It was the 1st of March, and the weather was looking like it would allow a VFR trip from the UK across the channel, so I asked my friend and fellow group-shareholder in the Sportcruiser if he fancied an overnight trip somewhere. Sure enough, he did, and had a suggestion I was not expecting! As a self-declared thempark addict, he to told me he’d been wanting to visit Plopsaland, a theme park in De Panne, which is South West Belgium.
Calais or Ostend were good candidate airfields, both around 30 minutes drive from Plopsaland. In the end, we decided to fly to Ostend due it being easier to get onward transportation and also better options for accomodation and dining in the evening.
The night before setting off, we filed the flight plan outbound UK GAR and the two GenDecs required by for Belgium police and customs. We also dropped NSAC an email as a friendly PPR, although not strictly necessary.
We planned to depart Firs Farm (a strip near the CPT VOR, between Swindon and Oxford) at 09.00, so that we could have a decent amount of time at the theme park. On the morning, there was patchy rain and low cloud base in the METARs and TAFs along the South of the UK, although over the channel it was CAVOK. Still, we arrived at the farm as planned and prepared the airplane. It always takes longer than you think to do the A-check, get the plane out of the hangar, fill up with fuel and get ready to depart! As it neared 09.00 a rather heavy rain shower passed over the field, with cloud bases lowering to under 800ft, so we had to sit-tight with a cup of tea until things improved.
Thankfully, around 10am, the rain had passed and the cloudbase had increased enough for Chris to feel happy to depart. We normally take it turns to fly each leg, and on this occasion Chris would fly us outbound and I’d fly the return leg the next day.
As usual, once airborne we called London Information and requested flight plan activation, thereafter we switched to Farnborough Radar for a traffic service. There were patches of low cloud that we could visually avoid along the first part of our route, but as we neared the south coast of the UK the cloudbase increased, enabling us to climb to around 2000ft.
By taking the slighly longer route around London, the base of the London TMA is higher, giving us more room to climb. Luckily we found a decent-sized gap in the clouds, and climbed to 4500ft to get on top of the layer. Eventually our service with Farnborough terminated as we reached the edge of their radar coverage, so we switched back to London Info, who we stayed with until mid-channel. From there, over to Ostend Approach, who cleared us initially to follow the coast northbound (through the restricted areas) and to report the field in sight. We were visual with the airfield from about 10 miles out, and were then cleared to join final for runway 08.
Above the cloud layer south of Gatwick
Following the coast to EBOS
Final for runway 08 at EBOS
The outbound routing from Firs Farm to EBOS.
After landing at Ostend, we were met by the usual Follow-Me car, who marshalled us to our parking spot on Apron 3. Total flight time 2 hours 5 minutes due to a fairly strong headwind.
We quickly secured the airplane and put the covers on, then entered the NSAC building to get our passports stamped. By this time, it was nearly 13.30 (having lost an hour due to the time difference) so we booked a taxi to take us on the 30 minute trip to Plopsaland, hoping to have enough time to go on the main rides before the park closed at 17.00.
G-OCRZ parked on the apron – there were quite a lot of other planes there too
The taxi arrived quickly and got us to the theme park for 14.00, albeit at a cost of nearly 90 EUR. We’d booked our theme park entrance tickets using our mobile hilst in the taxi – each adult ticket was 40 EUR, which (bizarely!) included a pancake and a coffee at one of the concessions.
Chris was very happy to have made it to Plopsaland, another themepark to cross-off his must-visit list
First impressions of Plopsaland were good. It was clean, realatively quite and well landscaped, with a good amount of visual theming. It didn’t look ugly like some parks do. We didn’t have a park map, and decided to walk around to see what we could find. For the first 15 minutes all we could find were rides for little children, and we were beginning to wonder whether we’d made a mistake in coming. We eventually found the first large rollercoaster and headed to the queue. Only there wasn’t a queue: we walked straight on! The ride was brilliant – so brilliant, we went straight back on and had another go!
The theme park is well landscaped and visually very attractive
This was my favorite ride – rapid acceleration followed by a couple of loops. Almost felt like flying :-)
In total, there were 3 large and fast rollercoasters (for adults / 1.3 or 1.4m in height and over) as well as a couple of good water rides – a log flume, and an unusual rollercoaster-water-ride-hybrid that was good but the ride didn’t last long.
The log flume
In our 3 hours at the park, we were able to go on all the big stuff multiple times, and by 5pm we were ready to leave. If I had brought my family, we’d easily have been able to spend a full day there, taking the kids on all the smaller rides.
There’s a tram stop directly outside the park, which we took to the hotel we had booked, the Ibis in De Panne. Only two stops away, we were there in no time at all. After checking-in and freshing up, we had a couple of drinks in the bar before walking out to explore the town.
Things were very quiet, but it was a Wednesday night out of season, so understandable. Lots of bars and restaurants were closed, but we did find a few good places that were open, wherein we enjoyed some more drinks and a lovely dinner. Looking at TripAdvisor and the Michelin guide, there are a couple of Michellin starred restaurants in De Panne, albeit they were all closed during our visit.
Enjoying some wine in a very quiet bar.
The Restaurant Pierre Kloffe https://pierkloefferesto.be/ provided a lovely meal with really good service. The waiter did joke with us that things were so quiet in the winter, and in the summer the town is full of old people!
We both had a delicious king prawn tandoori dish to start
Steak and lamb for main
The next morning, we took a stroll around town and saw a lot more activity (helped by the daylight!). Over coffee, we made a plan for the day: use the tram to get back to EBOS, stopping at Nieuwpoort along the way to explore and have lunch. I filed the flight plan, GAR and police GenDec for a 14.00 (local) departure – the customs GenDec can not be filled-in online, it has to be printed out, but this can be done at the airport. The web-based police GenDec form is a usability nightmare on mobile devices. It took nearly 30 minutes to complete the form using my iPhone, mostly due to the large number of questions that use a drop-down select option, using a custom control that has been coded really badly. To select aircraft type, you have to scroll through a list of every aircraft type, in alphabetical order. The custom widget scrolled very slowly, and it must have taken about 10 minutes to scroll down to CRUZ. Thank goodness I wasn’t flying the TB20 as it would have taken half an hour to scroll down!
The main street in De Panne.
Church in De Panne
A valentine-themed sculpture walking tour through the park in De Panne
The never-ending beach at De Panne.
After filing, we boarded the tram for Nieuwpoort. The tram ride from De Panne to Ostend takes about 1hour 30 minutes and costs 2 EUR, which is a bargain compared to the taxi but significantly slower. As we were in no rush to get back, Nieuwpoort broke the journey up about half way. There we found a nice restaurant in the square overlooking the church, and were able to sit out in the sunshine eating out food.
Lunch before heading home. Beer for the passenger!
Pretty square in Nieuwpoort, we ate overlooking the church.
We bought some obligatory Belgian chocolates from a delicius looking chocolatier, and Chris took the opportunity to stock up on fresh tomatoes and vegetables from the supermarket (there is a shortage of fresh veg back in the UK at the moment), before heading back on the tram to the airport.
We had a leisurely lunch and we had just missed the next tram, so I delayed the flightplan by 40 minutes, so we didn’t have to rush.
Back at NSAC, I settled the bill (76 EUR total), got our passports stamped then headed back to the plane and got ready for departure.
We were cleared initially to climb to 1000ft, but just before we reached 1000ft this was increased to 3000ft, which we mainted until leaving the CTR around Dunkirk. From there I climbed to 5000ft for the crossing between Calais and Dover. Up in the air things looked very hazy and it was hard to see any horizon. Whilst it was legally VFR, I had to rely on my IMC skills and trust the attitude indicator (I have an IR(R) rating, which I use to fly IFR in the TB20).
Hazy flying along the coast towards Calais.
Mid-channel selfie.
Costing in around Dover.
After coasting-in, I descended to 3800ft to be below a scattered layer. The remainder of the journey was non-eventful, and we landed with a flight time of 1 hour 45 minutes (helped by a tail wind for most of the journey).
I’m glad to have explored this part of Belgium, having overlooked it previously in favour of Bruges and Ostend. I’m already planning to return when the weather gets a bit warmer, this time in the TB20 with my family. The girls will love the beach and the theme park, and hopefully we’ll get a chance to explore some of the other restaurants next time.
De Panne is south of Ostend. 1 hour 30 minutes on the tram, or 30 minutes in a taxi.
The return leg from EBOS to Firs Far
Lovely trip (I will make note of that park)
I may try via Koksijde (EBFN), it seems they accept GA traffic on weekends, someone from North Weald landed there when he confused the name with Kortjik (EBKT), the military did let him get away with it 
Very nice little report, although, personally, it wouldn’t cross my mind to visit a theme park without kids…
That Gendec site is terrible on mobile devices indeed. I have also given them that feedback a long time ago, like many others I assume, but they don’t seem to care. IT works fine from a PC, so next time, maybe you can find one of these somewhere to make it easier. Also, having to copy customs separately is really stupid.
Costs really pile up on a short trip like this (taxis, food, drinks, hotel, attractions).Just the way it is. Makes it even more important to enjoy it, build memories and take learing moments away. I personally find the fees at Ostend to be borderline for what it is, but then again, 20 Euros less or more don’t really make much difference in the end.
I have personally considered these mixed-use airports like Koksijde, Ursel or Sint-Truiden for weekend trips to Belgium, but have never put it into practice. What happens if for some reason (weather, some small technical issue) you have to postpone your flight home from Sunday to Monday? Are you then blocked for 5 days? Anyone had such kind of case?
it wouldn’t cross my mind to visit a theme park without kids…
No need for kids if you still are one… look at em 
Plopsaland is a great-sounding name The pancake and coffee are probably an incentive for parents: there was public outcry when Busch Gardens stopped giving free beer with adult tickets. Good to try both transport methods, taxi and tram.
Plopsaland is a great-sounding name
Plopsa comes from our famous children tv-shows Plop (a gnome who runs a pub) and Samson (a talking dog)
They also have theme parcs in Antwerp EBAW, Hasselt EBZH, Coo (EBSP probably the closest) and a swimming pool in Hannuit (EBAV, 350M grass so only ultralights)
In the weekends Koksyde would have been a lot better to fly to as it is a lot closer.
i have personally considered these mixed-use airports like Koksijde, Ursel or Sint-Truiden for weekend trips to Belgium, but have never put it into practice. What happens if for some reason (weather, some small technical issue) you have to postpone your flight home from Sunday to Monday? Are you then blocked for 5 days? Anyone had such kind of case?
Koksyde and Ursel are indeed only operating on the weekends. Sint-truiden is open every day of the week. And would be a nice destination in April or May when the fruit trees are blossoming.
you have to postpone your flight home from Sunday to Monday? Are you then blocked for 5 days? Anyone had such kind of case?
You can have all sort of incidents, NOTAMS but 5 days to stay or come back is a lot, I am sure they can manage an exemption for one-off departure
I have been to Ursel on Sunday but I did not think about the possibility of getting stuck for the whole week? in any case, I would have left the aircraft and come back home by other means and then go back to pick aircraft on next weekend or after 14 days
Thanks for the report.
90€ for a 30 minute ride, that’s worse than Paris The tram seems a much better option indeed.
Great!
In case you want to venture out a bit further with more theme parks, here’s some suggestions:
Also near the beach and bicycles available for rent…and don’t forget Legoland/Billund (EKBI), you can park your aircraft closer to the main entrance than most cars. The landingfee is very modest, unlike the entrance fee for the park.
