BTW As it can be seen at ADL120 screen shot we flew just south from this small CB (behind aircraft simbol) – I asked for avoiding based on ADL120 image at the same time I saw if rising from TCu in front of me – few degrees to the right was sufficient.
Great trip and report, Emir.
Check our AirBNB for Mallorca. There is this guy that rents out a sleeping place underneath his DA42. In a hangar, so it does not get better than that..
We continued the towards Cadiz making slight detour and visiting Sanlucar de Barrameda – small city on Atlantic coast at the edge of bio-reserve national park with long sandy beaches and some very good restaurants.
The usual Spanish concept of meals in restaurants that you can order tapa, medium or full dish enabled us to taste at least dozen different dishes: fried anemones, octopus, baby squids, anchovies, etc.
We came to Cadiz late afternoon and immediately went on seaside to see the castles and have some swim.
Tomorrow morning we found out the difference between high and low tide which can’t be seen in Croatia.
Of course we didn’t realize that later afternoon the tide would reverse and we almost got in trouble walking around other, more remote castle, San Sebastian. Luckily, we were warned by the locals that everything would be under sea water in literally 10 minutes – we ended our walk with sea with water well above waist with our mobile phones, wallets and clothes above our heads. The outer wall on next picture and trench were completely submerged.
Fish market at Cadiz was real discovery – besides being surrounded with dozen of good restaurants, you can buy fresh catch of the day and take it to some restaurants to be cooked for you.
Cathedral of Cadiz
Later in the afternoon we continued towards Tarifa to meet some friend who was kite-surfing there. It was amazing to see how many people were surfing at this southernmost point of continental Europe. Unfortunately too late I realized that I didn’t take any picture besides empty beach and crowd enjoining after-surf party.
We spent night in Algeciras without visiting anything there and started early in the morning towards Gibraltar. The Rock is really impressive.
We drove to Europa point light house and then later to the national park.
We visited cave, tunnels, batteries, Moorish castle and took some photos of airport and graveyard.
Next stop Malaga – the early afternoon arrival enabled us to do some sightseeing but we got separated according to preferences – of course I went for a castle. After visiting Alcazaba I climbed uphill to Gibralfaro – it was pretty challenging at 40 degrees but it was definitely worth of it.
Alcazaba
Gibralfao
Corida
Cathedral of Malaga
In the morning we visited some shops (first time during this trip) and drove to Granada airport. Since we didn’t refuel on arrival we did that before departure and took off little bit later than planned at 1:30 p.m. with some cumulus developing here and there along our route, mainly below us flying at FL160. The route was pretty straight with some 5 to 10 knots of tailwind and again good communication with ATC. However, passing Pyrenees brought us through some moderate icing and severe turbulence during descent – TKS was in deicing mode and we were barely able to get rid of ice. I didn’t have time to take screenshots at ADL120 because I was concentrated on possible autopilot disconnect but everything was there clearly depicted so we knew in advance what would happen. At one moment I heard loud sound at the right hand side, like something struck fuselage somewhere below cockpit. After landing I realized that it was piece of ice from propeller hitting fuselage at high speed making scratch mark at fuselage plastic cover though it and paint all the way to composite. Due to MRVA we were not able to descent below freezing level immediately but in total this inconvenience lasted less than 10 minutes.
Landing in Carcassonne was easy ILS Z for RW 10 with circle-to-land and we refueled immediately after landing to avoid delays on departure day after. We caught shuttle but to the hotel, dropped the bags and headed towards citadel. Although castle is not completely genuine (it was not actually restored but rather rebuilt based on some drawings and assumptions) it’s very nice and definitely worth of visiting.
The graveyard next to citadel is monument for itself.
However, for visiting everything one day is more than enough so our plan for do some sightseeing in the evening and then to continue in the morning was quite OK. At 4 p.m. we caught shuttle to the airport, cleared immigration (actually customs officers checked our passports) and we took off at 5 p.m. towards Zagreb. Again, KAP140 was functioning OK with clean self-test and no problems during flight.
Marseille airport
There was some severe weather north of Marseille and we (as everybody else) asked for some re-routing for avoiding so there was lot of vectoring until Italian border but anyhow it seems that this resulted in shorter route than filed.
From that point it was practically direct to LABIN (point between Italy and Croatia) and from there direct to PIS (IAF at LDZA).
All in all the trip was easy to plan thanks to Autorouter for flight planning and Airbnb for the accommodation (only for Carcassonne we used Booking due to no suitable apartments close to citadel). The weather was as expected for mid-July but the temperatures were little bit higher than season average because some hot wave from North Africa. Oxygen was invaluable resource enabling us to fly higher, on top of clouds avoiding turbulence, and to get better routing as well.
Next visit to Iberian Peninsula will probably be to Portugal with stop-over at Mallorca.
Peter wrote:
I am not always here
What?? Does that mean we get to play without adult supervision ?
I will split it if there is any more, but equally the next person can start a new thread too. And they should! I am not always here
OK, this is now a KAP140 thread….. (Peter, perhaps split this part out?)
I am not very familiar with it, but just last week my usual rental (which has an S-TEC) wasn’t available so I flew another a/c, this one with a KAP140. I had set it to HDG mode while climbing out of the L.A. basin. All of a sudden – no input from me! – the thing started to wind the trim back. One of the ’what’s it doing now?’ moments. I watched this for a moment, but as it kept winding the trim all the way back and airspeed was decaying to near-stall, I decided hand flying might be the better option….. disconnected it, carried on by hand for a while and then re-engaged it. No more problems. Any KAP140 specialists here – ideas?
Back to Andalusia – great trip and pics! It’s a great part of the world, but going in August is for the lovers of serious heat only……
I would suggest there is something seriously wrong with a KAP140 system which does this.
The big problem with autopilots is that almost nobody in avionics understands them – because most avionics people are just wiremen and you need more than that to sort out an AP (other than by gradually changing everything and billing the customer for it all). In the UK there are maybe 1 (GAMA, if Harry is actually there; he is clever) or at a big stretch possibly 2 shops, and the rest of Europe is no better. In the USA there is more expertise but only because the whole place is so much bigger.
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.
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.
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.
