I flew mine! A major event, as it has been grounded since ground damage in January. Also, the other party’s insurance settled, so double good news. Engine shockload and work, new propeller, plus some upgrades like a GTN650 and new audio panel. A 2-hour flight at 75% to break in the engine, so I went to look at the Welsh hills. After only having flown twice in 10 months, I didn’t have any problems, which is a recommendation for the benign PA28 design. Joining the gps club is a revelation too 
The ominous Black Mountains
On the weekend of the 27th Sep a lot of us went to Ampuriabrava LEAP for the annual EuroGA “end of summer” fly-in.
It was super successful, despite the dodgy wx enroute from UK and Germany. I think it was about 20-25 people, which was a great group.
@Capitaine Delighted to hear you are back in the air!
That took a long time! May you have many happy flights now that your machine is back flying.
I was in Italy that weekend, so I took my Arrow and flew to Cannes!
Beautiful day! Went there VFR and came back IFR.
Weather prevented us from joining the LEAP fly-in and on Sunday fog delayed the plan to fly to France. So, we went for a local flight around Neuschwanstein castle.
While not in my aircraft and not during the weekend, I completed my first flight as a licensed PPL holder this week and I’m very happy with how it went . I passed the skill test on August 23rd and my PPL arrived four weeks later. Also included was a notice to request yet another license! This one to operate the radio. Fortunately that request took only one week and cost a fraction of the PPL fee (which is steep at 202 EUR!). All this means, I am now legal to fly as PIC two years after the start of my training and 19 months after my first dual instruction flight. Hurray!
Prior to the flight I was in a rush to depart on my filled EOBT; but having arrived 1h early gave ample time for eventualities (such as an occupied fuel pump). Having not flown in four weeks, I was a bit nervous but the perfect weather helped to ease my nerves. The quiet morning air also contributed to a smooth flight. Flying through CAS remains stressful as this is only briefly taught during training; but as a licensed radio operator this shouldn’t be a problem; right? In the end the most stressful event occurred while on the ground as the unit for the barometric altitude display on the G500 PFD was set to inches mercury! I couldn’t fathom why someone would fly around with inHg in Belgium until – while searching for the hectopascals config – I noticed the ‘Reset PFD units’ menu option. I guess someone inadvertently reset the units (hope it wasn’t self inflicted…). Still, it would be nice if the default could be set to hectopascals for this plane. Maybe this is possible on the G500?
Another issue was the moving map on the G500 MFD not loading. Not really a big problem as I don’t bother to program the flight into the avionics and I brought my VFR map, a plog and SD. It turns out I forgot to clear a boot status message on the GTN650 (which drives the G500 moving map) and this caused the map display to be INOP. I have to admit I didn’t figure this out until 15 minutes into the flight… Commanding the radio on the GTN650 works just fine without clearing this message; as I remediated the issue while already on the third radio station. The difference training I received for this DR40 should probably have focused more on the avionics; which are far more complex than anything I encountered before (and I consider myself fluent in anything ‘computer related’).
I tried taking some photos while in the air, but it turns out taking decent pictures while flying is hard. Can you guess the airport in the photo below though?
Next is to take some family and friends flying. There are two 3 year olds I’d like to take flying. But they might still be a bit too young (even when accompanied by an adult)? The last thing I’d want is to scare them from flying; as our cockpits are loud and turbulent at times…
@FlyingHog easy, Ostend!
I was going to go to the EuroGA Spain fly in, but got distracted instead by Danish things. The weather wasn’t so warm there but the heavy rain made for some interesting views.
I flew direct from home base to Vamdrup/Kolding:
I unfortunately arrived a little late and this coincided with the police not being there to check my passport. This culminated in an email from the Danish police a couple days later asking me to call them next time to “ask them why they aren’t there” and that “hopefully next time we get to see your passport”. This laid back attitude is great after dealing with UK Border Force.
Tucked up at Vamdrup:
Vamdrup turned out to be an easy airfield to base from for a few days. Operating outside opening hours is no problem at all. The parachute club has a bar so we ended up with some free beers, what’s not to like?
I also visited Aarhus which was a really easy airport. The only problem is the busses from the airport to the town only coincide with commercial flights, so on the way back to the airport I was stuck taking a taxi which cost ~850 DKK… There was some windy weather that day and so I departed Vamdrup in a solid 20kt crosswind, not a problem in practice and simply keeping the tailwheel locked and pinned down on the tarmac until airborne kept things in order with no drama. I find the tailwheel flying really adds another dimension to flying as you have to really consider the conditions, pointing at the floor and then pulling back a bit until you touch down just isn’t how it works. Executing a smooth wheeler in 15kt across and dropping the tailwheel down just as you reach the turnoff provides great satisfaction…
A cloud pooping out a rainbow:
Whilst in Billund I took the opportunity to visit the Lego house and get a lego kit for my nephew who was born last week. It’s a few years early but I wanted to get prepared in good time!
A @boscomantico favourite, Rendsburg on the way home for cheap fuel and schnitzel.
Midden Zeeland on the way home to exit schengen. Easy as always and a super smooth grass runway.
Finally, in preparation for my upcoming engine build, some new cylinders arrived from Ly-Con, with flow matched, CNCed and polished ports.
I did MEP revalidation at LOWG, the one that prevented me from attending LEAP fly-in.
Vamdrup turned out to be an easy airfield to base from for a few days.
Kolding is really friendly and easy airport although the fuel is a bit more expensive than in rest of Danmark.
Great pics.
Worth a mention that the UK police watch you on FR24 (probably Flightaware nowadays since FR24 is pretty well finished for non ADSB targets) and if you are late, they just stay at the cafe
