April 2011

03.04.2011: I decided to do make longer flight today, and go to some new airfields with my SportCruiser. I chose Thun, as they have recently bought a factory build SportCruiser, and as I have never been there, as well as Gruyère. Below a few impressions from what was nearly a summer day, as temperatures rose above 20 degrees.

I started with flying south from Lommis over the upper end of the lake of Zurich,...

..then across the Sihlsee,...

...past the Rigi mountain,....

...and across the Vierwaldstättersee.

I was busy trying to contact all the military airbases along the route, such as Dübendorf, Buochs, Alpnach and Meringen, but they all seemed to have a day off as all came back with a pre-recorded message telling me that their class D airspace was not active.

I then flew across the Brienzersee and the Thundersee towards my first stop Thun.

In between the Brienzersee and the Thundersee lies Interlaken, which also had a military airbase until a few years ago. It is now closed and used for events of any kind. It also hosts the Jungfraupark (which can be seen on the picture below), which was originally called the Mystery Park. It was founded by Erich von Daniken, and was hosting exhibits on futurology, aliens and UFO's. Maybe that's why they built it next to a runway, so that the UFO's could land, but the park was a commercial failure (maybe there were not enough aliens and UFO's visiting). It is now an event park on more earthly topics.

Above Interlaken I passed the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau mountains, for me a sight more worth looking at than any "mysteries".

Here a view at Thun airfield, which lies in the middle of a training area of the Army. I marked the runway in red, as it is quite difficult to spot.

Below a nice view on the mountains behind the airfield.

The local flying club in Thun bought a PiperSport some months ago, here it is the hangar.

I then continued back over the lake of Thun to Spiez,...

...then over the Jaun Pass...

...to Gruyère airfield. It lies next to the village of Gruyère, which lies on top of a little hill.

The circuit goes around the village with it's huge castle, the airfield being at the right edge of the picture.

From Gruyère I flew back via Berne, Olten and then passing north of the CTR of Zurich. Once I was back in Lommis my wife just came out of her voice lesson (she decided to get her PPL too), so we went for a little flight to the Glarus mountains. All in all I flew nearly five hours today, I don't think I ever flew that many hours in a day. It definitely makes a difference having your own plane and only paying the fuel per hour.

09.04.2011: Today my wife and I went to the annual convention of the EAS, the Experimental Aviation of Switzerland, or Swiss homebuilders organisation. As it was again a beautiful day we of course went by plane. The event took place in Berne, where the Airport waived half the landing fee and the Swiss Air Force let us use their hangar for the event. Berne is not an airbase, but the Air Force has a base there for the business jets of the Swiss government.

Zurich airport lies between Lommis and Bern, and as most of the time when I fly west I asked for a transit through the CTR. My flying teacher always said only cowards fly around the CTR, the air there belongs to us general aviation pilots too, and indeed except during peak hours they always let you cross. Crossing the CTR is also cool for passengers, as can be seen on the pictures below, as you get a cool view of the airport. And on top of that it gave my wife some life ATC communication to listen to.

Here a view from the last reporting point on the eastern VFR approach to Zurich Airport. From there you get different instructions on where to cross the airport, depending on traffic. Today it was via threshold Rwy 28 and threshold Rwy 34, as there were planes taking off from these two locations. It's quite strange to fly only 1'500 ft over the airport and hearing a "cleared for takeoff" issued to an airliner that is straight below you.

Here a first view on the new terminal E...

...and here a plane that just took off from Rwy 28.

Here a closer look at terminal E, one can see the Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 at the rearmost gate. From around 7 to 8:30 many long distance planes arrive, and they start leaving again around 10:00. We crossed shortly after 9, so the terminal was fully occupied.

After leaving the CTR in Bremgaren we continued towards Berne. Due to the unusually high number of planes arriving and some scheduled flights departing in the opposite direction from the same runway the tower was quite busy, so I had to do three orbits at the first reporting point before being at all able to make the first radio call. To my surprise we could however continue with our approach without further delay.

Here a view when turning onto the final approach to Rwy 14.

After landing we were directly sent to the "Bundesbasis", where we could park right in front of the Air Force hangar.

They even put the "Swiss Air Force One" (the governments largest business jet, a Dassault Falcon 50) outside to make room for us. That's what I call perfect service.

Here some of the around 30 to 40 planes that took part, the number was a bit smaller then in other years. Maybe the weather was just too nice for some to attend.

As I arrived as one of the first planes I got a parking spot right in front of the hangar.

After the event we flew back towards Lommis. With the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau mountains close by we just had to make a little detour. After leaving the CTR of Berne we did a cruise climb all the way up to 12'500 ft, with an average of 400 ft/min at 5'100 rpm.

Here a few of the mountains nearby, ....

and then a closer and closer look at the three big ones.

Here on the upper left the Jungfrau Joch observatory, thanks to the zoom lens one could think we were standing on the snow field in front of the picture. The observatory lies at 3'454 m / 11'332ft above sea level.

There are a few impressive glaciers around there, ...

...and of course mountains too. Flying up here might look dangerous to some, but there are two airports at around 14 miles distance (Reichenbach and Meiringen) and at around 2'000 ft above sea level, which gives a gliding ratio of around 1 in 9. That means that even in case of a complete engine failure one could always reach an airfield.

We then flew back towards Lommis, where we arrived about an hour and thirty minutes after leaving Berne.

14.04.2011: Today a friend from Denmark and I went to Friedrichshafen to visit the Aero11 Exhibition. Now that my plane is finished I need ideas for the next one...

Here a few impressions from what we saw. The first plane was a roadable airplane with very small wings...

We also saw an FK-14 with a cool open cockpit.

Here the same as a close up look. The plane is delivered with a second, standard enclosed canopy, which is interchangeable within a few minutes.

I then saw a plane from a company called BRM Aero, which looked like a SportCruiser with retractable gear. A closer look revealed that even many design details are identical, and the company is located just a few miles from the SportCruiser factory....

Here a view from below, maybe I could retrofit the retractable gear to my plane...

On the booth right next to it was the SportCruiser in the 2011 edition. They did a number of detail improvements to the version I have built.

Examples are arm supports, which I myself already thought about installing...

...and a handle that helps pulling down the canopy. This can be retrofitted, according to the sales guy, so I will probably order one. They also added an indicator that confirms that the canopy is properly closed, something I have already added myself.

They also showed the new high wing airplane, which shares a number of details with the SportCruiser. As many high wing aircraft the view to the side is obstructed by the wing if you are a little on the taller side as me with my 187 cm / 5'2", so nothing for me.

We also saw a "stealth" kit, for which I wonder how big the market is.

Then there were of course a number of helicopter kits,...

...as well as autogyros, maybe that could be an idea.

Quite many of the aircraft on display had the new Dynon SkyView avionics, which indeed offers an impressive functionality. In my opinion it can do at least as much as a Garmin 500, with bigger screens and at a fraction of the cost (but to be fair without being certified).

There were also kits that replicated some military aircraft, such as this Hawker Hurricane as well as an Embraer Tucano (in the background). I asked the sales guy whether they were certified for aerobatics and he said no with quite some astonishment about my question. I however find it not only silly, but dangerous, to sell a plane that looks like a plane that is fully aerobatic but is not.

Some of the gliders on display had small jet engines instead of regular piston engines, another idea for the next project.

The funniest "thing" was a single engine ultra-ultralight seaplane called flynano with a fairly special wing arrangement. It has not flown yet, but should be airborne soon. They claim it only weights 70 kg, has a small gasoline or electric engine (what about batteries at 70 kg?), and shall cost less than 30'000 €. Let's hope this is not just another hype.

Here a weird aircraft, a Verhees Delta. They say it will come out as a kit soon, again I wonder how big the market is for something that special. It's only a single seater, which typically attracts only a few people, and it does not even provide special performance.

There were quite a few planes with LED strobes, such as this one, but most of them seemed quite complex compared to ours.

Finally there was a Russian seaplane that looked pretty cool.

I liked the entry with stairs in the rear, which looked similar to those on motor boats, one can probably land somewhere on a lake and just go swimming.... The ultimate toy for rich guys.

And as always during the Aero there were passenger flights with the Zeppelin NT.

While there were quite a few new things this year, I did not find anything that I would consider as the next project, so I guess I will have to continue searching..

15.04.2011: Today my friend and I went flying. To our surprise the plane was iced over when we arrived at the airport, the temperature slightly below 0 C.

We therefore moved it so that it was facing the sun, and while we did the flight preparation the ice, or rather rime, melted off.

After takeoff we asked for a crossing in Zurich, but they would not let us do it due heavy inbound to traffic, so we headed south first. We crossed the lake of Zurich and then flew past Lucerne and the Brünig pass toward the Eiger.

My friend was impressed by the readability of the Garmin GPSMAP 695 even in sunlight, and I have to say I wouldn't want to miss it.

Here the first look at the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau mountains, towards which we were heading.

We climbed to around 12'000 feet towards the Jungfraujoch observatory....

and then passed it heading for the Aletsch glacier.

After flying down the glacier we proceeded toward the Matterhorn, which was nicely sticking out of some clouds so that we could fly around it.

We were fully fuel, and with two grown ups not too far from the maximum takeoff mass, but had no problem climbing to 13'000 ft as can be seen on the picture below. We of course only stayed there for a few minutes, descending to below 12'000 ft after having flown around the Matternhorn.

We initially intended to fly to Locarno, but the weather south of the alps looked pretty cloudy, so we decided to divert to Samedan instead.

Here a picture of the very crowded apron in Samedan... We landed after being airborne for just over three hours, so far the longest flight in my SportCruiser. I have to say the seats are really comfortable, no problem to stay airborne for that long.

After a nice lunch we flew back to Lommis over the Julier pass and the Lenzerheide below.

18.04.2011: Another day of flying today. I have the idea to fly with my SportCruiser to all Swiss airfields and airports, and there is one that will soon be replaced with a new one (probably the first new airfield in decades). The one being closed is called Porrentruy, and lies between two villages which have to be overflown pretty low during takeoff and landing. As a new highway is getting built nearby and they did not know what to do with the material excavated from a new tunnel someone came on the idea to use it to fill inn a small valley and create a flat spot for a new airfield. It will be called Bressaucourt and should open in a few weeks. It lies only about three kilometres from the airfield of Porrentry, but is located so that no villages have to be overflown on the circuit. Below a picture of the new runway, which will be paved, the old grass runway lies just above and to the right down in the valley.

Here the SportCruiser in front of the hangar at Porrentruy.

We then proceeded to Saanen, an old military airfield near Gstaad.

Below a view at the old "tower" built by the military into the steep slope south of the runway. The runway is at 3'300 ft above sea level, but the circuit height is 5'000 ft due to the terrain. At the end of the downwind one has to turn into the side valley where Gstaad lies, then has to descend and turn over Gstaad and then fly back towards Saanen. A pretty spectacular approach considering that some business jets operate there.

From Gstaad we flew back over Meringen airbase, where two pairs of F/A-18 Hornets took off underneath us, towards Lommis.

21.04.2011: Today I did my bi-annual check flight, as well as my first Level 4 language proficiency check. The examiner found I would qualify for a Level 5, but that does not really bring anything as I would have to go to a special centre for the test. I would then only to have to redo it in 8 years instead of 4, but as I anyway have to do the check flight every two years there is not really any benefit.

After that I went with my younger daughter back to Samedan airport. She has holidays and I had promised this to her since a long time. As she did not participate in the flight testing of my SportCruiser this was her first flight in it, and she really liked it.

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