VFR to Spa (EBSP) – waving winter goodbye

This is a photo write-up of a nice VFR flight from the Frankfurt area over to Spa (EBSP) in the south of Belgium, which I did on Sunday. The conditions were partly difficult for good photos, but still, I managed to take a few nice ones on the way.

I hadn’t flown at all since my last flight at the very end of 2014 – that’s six and a half weeks without flying. I can’t remember the last time this has happened to me in the last 15 years!

I was all the more set on going flying again this past weekend and I had the group’s Piper Arrow for myself on Sunday. With QNHs of about 1013, one can’t really say it was a high pressure area over Germany, but still, the forecast called for almost cloudless conditions, with just the usual risk of low fog. In fact, the forecasts were very undecided and also somwhat in contradicton with each other, a testament to the fact that fog remains hard to predict, even nowadays.

At 11 o’clock, this is what the sat image looked like. I added the approximate route of the flight to the image and you can see that I was lucky that the fog stayed south of my base airfield, EDFC.

Visibility in the Frankfurt area was still rather poor, between 5 and 10 kilometres, but I understood it would be much better towards the west, which made my choice of destination look like a good idea.

From EDFC to Spa in a straight line would mean crossing Frankfurt CTR. While this is usually possible, it only applies to north/south crossings. An east-west crossing is more problematic. Also, the detour wouldn’t be all that bad, so I decided not to bother and fly around, via the northeast corner.

As a preview, here is the track I ended up flying:

According to that general plan, a VFR flight plan was filed, using Rocketroute (still can’t do these with the autorouter, Achim!). Just over 135 track miles. Flightplanned ETE (with prevailing easterly winds aloft) was about 55 minutes. These VFR flightplans seem so utterly pointless nowadays…

Here she is in the hangar, N822AG, a 1979 Arrow IV.

And the panel:

By the way, relating to recent threads about winter flying, engine care, etc.: the aircraft had previously not moved for almost three months! I was the last to have flown it in the end of November. According to general wisdom, that is torture, especially for a Lycoming engine with its top-mounted camshaft. But hey, that’s just the way it is sometimes, with private aircraft. They all sit a lot in winter.

OAT was about 4 degrees at the time. I made sure I started the engine with minimal stress, setting 800-900 RPM in the first few seconds. The battery was totally fine, but I understand it is still rather new, which sure helped.

I allowed the engine to warm up nicely, then departed and headed towards Frankfurt. As I said, visibility was really not great initially. This is all I could get of the Frankfurt skyline:

By the way, the Frankfurt airspace Charlie lower limit is 1500 feet MSL in this inner area, with the terrain elevation being anything from between 500 and 1500 feet (!):

Passing to the north of Frankfurt, here are some of the more upmarket residential places in the Taunus. Kronberg…

….and Falkenstein:

Once clear of the inner zone of the Frankfurt airspace Charlie, the lower limit rises to 3,500 feet. Looking behind, the left one is the highest peak of the Taunus, the Feldberg (2,887 feet).

Set up for cruise at 3.300 feet:

Crossing the Rhine, just south of Koblenz.

Koblenz-Winningen airfield (EDRK).

Selfie

Here’s a short video I took:

Some snow across the Eifel. The visibility was much better now.

A look to the left reveals a part of the historic Nürburgring racetrack (“Nordschleife”). Some autoracing buff might even know the name of these turns here.

Flying overhead Dahlemer Binz airfield (EDKA).

A nice steady bearing on the Spa NDB, as shown on the ancient Collins ADF.

Meanwhile, approaching the boundary, I switched to Brussels Information who confirmed that none of the TRAs, EB-Ds, etc. were active. Now over the Ardennes region in Belgium, with more snow.

Ten miles out from Spa, I changed to the airfield’s radio frequency. It is officially “FR only” yet the radio operator does his best with English as well, as do the local pilots.
Just about to turn right hand downwind for runway 05.

Base and final. The surroundings are quite beautiful.

Parked up at Spa.

Just as the engine stops, someone rushes out and helps out with chocks, which is a good idea at that place, due to the significant slope in the ramp.

A cozy small VFR airfield.

I paid the landing fee in the office and asked for a taxi to town, which arrived within a few minutes. Here’s just a couple of impressions from Spa, taken with the crappy iphone 4 camera. It’s a nice place for a short afternoon visit. The temperature hit 10 degrees in the early afternoon.

Whilst I was in town, I prepared and sent the return flight plan using just the iphone. Clever piece of kit!

Regarding the routing, I decided to stay just south of the Frankfurt CTR this time. Here is the track I ended up flying.

Back at the airfield, still runway 05 in use.

Warming up the engine at the hold (always nicely leaned).

Leaving the circuit via the downwind leg, here’s the town of Francorchamps….

….and the famous Spa racetrack, with “La Source” and “Eau Rouge”.

Flying past Malmedy.

One of the numerous quarries in the south of Belgium.

Here’s another short video clip. A little more turbulence on this part of the flight, but hey, that’s a part of flying after all.

And here we are at the (modern) Nürburgring racetrack.

Check the Nürburg in the background.

A few more miles to the east, I intercepted the Rhine and then followed it southbound all the way to Bingen. Visibility back to to “so-so”.

Boppard.

That strech of the Rhine (between Koblenz and Bingen) is quite beautiful, with countless castles.

After Bingen, it was via just south of Mainz, and back to home base. Here we are, crossing the Rhine again near Nackenheim.
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An uneventful landing followed after one hour and ten minutes enroute. Airplane ready to be stowed away.