Flights Archives - Page 3 of 8 - Golf Hotel Whiskey

14-hour flight with the new Avidyne R9

By Uwe Nitsche. Uwe Nitsche is founder of the software development company Xgenta Ltd. (www.Xgenta.com)

Last week I had the opportunity to fly the Avidyne R9 demonstrator aircraft (a Cirrus SR22 G3) across Europe. The route took us from Oxford to southern Germany, to Vienna then Budapest and back to Gloucester. With a total time of fourteen hours there was plenty of opportunity to get intimate with the Avidyne’s new avionics system.

Having around 500 hours experience with the Entegra 1 system, I was looking forward to see what the improvements would be like in real life. I had seen the table-top demonstrator unit on two occasions before and came away from that experience with doubts about whether the new system would really be that much better.

Let me tell you that there is a huge difference between the demonstration unit –which does not have a GPS- and the actual aircraft. Looking back on it all it is really hard to imagine the impact on your flying when sitting in front of the demonstrator.

Let me run you through our flight across Europe to give you an impression of what it’s like.

A quick visit to Delft

For UK based pilots, the Netherlands is just a short hop away and a great place for a quick weekend trip. In fact, we have posted a few trip reports about visiting the Netherlands in the past and have posted guides for the main points of entry: Rotterdam (EHRD) and Amsterdam Schiphol (EHAM).

However and should you find yourself in Rotterdam, a great day trip out of the city would be a visit to the town of Delft (which also happens to be located between Rotterdam and The Hague). Delft is about a 15 minute drive from the Rotterdam airport and an even shorter trip via train from Rotterdam Central. Hence, visitors can easily arrive in the morning after breakfast, do some sightseeing and have a leisurely lunch before more sightseeing and then head back to Rotterdam for dinner.

Once in Delft, visitors will find a fairly typical Dutch town that has a couple of important claims to fame worth noting, namely for being:

The home and burial place of the painter Johannes Vermeer.
The traditional burial place for the Dutch Royal family as the Nieuwe Kerk contains the family burial vault.
The burial place of Dutch folk hero and privateer Piet Hein.
The home of Delft Blue porcelain or Delftware.

Duxford Airshow

I flew in to the Duxford Airshow on Saturday. (See our Duxford airport review.) I’ve always wanted to fly into a show since I was a kid and I used to visit the Farnborough Airshow (by road). The museum is tremendous and the air show was fantastic. We saw a Typhoon, various aerobatic displays, a Hunter, the Red Arrows and a mock dogfight with four Spitfires (four!), a Hurricane and an ME109. The best bit was on departure when we were queuing for our turn to take off. ATC said to the plane at the head of the queue “After the landing B17, line up…” How cool is that!

Many Spitfires

A beautiful Beech Staggerwing

Sally B – a still-flying B17

An F86 Sabre after its display

The Red Arrows doing their thing (Ahhh, Concorde)

Geneva to Palma by Piper

It was a clear blue sky over a clear blue sea, and we were cruising at 130kts, Palma de Mallorca beckoning, and all was well with the world.

We had departed from Montpellier Candillargues an hour earlier, our Piper Dakota fully fueled with 72 gallons of Avgas, yellow life vests over us, and a life raft that was somewhat uselessly stored in the luggage compartment. We had been handed over from Marseille Information to Barcelona, and for a while there was only silence on the radio, and we were contemplating the beautiful scenery and how incredibly privileged we were.

Montpellier Candillargues airport

Flying across America

Bloggers Jason Schappert of MzeroA.com and Vincent Lambercy of Plastic Pilot are in the process of organizing a cross-country flight across the USA in a Cessna 150. The flight is set to take place roughly a year from now and the pair will be taking off from Daytona Beach in Florida and from there they intend to head to Catalina Island of the coast of Southern California. However, the trip is not intended to be just another cross country junket. With general aviation taking a hit both from the economic downturn and political flack over so called high flying executives, this cross country trip is being organized to promote the positive values and contributions that general aviation contributes to our economy and society. In addition, the pair wish to send the message that general aviation is not just a hobby for the elite or the affluent.

Hence, the pair are seeking donations to help offset the estimated US$15,000 cost of the trip. In return, sponsors will be eligible for several promotion opportunities, including a link on the trip’s official website (FlyingAcrossAmerica.com) to even a sticker on the plane. A single mile can be funded for only US$3.75 and donations can be made from a link the Support Us link directly on the official website.

Thus, we encourage all readers to take the opportunity to view the site about the planned trip and to make a modest contribution to promote and raise awareness surrounding general aviation.

Flying a Dassault Falcon 2000LX across the pond

Robert Mark has posted an entry on Jetwhine about flying a Dassault Falcon 2000LX from the factory in Bordeaux France all the way to the USA for his first Atlantic crossing as a pilot. Also in the cockpit with him was Philippe Delemue, Dassault’s chief pilot in France.

Now, for those of you not familiar with the aircraft, the Dassault Falcon 2000LX is one of the newest members of France’s Dassault Aviation’s Falcon business jet line. The plane is equipped with two Pratt & Whitney Canada engines and is able to fly 4,000 nautical miles (hence, the air craft is perfect for a trans-Atlantic crossing) at Mach .80. The plane also has the capability to climb to almost 41,000 feet in just 18 minutes. Thus, the plane can fly the shortest and most direct route above the weather. As for the interior, the roomy cabin has roughly 6 ft 2 in of headroom and a seating space that measures 7 ft 8 in by 26 ft 2 in. In addition, passengers can do just about everything from making a phone call to watching a variety multimedia type presentations.

Anyway, Mark is still in the process of editing the video he took of his trip and he promises that he will have it uploaded soon.