Norderney (EDWG), Borkum (EDWR), and an extra night thrown in for good measure...

What about a few pics from warmer days?

In June, I had a gap of a couple of days, plus a mission to bring the aircraft to Eelde (NL), so this finally gave me a chance to fly to Norderney (EDWY). See here for my previous trip report covering Langeoog (EDWL).

Skydemon chart for this flight:

As usual, I departed Lübeck (EDHL) rather early in the morning, and it was as wonderful calm VFR flight across the north of Germany in excellent weather.

It was a little hazy as I was approaching the North Sea near the mouth of the river Elbe.

Cuxhaven.

Flying to Norderney from the east, I happened to fly across most of the other islands. Keep an eye out for traffic in this area, but ideally, keep it above 2000 feet to have most of the other traffic below you.

The “first” appreciable island when coming from the east is Wangerooge. It has an airfield. (EDWG).

The second one is Spiekeroog. No airfield.

The third one is Langeoog. As mentioned at the start, the airfield (EDWL) and island are featured here.

The fourth one is Baltrum. The airfield, EDWZ, has a short runway. I have once landed there in the Grumman Cheetah, one up and with half fuel.

And the fifth one is Norderney. It has the hightest population of them all, summer and winter, I assume. Here I am on righthand downwind for runway 08.

I landed before 10 o’clock and there was still very little traffic.

Like most of the East Frisian airfields, they offer bicycles for visitors. That is ideal for getting around there. They have well-marked bicycle paths across the whole island.

The northerly side of the island is nothing but a giant beach, 15 kilometres long. First, I chose to cycle to the most famous beach of the island, the Weisse Düne (White Dune) where I had a swim.

There is also a good restaurant there, so I settled for an early lunch bite. North Sea shrimps and a raspberry ski water. 😊

I then continued across the island and eventually into the main town, which is at the westerly tip.

I also came across this holiday appartment house. When I was a very small kid, my parents spent a couple of summer vacations with me and my brother here. Although my family is not related to these people, we used to stay here, and almost 40 years later, the place still exists.

As it was really hot and I wanted to avoid getting a sunburn, a spent some time in the shade of the public park.

Since it wasn’t too late yet, I then decided to spend the night on yet a different island, Borkum. So, after another short swim, I cycled back to the airfield by taking the long way around via the southwestern bit of the island, past the ferry terminal, the marina and the fishing port. By the time I arrived back at the aircraft, the flight line was full of aircraft, as expected. This was a Friday. Did I ever mention that German private pilots like Cessnas?

Here is the main town of Norderney:

Borkum is the most westerly of the East Frisian Islands, and actually closer to the mainland of the Netherlands than to Germany. Coming from Norderney, one first passes over Juist (still the most beautiful island of them all)…

…and then reaches Borkum. There was a tiny shower right over the island just as I approached and landed, but no big deal.

The airfield by the way is used by a regional airline for tourist and cargo flights from the German mainland, using Britten Norman Islanders.

I tied down the aircraft and rented a bike once again. I also booked a hotel room (not many available, but still not too difficult to find on a Friday evening) and organized a Covid test, which was still required at the time. Time to go to the beach again…

I then checked into the hotel and then it was almost time for dinner, for which I had some Thai dish, which was fine. Generally speaking, my impression is that Borkum tends to have the lowest „tier“ of tourists of all the East Frisian islands, but in the end, they are all very similar.

The next morning, after sunrise, a low stratus overcast formed over the island. I wasn’t too worried, thinking it would burn away by early afternoon, my planned departure time for the short flight to Eelde. It is also quite normal to get sea fog over these islands sometimes, even in summer. I took the bike and cycled across the island, which is not all too big to begin with. After a light lunch, I cycled back to the airfield, still thinking it would be fine. At least for me as an IFR pilot in an IFR aircraft, this departure was well within my comfort zone (decent vis below the cloud deck, no obstacles on departure, sunshine above 1000 feet and CAVOK conditions over the nearby mainland). It was just that strange kind of low stratus the was being pushed in from the sea over these islands.

I went to the „tower“ to pay the landing and parking fee, where the two guys told me I would not be able to depart, since the airfield was closed. I instantly knew it wouldn’t make sense to argue with these guys. So I opted to wait for another hour or so, hoping that the summer sun would do its job. The situation was rather clear: while the airfield is a „Verkehrslandsplatz“, i.e. operated and open for the public, with regular opening times, the main commercial use is for the local airline, which actually operates it. Due to the low cloud layer, the next inbound scheduled aircraft from nearby Emden was not able to land. In fact, it didn’t even depart from Emden. Obviously, with low clouds, landing is one thing and departing is another, but there was no other commercial aircraft currently at the field, so no such departure was due. So they just closed the airfield. As if to say „if we are not flying, nobody is flying“. So, to all those who ponder for ages about departing VFR and immediately switching to IFR in such conditions from airfields with no instrument departures… in practice, quite often (in Germany at least) it just won’t happen anyway, since the Flugleiter won’t let you go…

To my dismay, the layer did not dissolve. This created all sorts of problems for me, as I had my father waiting for me at Eelde (in the sunshine), to pick me up and fly me back to Lübeck. It was one of those situations where you just hate GA flying, and GA flying in Germany in particular! But short of starting a fight with the people there, which would carry the risk of them reporting me to the Luftaufsicht, there was nothing I could do. The next trouble was finding a hotel, as it was now Saturday. I was lucky and still found one. Then I had to get a new Covid test… needless to say, it was a black day for me. Didn’t even take any photos…

The next morning, the weather was a little better, but far from good VFR. Anyway, since it was OK for the Islander to operate, there was no doubt I could depart as well. A joke, this whole thing. Anyway, a minute after takeoff, I was in the sunshine, and the approach and landing at Eelde was uneventful.

The mission was to bring the aircraft to Eelde to get a top overhaul on the IO-550 done. The compressions on four cylinders had been going down over last year or so, and since it was established that the leakage was partly past the rings and partly past the valves, we decided not to tinker with it bit by bit, but to go for all new cylinder assemblies instead, after 1400 flight hours and 16 years without any previous cylinder work at all. An expensive solution, but at least, the aircraft was down for only a week and has since been flying fine for 40 hours or so.

By the way, we were very happy to be informed that the cam, lifters etc. all looked perfect. That is always an enormous relief when doing a top overhaul and looking into the insides of the engine. So, I guess I will now fly it for another 16 years and 1400 hours, after which it might be time for a full overhaul.