Flew my TB20 to Sion for the last weekend of skiing of the season. Arrived at 18:50 UTC on Friday 12th with ten minutes left until the airport closed. They parked me in the normal Northern parking area after first asking me to go to Farner and even refuelled me before going to get passports stamped. Mine was the only plane there on the northern ramp on Friday night.
Returned today with a bit of a headwind sometimes close to 40 knots but still didn’t go much below 120 knot ground speed.
Out of interest I looked to see what price an EasyJet flight would have been from Geneva to Gatwick on either Saturday or Sunday and they were all full.
Flew my TB20 to Sion
Any feedback on fees?
Landing fee CHF 25.00, Skyguide fee CHF 16.50, parking CHF 6.00 per day and passenger fee of CHF 7.00 each.
No flying this weekend. The next best things is boats 
My stepson is in the Coast Guard, and yesterday the brand new ship KV Jan Mayen docked at Trondheim.
He gave us a tour on board, and what a ship 136m long, 4 X 4800 kW diesel engines from BMV/Rolls Royce (Bergen) directly coupled to electric generators. 3 main thrusters, 2 are 360 degree rotationsl, and two bow thrusters. 4 smaller (two of them rather large actually) speed boats in the hull, hoisted down from the sides. A (token) cannon and helicopter deck with hangar.
Was not allowed to take pictures on board.
The helicopter was supposed to be a NH90. They proved to be so problematic (useless basically), so the government cancelled the contract in 2022 (a scandal really the whole thing). Brand new MH-60 R Seahawks are ordered. The first 3 will come next year and equip this ship and two sister ships.
From a GA point of view, if you have to ditch somewhere in the North Atlantic between Norway and Greenland/Iceland/UK and the North Pole, theres a large chance this ship is what will come to rescue you Good guys and girls the coast guard.
With my annual inspection starting today, I needed to ferry the TB10 from Rotterdam to Teuge (EHTE). Rather than just ferrying, I decided to make a trip out of it and continued on to Bremen (EDDW) for the day. The old architecture in the main square is quite impressive:
I decided to fly VFR, since the weather was nice, and the arrival into Bremen was very straightforward. We were escorted by the follow-me car to the fuel station, then to our parking, after which they drove us to the main terminal. From there it was two minutes walk to the tram, and 11 minutes on the tram to the city center. All very easy and worth the €50 bill compared to cheaper alternatives nearby (which would require a more expensive taxi ride).
Things got a bit more complicated when trying to get back to the airplane. Teuge closes at 20:00 local, so I planned to be at the field by 18:00 to have plenty of time for the 1.2 hour flight (35kt headwinds unfortunately). On arrival we found the GA area, which is not at all obvious. I had to fill out a form, and then take my passenger back to the main security area, where they filled out another form and created a boarding pass for her. I then went back to the GA area to pass through the separate crew security, only to realize I left my credentials in my passenger’s bag. So I had to go back to the main security to have them retrieve those. Finally we got through and made it to this spot:
Both numbers on the sign went unanswered, and we waited at least 20 minutes before anyone showed up to take us to the plane. By the time we were ready to depart it was 18:45. I had called Teuge to inform them of our delay and got the expected “we close at 8” response.
The Bremen CTR is class D, and the D extends to a shelf above the surface area. I was cleared to depart via direct Whiskey, and my cruise altitude was 4500’. I began climbing directly to this altitude, and at Whiskey was passed to Langen Info. When I called them they informed me I needed to stay below 2500’ to remain below class D (I was already at 3500’ when I called). I was confused and thought he was referring to some airspace ahead, so I asked for clarification. He said I had entered class D without a clearance and needed to exit immediately. Since I was only a minute or so from entering the 3500’ floor, I just continued and heard nothing else about it. I had incorrectly assumed that it was the same airspace as the surface class D and therefore that I already received clearance, but in fact it is not. So this was a lesson learned for me. Here’s the flight path with my vertical path also on the bottom, and the red box around the area where I penetrated the class D shelf:
In any case, I was watching the ETA closely on the GPS for the entire flight, and we ended up landing precisely at 20:00!
Silly arrival photo:
LeSving wrote:
The helicopter was supposed to be a NH90. They proved to be so problematic (useless basically), so the government cancelled the contract in 2022 (a scandal really the whole thing).
There was a big scandal around these helicopters in Sweden as well. Both with the procurement (corruption), delivery (10 years delay) and capabilities.
dutch_flyer wrote:
I was cleared to depart via direct Whiskey, and my cruise altitude was 4500’.
Didn’t you get an altitude in your clearance? What was the clearance limit?
This weekend I spent a couple of hours doing much needed airwork and landing practice after not having flown enough in the last few months. Then a coffee run to another airport. I also managed to fix a radio problem with the aircraft. A perhaps not very exciting but most satisfying day.
Went to France LFQB at night, next day back shortcut radar vectors back into Belgian airspace doing a good 194Kts GS @v FL090 with a 160TAS on 12GPH …I looks like my new door seal increased my TAS with 2 Kts 
Never had so much fun flying IFR in a long time :-). Starting to get familiar with the GNX375, awesome box though the typical Garmin interface is what it is….cant have it all…
For sure I will be back very nice place, friendly staff and hotel with swimming pool in 400m from the airport
Airborne_Again wrote:
Didn’t you get an altitude in your clearance? What was the clearance limit?
There was no altitude in the clearance. It was just a VFR departure direct Whiskey with nothing else specified.
