Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Short VFR trip report - Frankfurt (EDFE) to Münster (EDLT)

From May 1st to May 3rd I had planned to do a nice short trip with a friend of mine. The weather forecasts soon indicated poor, coldish weather all over cerntral Europe, and rain in Southern Germany. So, we made the plan to fly from Frankfurt (Egelsbach airport) to Amsterdam (Hilversum airport) and spend a couple of nights there. This was until we found out the hotel prices in Amsterdam. They were starting at 500€ for a single room! (I later heard that this was probably due to some royal events taking place there). So we dropped Amsterdam. Also, the weather was so poor, we decided to cut this trip short and do just one overnight, so in the end, we agreed to check out the city of Münster, in North Rhine-Westphalia. That’s about 130 miles north of Frankfurt. A little over an hour in the AA5A.

Here’s what the prog chart for May 1st looked like, with poor weather in the south and decent weather in the north:

And here’s the radar image for the morning of departure:

In fact, even at Frankfurt the weather was rather poor. Few to scattered at 700, then a high overcast above. Still very legal VFR, but a bit of a challenge. Well, if you want to get from A to B, under VFR, with any reasonable “despatch rate”, then you need to make compromises with the weather. Otherwise, you will stay on the ground most of the time. Here’s an impression from Egelsbach:

Here’s our ride, N26292, a 1979 Grumman Cheetah, pretty well known in Germany as “Lisa”.

My and my mate, ready to go:

After an eastbound departure on runway 08, we turned on course, but initially had to stay low due to the Frankfurt class C starting at 1500 feet. This is how we crossed the final approaches to runways 25L, 25R and 25C for EDDF. After that, we climbed above those few to scattered clouds and ended up well between the two layers. For the first 15 minutes, visibility was still quite poor.

Anyway, the AP was on and there was no turbulence, so what’s not to like?

A little later, we got at least some views of the Sauerland, which we were flying over.

Möhnesee.

Abeam Dortmund, we decided to go back below the clouds, since the ATIS for Münster-Osnabrück was calling for broken clouds near our destination.

Ahlen (Westfalen)

Münster in the distance.

End of downwind for runway 28 at Münster-Telgte, which is a VFR-only field with 800 metres of tarmac.

A few impressions from Münster:




Next morning:

For the return flight, we decided to make an intermediate stop for lunch in the middle of the Sauerland, at an airfield called Meschede-Schüren (EDKM).
Before departure at Münster-Telgte:

A little south of Münster, we passed over this big coal-fired power station. Sorry, no other sights to be seen. :-)

Well, the Möhnesee once again.

Meschede-Schüren airfield.

View from the restaurant towards the runway, which was mostly busy with glider tows.

When we got ready to depart, a gentleman arrived with his nice C172H. Recently repainted. SID still to be done by the end of the year though (15k€ on a plane that’s worth 25k€).

A nice J-3 Cub.

A view of the airfield, taken just after departure. The Cub was backtracking on the runway.

On the flight back to Egelsbach, the lowest cloud layer was still pretty high up (front slowly approaching from the south), but I still chose to climb above it, for the comfort of my passenger. He doesn’t like turbulence at all. So even if it was just to get 10-15 minutes of calm air, it was probably worth it.

A little borderline as far as distance from cloud goes, I know…:-)

Approaching the Frankfurt area in the descent, some nice rape fields in the area of MTR (Metro) VOR.

Back on the ground at Egelsbach.

JU-52 (HB-HOY) doing pleasure flights all day long.

Last but not least, Lisa’s mascot, the cheetah, back at it’s normal place.

Last Edited by boscomantico at 04 May 18:49
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Bosco nice report and well kitted Cheetah!

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

When we got ready to depart, a gentleman arrived with his nice C172H. Recently repainted. SID still to be done by the end of the yeat though (15k€ on a plane that’s worth 25k€).

Not quite. If he gets his annual done this year, they can still do it without the SIDs (the current modus operandi with LBA is that you can sign the annual without SIDs completed if the annual is done before the due date, i.e. you can get another year). By the time this annual expires, ELA 1 will be implemented and remove the need to do the SIDs. The deadlines were chosen intentionally like this by the LBA. For ELA 2 (> 1200kg) this does not work though.

Last Edited by achimha at 04 May 18:27

In fact, he said he will never do these, since the aircraft has recently been thoroughly inspected and showed no signs of corrosion. He said “either we find a solution through ELA1 (not 100% sure yet), or I will go G”.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Hilversum airport

Come on and be serious, EHHV is a nice place (that is to say, as nice as aerodromes go in them dratted Netherlands) but you can’t really call it an “airport” !

Well, if you want to get from A to B, under VFR, with any reasonable “despatch rate”, then you need to make compromises with the weather. Otherwise, you will stay on the ground most of the time.

Yes, and if one cannot even go “VFR on top” the dispatch rate goes lower still. My frustration this weekend!

some nice rape fields

I’m not sure about this translation, there’s a bit of ambiguity to say the least ;) But on my recent expedition I was surprised to see so many fields of Raps in the Rheinland and Pfalz, I suppose it’s what they make the bio-diesel fuel from.

Last Edited by at 04 May 19:40
EBZH Kiewit, Belgium

Nice report, makes me want to go flying however when you had lunch at Meschede, did you not see the part of the restaurant which looks like an airliner? That’s an interesting concept, I must say.

Also, the Coal Powerstation looks like Schmeehausen, just to the south of it you could have seen the old (decommissioned) Nuclear Power Station and flying over Ahlen, you were very close to our “long final” 24, so perhaps next time why not stop off at EDLH for a coffee (but let me know first ;-)

EDL*, Germany

Nice report!
That yellow Cub is an L-4 (former german army), not a J-3, i think!

Nice photos and it looks like you made some nice stops along the way… Hope your friend enjoyed the trip. The L-birds are of course distinguishable from a J-3 by the extra windows, but my God there are a zillion Cub variants so it doesn’t much matter…

Thanks again for the enjoyable write up…

Thanks for an enjoyable trip report!

UK, United Kingdom
9 Posts
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top