Very cool! Next time, I would like to join!
Fantastic pictures!
Did any of you meet there yet in person?
Congratulations on another first for EuroGA, very jealous sitting in a crew room in freezing fog. 150KTAS on 10.6 usgph is not shabby! especially given the comfortable cabin of the TB20.
Did any of you meet there yet in person?
And 2 more today
You people are missing out on amazingly good conditions!
Did you notice the aircraft-skis marks on the glacier, almost in the middle of the picture ?
Michel
Zoomed in:
Wasn’t me
Deicing this morning – minus 6 degrees, frost and ice on the aircraft, TKS fluid spraying and removing slush after dissolving
These were the slopes we were skiing on these days
Here’s some pics from today’s flight back from Aosta to Shoreham.
Filed route:
LIMW N0147F140 WEBCA/N0147F140 IFR A1 SPR/N0147F100 A1 DJL/N0152F100 A6 SOMDA B13 ARSIL G40 VATRI B3 REM/N0152F120 B3 BILGO/N0150F120 H20 XORBI H40 ABB N20 ELDAX DCT HARDY DCT SFD/N0148F120 EGKA
The level changes were ignored as usual (they are done largely to game the Eurocontrol system) and the whole flight was at FL130.
Destination wx was not assured and Biggin EGKB was the alternate
Metar (just before arrival)
EGKA 181350Z 15006KT 9999 SCT016 09/05 Q1036
TAF
EGKA 181056Z 1812/1820 15006KT 9999 BKN016
TEMPO 1812/1820 7000 BKN012
PROB30
TEMPO 1812/1815 3000 BR BKN009
PROB30
TEMPO 1817/1820 3000 BR BKN006
Perfect wx for the whole 5 days. Freezing temps though and a bit of TKS fluid was used in my pump-up spray unit to dissolve it
Flight plan was delayed 2x due to the delay. The airport is one of the most friendly I know but Immigration and Customs took a little while… Funny thing is that if one filed for say Le Touquet and then diverted, all this would be avoided
Departing 27, straight towards Mt Blanc
One flies up that pass, while climbing. For aircraft with less climb performance one can easily turn back and do a few 180s while gaining altitude
Mt Blanc. One is supposed to turn right (north) right before it but I turned well before, and got quite close to terrain. Wind was totally calm and there was plenty of clearance
Flying through a “notch” in a ridge
There isn’t all that much snow
and here it is even more evident
The end of the Alps is now visible
I think this is Morzine
Lausanne
Looking back at the Alps
French ATC were most unusually helpful! I got a DCT ERTIP early on, then after the usual “military activity” (cannot go near Paris) I got ARSIL-BILGO and before BILGO got a very unusual DCT KUNAV through a bit of Paris TMA
Beachy Head (near SFD)
Cloud over the UK so flying the RNP 20
Super high value fly to ski trip
Aosta is such a great destination. Nearest Italian airport to the UK! A nice city and great access to good “beginner to intermediate” ski slopes. A real pity that nearly everybody of the 45+ people originally interested in the telegram group dropped out. I myself dropped out of the Saturday meet-up in Aosta (I believe of the ~8 who said they were going, only 1 actually did, and was stuck there on his own, but that occassionally happens!) because of bad wx coming too soon for me to get much skiing done between the Saturday and the end of the good wx for the return flight. However it was also pretty obvious (the telegram group went very silent) that almost everybody was going to drop out anyway… We need to have a discussion on how to minimise this issue.
Cervinia was blue skies – absolutely perfect. Only yesterday it got windy and some high up runs were closed.
Peter wrote:
I think this is Morzine
To be precise, this is Avoriaz, which is not very far from Morzine (and possible to connect the two by skiing). Nice pictures! If anyone is interested in a ski fly-in in Norway or Sweden, I could probably join, better to wait until March to have longer daylight :-)