What have you done with, or on your aircraft, this weekend? (15th-16th June 2024)

The permit for my aircraft needed prolonging and a week or so ago it looked like the weather was going to finally become what we consider “summer” weather so I called the factory and asked to make an appointment with the Slovenian CAA inspector for Tuesday morning with my plans to fly down Monday morning, the factory would perform a 100 hour service and prepare the plane for the inspection Monday PM.

However, the closer the weekend appeared, the more changeable the weather appeared. So, from Thursday onwards I spent more time looking at weather charts than ever before and took the decision to fly down on Sunday. However the forecast for Sunday showed a band of bad weather moving across the north side of the alps from Bodensee over Linz / Passau so I decided to break the flight down into 2 legs – one to Eggenfelden where I would then land and check the weather for my onward flight.

That’s when mother nature threw another spanner in the works – the forecast for Sunday morning for my home base was poor on Sunday morning so I elected to fly Saturday PM and stay overnight in Mannheim – because of the high winds on Saturday in North Rhine Westphalia, I departed as late as possible, a little after 6pm, arriving around 7:20pm.

I like Mannheim because you have public transport directly outside the airport and off I went to the city to spend the night, surprised to see so many Scots roaming there in their kilts… The next morning I flew off the Eggenfelden and sure enough, the weather was showing 003 OVC over Linz. Webcams showed that this wasn’t fog, so I waited, delayed my flight plan until 1pm and was still weighing up whether to go when I realised – the later I leave it, the worse the weather would be getting over Graz or Maribor.

Undecided, I looked at Flightradar and saw numerous aircraft flying in the region I wanted to fly – one was even doing circuits at Linz. The VFR aircraft flying cross country were at 3800 feet so I started up, and flew over, passing Linz at 2500 feet and climbed to 3800. Graz was reporting rain so I continued along past the valley I usually fly down, towards Vöslau, turning south toward Maribor.

Crossing Maribor’s airspace, I asked the controller whether he had any weather radar for the area and if so, was he seeing any to the south west, over my destination. Yes, he was. So I was considering whether to divert to Maribor but could see lighter patches, so continued onward, advising the controller if it got too bad, I’d return, especially as LJSK is at an elevation of 890ft MSL, in a valley with lots of small hills dotted around it, some rising to more than 3000ft.

Fortunately for me, the rain was relatively light, I could descend into the valley and see the strip and land.

So, I’d arrived. The plans were to have the service and permit renewal completed by Tuesday but unbeknownst to me, the factory had agreed to get the inspector in for Monday pm so the renewal was completed. I was now looking at the weather for the return, I saw the heavy storms coming in to NRW yesterday so on Monday pm, I took the decision to fly to Mannheim on Tuesday, stay there and fly from there back on Wednesday.

Upon hearing this, the factory owner asked: when does the weather arrive? I told him, he asked: when would you need to leave. Again, I told him but said I didn’t want any pressure put on his people, I can fly to Mannheim, it’s not a problem. Tuesday morning came and I met the factory owner for Breakfast whereupon I was told: Your plane will be ready for departure at 0930 – with luck I would arrive before the storms. That’s what I call service, truly appreciate the effort he and his staff put in.

However I still had my hotel reservation for Mannheim, knowing if the storms came in faster than anticipated, I could divert there. Mercure also offers free cancellation so if I did make it back home, I could cancel without cost. Upon departing, what I noted is that they tidied up the aircraft a little – now I was seeing 123KTAS instead of between 118 and 120KTAS – and this at FL065 burning 15liters per hour – which fortunate, considering the headwinds I was flying into.

For the first hour or so, the flying was very enjoyable, climbing to 9000feet to fly over the National Park Gesäuse

But once I crossed into Germany, you could see the weather brewing. Here is a picture of Passau, interesting to see the different shades of the water in the river…..

Due to the restricted airspace ahead of me beginning at FL75, I dropped down from FL90 to FL65 and settled in for the journey. I even connected my iPhone to my headset via bluetooth and started singing along…

North of Frankfurt, I heard a VFR aircraft calling to ask whether he could be cleared through the Charlie of Düsseldorf enroute to Belgium at FL 85 and the controller said she’d discuss with Radar; they then said the weather was so poor there, they were already restricting traffic flow so they couldn’t accept this; additionally, the pilot would be in IMC. I asked for the Dortmund METAR and saw this was showing few clouds in 4000 feet but nothing else so my plans were to continue onwards towards Dortmund.

However, I was now flying between two layers of clouds – but as long as beneath me it was “few”, I was happy to continue; mother nature soon put an end to that plan with the higher level of clouds threatening to merge with the lower level of cumulus so I ducked down below, remaining around 3800 feet to give max clearance over the Sauerland.

Abeam Siegen I saw the first lightning from the storms to my west so turned north, aiming to fly past Dortmund and skirt in around the back of the storm.

I dropped down to 2300 feet to skirt under the TMA of Dortmund, flying over my current home town:

Below the front edge of the wing you can see the Marina Runthe on the Hamm-Datteln Kanal with the Lippe river running parallel behind the power station. The industrial area is the Schering chemical plant, the building works in the distance are the “water city” that the town planners are creating. This was an industrial area but is now being planned for high end houses & apartments near the water.

Although it did start raining, it wasn’t too heavy and after 4 hours 29 minutes, I landed safely…. In total, just shy of 10 hours flown over the weekend.

The good thing, as I have the permit extended, I can now decide to fly elsewhere for the summer tour…… if only summer would arrive…..