I flew to EBZR Zoersel on Saturday – the forecasts for Sunday being less favourable, and looking out from my window as I type this, I see that confirmed – but was a bit disappointed.
The promised DH Dove was not to be seen, but like as not this cannot be blamed on the organisers – all pilots know that the slightest detail can suffice to get a flight cancelled, and old timers are beset with little details. Sheer bad luck, I suppose. Still, that left the famous Bronco (with a curious reference to the pre-Bismarck Königliches Bayerisches Fliegerkorps?) as about the only remarkable plane to be seen. Ok, there were the usual SV4’s, Pitts low-pass including smoke, quite a lot of Piper Cubs, all very nice. Are we getting spoilt, perhaps?
A definite negative though: whereas, on the usual fly-in, one gets a personal welcome after landing, here I was shown where to park by an able marshaller, and that was that. Truth to say, there were several more landings right behind so the marshaller had his hands full – no blame on this gentleman, at the contrary; but last week at Schaffen EBDT (not less busy!) it was so different to have a follow-me car showing me where to park, its driver jumping out the moment I stopped the engine, for a cordial shake-hands and a warm word of welcome. To say the least, EBZR could do with stiffening their arrivals team. There was a time when a landing pilot would be welcomed by one or several cheery ladies in a sexy car, driving one to the C-office – no sign of them this year.
The worst of all, however, was when walking the several 100 metres from my plane to the C-office – along the taxiway, as that was the shortest way, and a nice opportunity for looking at the other planes – when I was approached by a youngster, formally decked out with a high-vis jacket and a lot of impressive-looking badges, who firmly requested me to walk behind the red-white tape and NOT on the taxiway, because “I might be giving a bad example to the audience”. This was all the more infuriating as the same taxiway was being leisurely walked by several spotters, equally decked out in fluo and badges, and armed with tele’s of 400 and 500 mm which are obviously required for photography from so very close.
On the other side I must give full credit to the AFIS operator – did I hear him being called Herman? – and didn’t I hear a very similar voice on 135,200, at one time? – who was very professional, almost undercooled but really enjoyable company. I had approached the field with a near certainty of using runway 05 – given that 09 was in use where I departed from – so was utterly flabbergasted to get the 23 and reacted rather foolishly. Herman shrewdly reminded me of published procedures and there I went, giving the field a wide berth then trying again… Well done, sir!
I regret I will think twice before visiting this event again, in spite of all the hard work and good effort by many.
