench was a bit short for me, but it was cozy enough nonetheless.


The next morning, it was mega windy. The wind was more or less direct on runway heading, but we weren’t in a hurry to leave and rented bicycles instead to explore the island. Of course, on the bicycle, we had to fight the wind with muscle power. We were rewarded by a lovely cake in the island’s main town “Burg”, where we called DFS-AIS to submit our new flight plan (filing via SkyDemon didn’t work on that day). We skipped Femø and went flew directly to Höganäs in Sweden, which I’d read good things about.




Me preparing for the next flight


Femø in sight

We were easily cleared through Roskilde airspace and soon after, we already left Danish airspace and started to look out for Höganäs. The airfield is not easy to spot – I only saw it when already established downwind (thanks to SkyDemon and enough traffic on the radio to know the active runway). The approach is interesting because the runway is shortish (though not super short) and there’s a number of trees on short final. Once parked, we were greeted by a local club member and he wanted to know if we came for the Hering BBQ fly-in. Although it was recommended in this thread https://www.euroga.org/forums/trips-airports/7823-5-days-in-southern-scandinavia-tips-and-hidden-gems-wanted, I didn’t specifically plan for the Hering, so we were lucky and surprised. We were one of the first to arrive and once we’d settled in and had setup our tent, the airfield was full of guests from nearby airfields in Sweden and Denmark who came to sit together, eat Hering and talk. A great experience! The hospitality at Höganäs is unparalleled. By the time we finished dinner, we were equipped with keys to the bicycle shed, car keys (against a modest fee, if we used it) and keys to the club house, where we could have stayed over as well. We decided to camp, but were happy to use their showers and the kitchen in the morning to prepare our own breakfast. We spent all Wednesday exploring the area by bicycle. We left the town of Höganäs (which was larger and more active than I’d imagined) quickly behind and cycled along the shore to the beautiful, picturesque town of Mölle and then further to the peninsula of Kullaberg, where we hiked to the tip of the peninsula for some great views.






Swedish aeroclub humor


We had dinner in Mölle and began considering our evening flight. Note how in summer in Sweden, you can do that: It was already around 18:00 local time and we still had to bicycle back a few kilometers, but thanks to the late sunset, you have plenty of time to fly in the evening. We decided our next destination would be Visingsö, which is an island located in the middle of lake Vättern, just north of Jönköping. A quick weather check revealed there were chances of thunderstorms in that area by the time we’d get there, but nothing that we wouldn’t be able to circumfly.


After take off from Höganäs in the evening sun, we flew along the shore at low altitude for the great views, then negotiated a higher altitude to pass through Halmstäd airspace. Later, we did indeed encounter those thunderstorms we’d seen forecast earlier. They were directly on-course, in fact one big, fat TCU sat directly over Jönköping. As the line of TS was moving eastwards, we could easily fly a bit further west to avoid. Based on the planned flight time vs. actual flight time, we lost almost no time. If more TS had come up to block our path, there were plenty of small grass fields along the route that we could have made a landing into – but that wasn’t necessary. Upon reaching the island of Visingsö, I had, in my 5th year of flying, for the first time the opportunity to determine the appropriate runway based on wind direction by myself. Never happened before: In Germany and for that matter many other airfields in Europe, you do have someone on the ground announcing the wind. I’ve not done any farm strip flying in the UK or the like. There was almost no wind at the time though and we landed on runway 19 – a beautiful approach from the lake! After parking near the club house, we hurried to setup our tent. It was already a few minutes after sunset, but we still had enough light for almost an hour. We then met Joachim and Christina, a German pilot with his wife from Northern Germany who were on a similar trip, in their own restored Cessna 150. Obviously, the payload of that airplane doesn’t allow for camping equipment, so Joachim and Christina had booked the club house, which has room for I believe two people. We spend the evening with them, wine, and flying stories. Joachim is a big fan of flying into very small, non-ICAO, non-Skydemon airfields in Denmark that he learns about via word-of-mouth. Something I might like to do in the future…






After two days of bicycling, we spent the day on Visingsö just relaxing at the airfield. We had a long breakfast by the airplane, then went to checkout the nearby (really nearby!) beach and went swimming. It was cold, but doable. In the afternoon, we packed up and I flew Steffi to Jönköping, where she left for a train to Gothenburg and I fueled up for the flight back home. First time that I needed my AirBP card, which was a pain to get (https://www.euroga.org/forums/flying/2247-air-bp-fuel-card-merged?page=6#post_116221). The flight back home was going to be interesting. It was a long flight (in fact, turned out to be my longest leg flown with 4:40 h due to a consistent, if not very strong headwind) and while there were heavy thunderstorms forecast in the destination area, it was hard to predict in the afternoon exactly how it would look like 5 hours or so later. I wanted to make sure to get at least as far south as possible. The next day, Friday, would have brought really bad WX and I didn’t want to miss the wedding on Saturday. Still, no get-home-itis: I was prepared to make a landing anywhere when necessary and leave the plane and retrieve it later. The Sweden portion of the flight was uneventful. In Denmark, this time I didn’t get cleared through the airspace and stayed below the rather busy Copenhagen TMA at 1400 ft. Approaching Germany, the second time on this trip I was affected by G20, which was by now ongoing. I had to adjust my flight path towards the east to stay clear of the notamed restricted area. One guy on frequency had no clue about it and was heading straight towards it, until advised by Bremen Information not to do that. As soon as I crossed the border into Germany, I focused a lot on weather, by listening to what others said on the frequency, but also by retrieving constant radar updates and METAR/TAFs via Autorouter. I was lucky so far: I would definitely make it to Hannover again. From there, it was a tactical decision to either continue to Paderborn or stay in Hannover. From Hannover onwards, I was on Bremen Radar, as the FIS frequency Bremen Information was already closed for the day. Just overhead Hannover airfield, I saw a phone call coming in from DFS-AIS – presumably about my flight plan! I don’t have a fancy Bose bluetooth headset, so no way could I answer the call. I contacted Bremen Radar and told them about the phone call. Indeed: He checked with AIS and they were looking for me because I was behind schedule (the accumulated time loss due to that headwind). But when I didn’t pick up, they’d already reverted to flightradar24 and found me. After passing Hannover, the latest WX information looked good, so I continued on to Paderborn to land just before the end of civil evening twilight (with last year’s night rating and me alone in the plane, that wasn’t a factor though) without seeing any precipitation or TS inflight. Only when I drove home afterwards for an hour or so – boy, where those short, local thunderstorms intense!


Hannover EDDV

With two people flying, you can really bring a lot of stuff with you on such a trip. I had a hard time fitting that all into my car later.

And if you’ve read this far (or scrolled down for the images ), here’s a short video with some impressions filmed with the DJI Mavic drone:



Hope you enjoyed reading and watching!

Hungriger Wolf (EDHF), Germany

Great write up! And sounds like it was a great trip

I visited Hoganas many years ago on a PocketFMS flyin. Beer was handed into the cockpit within 15 seconds of the engine being shut down!

Thanks for taking the time to tell us about the trip!

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Thanks for sharing, Patrick! Very interesting to read and glad it all worked out for you! You’re doing well demonstrating how international GA touring can work just fine in club/rental aircraft, setting an example for me and others

I will be moving to Hannover next week, maybe we can meet there or in EDLP someday :)

Last Edited by MedEwok at 05 Aug 19:09
Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

Nice trip!

Super report, Patrick. Thanks very much for writing it up

The quality of the DJI stabilised camera is stunning!

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Fantastic trip Patrick, thanks for sharing!

Private field, Mallorca, Spain

MedEwok wrote:

I will be moving to Hannover next week, maybe we can meet there or in EDLP someday :)

Definitely! Also, I remember from another thread you’re planning to fly out to EDLE sometime. Happy to meet up there, too! Both have nice restaurants with a view.

Peter wrote:

The quality of the DJI stabilised camera is stunning!

Indeed! To the point that I get slightly annoyed by the non-stabilised GoPro footage, which might lure me into buying a Karma Grip at some point.

Hungriger Wolf (EDHF), Germany

Patrick wrote:


Definitely! Also, I remember from another thread you’re planning to fly out to EDLE sometime. Happy to meet up there, too! Both have nice restaurants with a view.

Yes EDLE is very high on my “go to” list because my sister lives nearby and compared to my “home airspace” its a much more interesting challenge to navigate there.

What kind of camera did you use for the aerial photos?

Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

Yes EDLE is very high on my “go to” list

I flew to EDLE last weekend. Arrived on Friday and left on Sunday. Parked on the hard apron just in front of the restaurant, with a short walk to the tower and the gate.

Very friendly airport. A blimp took off from the grass just as I landed. Very smooth handover to Langen for IFR clearance. They called me on Monday to obtain my noise certificate because it would be cheaper.

LFPT, LFPN

To the point that I get slightly annoyed by the non-stabilised GoPro footage, which might lure me into buying a Karma Grip at some point

Yes; you got a bit of jello there, which could be the mount or it could be interaction between the airframe vibration and the camera stabilisation – see the X3000 thread in the IT section. I would not necessarily expect a DJI-type stabilised mount to deal with airframe vibration; they are good for stuff like walk/ski/bike videos. The X3000’s optical stabilisation very definitely can’t hence my “epoxy solution”

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
13 Posts
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