Sunny times near Koblenz

On March 10 this year, I flew out to the island of Borkum. It was a sunny summer day well ahead of its time. Although I had done flights in the winter months before, that day emotionally marked the beginning of the “flying season” for me, if there is such a thing. And what has been opened, needs to be closed. I feel that day was yesterday: Although the year hasn’t ended yet and I will fly more, yesterday was probably the last nice, warm, sunny Sunday – not to be taken for granted in late October in Germany.

I abandoned the original plan to fly northbound to Ærø (http://www.euroga.org/forums/flying/3051-flying-to-destinations-with-unknown-wind) on Saturday afternoon when it became clear that the entire coast from Northern France to the Nordics was going to be haunted by a band of bad weather (extensive clouds, low visibility, precipitation, increasingly gusty winds). The destination had to be southerly to benefit from the sun. Unfortunately, my passenger-to-be dropped out because she was fixated on the “little island in the North Sea” concept and she’d rather postpone the trip to spring. Fair enough – this left me with no destination and no company for me to fly with. I ended up using for the first time a network called “Spontacts” which brings people together for shared activities. This is usually cooking, partying, board-game gatherings and rarely flying trips – but you get a lot of attention by posting “Let’s fly somewhere in a small plane and have lunch”. Obviously the risk (similar to any ride-sharing platform) is that you don’t know what type of person you are going to be taking. At the end of the day (literally) I had one girl signed up and two of my actual friends (from the offline, real world) joining last minute – for a short trip to Koblenz-Winningen EDRK. The Greek restaurant at the airfield gets good reviews. I also arranged to meet there two of my student pilot friends from my time in San Diego who were flying out of Lelystad.

The three passengers and I met at 9:30 local at EDLE Essen/Mülheim. There was no rush – EDRK was still covered in fog and we waited more than an hour for it to clear. We had plenty of time to acquaint ourselves with the aircraft for the day, a G1000-fitted 2010 Cessna 172 SP – me using a (mental) checklist for the pre-flight, the guests using their cameras and iPhones.

I had planned the outbound leg to include the control zones of Düsseldorf and Cologne, which is always very interesting for first time passengers. Within the first 30 minutes of the southbound trip, they get a very intense experience:

• Take-off in Essen
• Good views of Duisburg’s massive inland harbour and the Rhine
• A midfield crossing of Düsseldorf airport
• The city of Düsseldorf
• The city of Cologne with the Cathedral
• A crossing of Cologne airport

Above: My home town for the last 8 years, Düsseldorf – with the Media Harbour (Medienhafen) on the left, the Rheinturm in the middle and the city’s three main bridges (from left to right: Rheinkniebrücke, Oberkasseler Brücke, Theodor-Heuss-Brücke). The avenue on the right, covered by trees, is the Königsallee (“Kö”) – one of the few places in Düsseldorf that actually feel the way people who are unfamiliar with the city mistakenly tend to think it’s like all around – pompous people spending money on expensive clothes and lingering around to be seen. The beautiful German word “Flanieren” springs to mind – hard to translate.

Düsseldorf’s eternal rival Cologne – with the cathedral, the main station and the musical dome (blue cover).

A good experience for passengers, hard work for me. We had a discussion about how tiring flying is several months ago (http://www.euroga.org/forums/flying/2072-flying-and-fatigue#31794). After this season, I feel I’m less tired after a flight than after the first year of flying – though still as hungry. But managing three first-time passengers, answering their questions if able, and being extra alert to ATC before and during the CTR crossing (and getting the ATIS before, of course! http://www.euroga.org/forums/maintenance-avionics/3040-skydemon-atis-low-frequencies) was quite a task for a Sunday morning. I enjoy hand flying, but on such trips I appreciate the auto pilot.

Approach to Koblenz was fine, although it was a bit bumpy on final 24. The airfield is quite exposed on a plateau. We had a head wind straight on runway direction, but were caught by a gust shortly before reaching the threshold, which triggered me to briefly add quite some power. I liked the landing, but the unknown girl later told me that she didn’t feel well during the approach and was happy to be on the ground again (although she liked the flight itself). I hoped she’d be fine on the return leg. Trains were not an option – Deutsche Bahn was on strike again. It is currently rare in Germany to find a day without pilots or train conductors on strike. Today it’s Lufthansa again.

My friends from Lelystad had already arrived and we all went to sample that legendary Greek food…

I have to admit, we were not overly impressed with the experience. While the visitor terrace of the airport was flooded with sunlight, the restaurant terrace was in the shade, windy and cool (can be nice in actual summer). We were not allowed to take some chairs and a table to the sunny part. Service was a bit slow (and they forgot to bring us cutlery until well after the food had been served). This can be excused as it was really busy. The food itself was mediocre. In fact, I find this a problem with many Greek restaurants in Germany – they’re all about the same, neither really good, nor really bad. If you want really good Greek food in Germany, I just wanted to recommend Petro’s Esszimmer in Munich, but then found out it’s closed now (“Vasili Sikos muss Petros Esszimmer schliessen über die Gründe sind er und die Brauerei unterschiedlicher Ansicht; Ratlos: Vasili Sikos weiss nicht, wie es für ihn und sein griechisches Esszimmer in Altschwabing weitergeht.”). So you have to go to Greece now to have good Greek food. Fair enough. Back to Koblenz, what I didn’t appreciate at all was the hair in my food. The first two hairs could have been from my eye brows. The third one was definitely too thick, black and long to be mine. Not so nice.

After lunch, we went for a nice walk in the nearby (really!) vineyards.

Before returning, I made my mistake of the day. I should have refueled right after landing, but didn’t. So I went to get fuel before departure. I still had to park the aircraft again afterwards because I had to pay for the fuel. But I didn’t want to taxi all the way back to my previous parking position. Somehow I thought it was a good idea to park on the grass in front of the visitor terrace – there was an ultralight parked there and just taxiing out and it seemed fine. Next time, I’ll MUCH more carefully consider the condition of the grass in a situation like this. We got stuck in deep, moist soil and uncut grass the moment I was on it with all three wheels. Highly embarrassing but quite a show for all the people watching when I was unsuccessfully trying to get going with added power. It also didn’t help that I had the radio off for that short taxiing exercise so the guy on the tower couldn’t tell me NOT to park there (which he tried, as he told me later). Radio service at EDRK on this day was excellent, by the way – even when things went wrong like this and when it was busy. Friendly, helpful, perfect.

We had to push the aircraft back by hand with one volunteer making sure the tail didn’t touch the tarmac.

On the return leg, I chose a more easterly route to avoid the control zones of Cologne and Düsseldorf in favor of more landscape.

The sky wasn’t as clear anymore as earlier. The ride was also quite bumpy at 3000 ft below the cloud base but overhead uneven terrain. I was a bit worried about the girl behind me who had had trouble during the earlier landing. She seemed fine. Unfortunately, on short final to EDLE, my nose told me that her Bifteki had made an unduly reappearance. On reflection, it seems she would have been well-advised to have something a little lighter for lunch than a chunk of meat with fries and tzaziki. To her credit, she didn’t “freak out” – she didn’t even tell me about it and let me focus on flying, which makes sense especially when about to land. The girls on the rear seats figured it out all themselves and she had managed to contain everything in a sick bag.

On this flight, even I felt ever so slightly unwell! I don’t know whether that was due to the food or the bumpy ride (which I usually have no issues with). I wonder what the odds are that I – as PIC – run into something like the girl myself. The standard argument seems to be that when you’re in charge, when you’re active, you’re much less likely to be affected by such symptoms – and I hope i remains true. My track record as an airline passenger has been ok: I fly about twice per week for work (for the last 8 years) and I’ve had two occasions (early morning flights probably coupled with a lack of sleep) where I felt unwell (once getting very close to hyperventilation – completely out of nowhere). In both cases, nothing “happened” and a glass of water or coke did the job to calm me down.

All in all, it was a very nice flying day and everyone (!) said they enjoyed it, too.