Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

A short report from trip to Andalucía

Since I always write that I don’t have problems with ATC and airports in any country, after last trip I should add Spain to that list. Initially, I was quite worried about non-responsiveness of the airport authorities and problems in ATC communication because of alleged limited English skills of Spanish controllers. Maybe I’m not too demanding and my English is far from perfect but during this trip it turned out that all communication was smooth and flawless.

The planning started end of June with post on EuroGA asking for some recommendation and advices. It was a good move with lot of useful responses – I can easily say that all responses were very informative and I chose my destination and refueling points based on them.

The crew: Me and my wife, more or less standard crew on my trips.
Setup: I fly while she sleeps unless I need some snacks or water.
The aircraft: DA42.
Flights: Zagreb (LDZA) → Beziers (LFMU), Beziers (LFMU) → Granada (LEGR)
Granada (LEGR) → Carcassonne (LFMK), Carcassonne (LFMK) → Zagreb
Cities visited: Granada, Alcalá la Real, Alcaudete, Espejo, Cordoba, Ecija, Carmona, Seville, Sanlucar de Barrameda, Cadiz, Tarifa, Algeciras, Gibraltar and Malaga

One of the considered options was to fly to each city we wanted to visit but then we realized that there was so much to see in between these cities that we decided for rental car and driving around.

We departed at 7 a.m. from Zagreb with small problem at the beginning – KAP140 was non-functional with trim pitch error that couldn’t be cleared with 10 or so resets. It happened once in the past and after that usually everything is OK or one reset helps to clear the error. So I took off and flied manually for next 4 hours and 15 minutes. That’s why I don’t have many in-flight pictures except this one.

Other than that the rest of the flight was smooth at FL160 with some headwind ranging from 5 to 20 knots. The route was pretty straight forward without many options for shortcuts and there was just one small off-route diversion required by ATC due to traffic around Marseille. Landing to Beziers was easy I got clearance for straight-in NDB approach for RW27 some 30 NM before the airport and few minutes later I got clearance to land. Fuel browser was there immediately sorting out refueling and we went into airport building to grab some sandwiches and water. Funny thing I discovered in donation bowl is Croatian money – “10 kn” bill on top on next picture. That’s the last thing I would expect there because it’s hard to imagine airliner’s connection between Beziers and any Croatian city.

After clearing airport fees (some 20€) we took off towards final destination – Granada. To my surprise autopilot was fully functional with self-test passed in first try without the need for reset. Again the flight was uneventful with almost no turbulences over Pyrenees, everything smooth at FL160. The filed route was pretty much direct except the beginning but as soon as we took off we got direct to PUMAL and from there to BCN, VLC and YES by Spanish ATC. No misunderstanding, no problems, every direct and every altitude I asked for I got immediately. The landscape was beautiful and some nice lakes could be seen although we were not able to get good pics due to haze. When we started to descend towards Granada we realized how hot was down there – TAF report was 43 degrees. And we experienced moderate turbulence on approach – ATC gave me instruction to perform standard approach ILS Z for RW09. Landing was easy, airport almost empty, hot like in hell and we packed the aircraft and left the apron as soon as possible.

Using Airbnb we booked a nice apartment in Albaicin the most beautiful quarter in Granada with view to magnificent Alhambra.

We spent two days in Granada, visiting Alhambra and Generalife, cathedral, walking narrow streets of Albaicin and Realejo, climbing to Sacromonte and taking zillion pictures.


After Granada we drove towards Cordoba avoiding highway and making breaks in few beautiful old cities.

Alcalá la Real

Alcaudete

Espejo

Arrival to Cordoba at 9:30 p.m. revealed that no relief would come with night 43 degrees in the shade or Roman ruins.

Cordoba is really impressive, we spent two days there visiting famous Mezquita, Calahorre, Alcazar, Ecuestre, Arab baths and of course some good restaurants.





After Cordoba we drove towards Seville making breaks in Ecija and Carmona.

Carmona has a big castle which part is renovated to hotel Parador de Carmona.

Seville was more challenging for walking on super-hot temperatures simply because the distances are longer. However, this didn’t prevent us from buzzing around for two days visiting Cathedral and climbing its famous tower Giralda, visiting Alcazar and its beautiful gardens, Fabrica de Tabacos etc.



The rest of the journey in next post

Last Edited by Emir at 14 Aug 10:57
LDZA LDVA, Croatia

You are very brave man for doing southern central Spain in high summer!

The pics are great though.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Brilliant photos! Thanks for posting! Looking foward to the next installment.

But 43C! I think I’d have stood under a cold shower for the whole time!

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Super pics and a great report Emir

The old Spanish cities are just wonderful. I did Granada (the Alhambra) c. 2008, Zaragoza 2007, Salamanca October 2014, and a few others like Valencia. The airports were mostly hassle-free, but at 1 or 2 one would save hours if one could speak Spanish.

I might do another one this year. Trips like that are a good way to round off the year. N Europe is usually horrible October onwards and the Adriatic and Greece are no better. Spain often remains sunny and flyable till almost November, although the day after I flew out of Salamanca the wx closed in and was totally crap the rest of the year!

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Thanks for sharing Emir, nice pictures!

How do you reset the KAP140? Just by pulling the A/P circuit breaker? Or some other procedure?

As a non-native English speaker I concur your finding that ATC is no problem at all in Spain.
From all the countries in Europe I find that ATC in the UK is the most difficult to understand.

Thanks Emir for a wonderful report and look forward to the next chapter.
Very good to hear all went smooth with Spanish ATC. My experience is that all goes fine in standard operations when only standard english phraseology is needed, but when special things happen, it gets more complicated for many of them, especially at the smaller fields..

Private field, Mallorca, Spain

lenthamen wrote:

From all the countries in Europe I find that ATC in the UK is the most difficult to understand.

I couldn’t agree more.

172driver wrote:

the most difficult to understand.

The language I have no problem with but the ATC system surely takes some getting used to. More than driving on the left lane and using two water taps Once you got the hang of it, it is extremely powerful and very well suited for the UK weather (low level IMC most of the time). It’s just not as easy and comfortable as in continental Europe.

ATC legibility in the UK varies a lot. London Control is superb. The military units tend to be the worst, not helped by really crap equipment. In between you get various grades.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

How do you reset the KAP140? Just by pulling the A/P circuit breaker? Or some other procedure?

Pulling the circuit breaker in straight and level flight would reset it. Pitch trim errors are quite common on the KAP140 when there is turbulence. In such cases I prefer to hand fly until the ride is smoother.

Last Edited by Aviathor at 14 Aug 18:07
LFPT, LFPN
17 Posts
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top