Trip report - Wangerooge EDWG

For this Easter long week-end I had booked one of the club’s planes in advance, with a couple of destinations in mind, but also flexibility linked to re-opening after covid.
Initially I wanted to start already on Good Friday, but the weather in southern Sweden was fairly terrible with a low pressure passing during the day, and the tower was not open for a proper IFR departure. Saturday was the exact opposite of Friday, with a high pressure settling in and SEV NCD forecast for several days across northern Europe.
At the last minute I found a hotel on Wangerooge, one of the German Frisian Islands. So destination was set.

Departed Saturday morning on a Z flight-plan from the autorouter: ESMK EKRAL IFR DCT MOSIN DCT DEMIR N872 GOLEN VFR EDWG
Picked IFR in the air, initial climb to FL080 to cross over Sturup ESMS and let the arrivals to Copenhagen pass above.

As soon as I crossed to Denmark I was cleared to my cruising altitude of FL100.

The transit above a somewhat big airport like Kastrup EKCH is always nice.

The air up there was smooth as silk, we don’t have an altitude hold in this plane, but I managed easily with just the trim. 13-15kts in the back was nice too.
Shortly after passing Sjaelland, I was cleared direct to destination. Not a huge shortcut, but still nice. Flight time was 2h15.

At destination there was already quite a few planes parked, but merely half as many as the next day.

Landing fee: 11€ for a PA28-161 (1105kg MTOW). The airport has no fuel. Parking fee 7€ per full day. All incl VAT.
All the fees and airport comments are in the database.

The airport:



On a sunny holiday like this sunday, the traffic was incessant. Between the Britten-Norman Islanders making the shuttle to the mainland in Harle EDXP, the dozens of planes coming in and out, even some in formation with the smoke on, you always hear an engine. At one point I passed by and counted more than 40 planes of all possible kinds (best in show was a stunning dark red Cessna 140 which I forgot to take a picture of), and the parking was far from full. The AFIS guy was not bored for sure.

There is a restaurant and hotel right by the airport, but the owners retired last year. Pity because it is literally on the apron, with all the pilots and public waiting for the next plane it should be possible to make a living. In case one of you is looking for a new vocation.

The trip to town is a 10-15minute walk. There are no cars (except a few emergency vehicles and building machines), but lots of bikes whizzing about.

As it was a holiday, I arrived too late for the bike rentals, so I spent the rest of the first day exploring by foot.
The beachfront is quite large, with the typical wind chairs all around:

The old lighthouse has a museum in it, that has unfortunately not reopened yet after covid:

A retired narrow track steam locomotive. The plaque mentions it has run over 353.000 km. On a tiny island with 3km of track.

The police was in a festive mood

The northern side of the island is protected by its dune

And gigantic beaches

The dune is getting a lot of reinforcements especially on the western side

The sand also tend to travel east with the winter storms, so they also have excavators and dumpers to bring it back in the spring.

The southern side is protected by a dike

Cut in some places for the train tracks

There are a lot of wetlands, both inside and outside the dike, classed as natural reserves, making the islands a paradise for water birds (at the moment thousands of geese), both migrating and sedentary.

The western edge of the island has a couple of interesting buildings.
The new lighthouse, tall and modern (lots of boat traffic to the North Sea ports like Bremerhaven, etc..)

The new Westturm (western tower). It is a youth hostel, as well as several other buildings in the area.

And finally the train station on the harbor:

For the way back, the forecast was for headwinds all the way. While legally sufficient, my fuel remaining was lower than I wanted it to be.
This called for a fuel stop, and Rendsburg was almost exactly on the track. I have lost count of how many times I have stopped there, and it did not disappoint this time either, fuel is still cheap and food is still good.
Landing fee 12€, 100LL for 2.25€/l is nice (we paid 2.75€ for 91UL at home on our last invoice)

Once I had decided on a fuel stop, I took the opportunity of starting relatively early when traffic is more quiet to fly around all the German Frisian islands.
I would have had less reflections in the window by taking the pictures from the south side with the sun in the back, but all airports have their pattern on the south side, and I wanted to keep my distances.

In order:
Wangerooge Town

Wangerooge West

Spiekeroog (they closed the airport and converted the runway to a mere road, so it’s dead to me now)

Langeoog

Baltrum

Norderney

Juist

Borkum

The home stretch from Rendsburg was at FL090, with 13-15kts in the nose all the way. Also from the autorouter: EDXR UMVUP IFR DCT RAXLU DCT EGABA ESMK

A bit of vectoring near the end to avoid CPH inbound traffic, and finally the RNP 19 at home.

In summary, if you come early in the morning and get a bike straight away, you can see most of the island in a day.
I’d still recommend staying over 2 days, so you’re not in a rush and can afford lazying around, bird-watching, soaking in the sun, rating landings, going to the thalasso etc…
The atmosphere in the evening is very relaxed, there are restaurants for all tastes, and all are open again.
I stayed at the Strandhotel Gerken, which is just on the beachfront. Comfortable, pool and sauna in the basement, breakfast with a view. There are more modern alternatives, and many rentals, if you can book more than one day in advance.