July 2011

02.07.2011: Finally an update again. Once a year the flying club of Lodrino organises a fly in. What is special about it is that Lodrino is actually a military airfield, and therefore normally closed to civil traffic, but on that day everybody is invited to come for a visit. Lodrino lies south of the alps in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and as the weather was very nice my wife and I decided to spend the weekend there.

We started off around 8:30 from Lommis with still some clouds in the sky, but that cleared quickly for two days of nearly cloudless sky. We flew in a more or less straight line from Lommis via Rapperswil towards the Lake of four cantons, and from there over the Gotthard pass which can be seen below. That was a more or less continuous, but shallow climb at around 250 ft/min from the 1'540 ft in Lommis to around 9'000 ft over the pass. From there it was all downhill to Lodrino, which lies at around 860 ft above MSL.

Below the airfield seen from the base to runway three four, looking north towards the Gotthard where we came from,...

...and here on final runway three four. The buildings to the right of the runway are part of a larger RUAG maintenance facility, which had an open day so that we could visit it.

The tarmac still looks quite empty in the picture above (we were actually the second airplane to arrive), but if filled quickly with probably around 80 to 100 planes. There were even two other SportCruisers, the one of Sandro (HB-YNM), the second Swiss homebuilt,...

...as well as HB-WYO, a factory built plane owned by the flying club in Locarno.

Below a picture of Sandro taking off behind a parked Piper Cub, nearly like the commercial that was run by Piper when they were marketing the SportCruiser as PiperSport.

This picture nicely shows what we in Switzerland call mountain flying. The airfield is at 850 ft, the circuit at 2'000 ft and the mountains on both sides of the valley are around 9'000 ft tall. Winds can be pretty strong here, with significant turbulence, but today we only had around 10 kts.

Even though it was only a fly in, there was a small airshow program. Here the P3 flyers, flying retired military piston trainers (Pilatus P-3).

Later in the afternoon we continued to Locarno, which is only 15 minutes flight from Lodrino, and parked the plane for the night. This was actually the first overnight stay outside Lommis, so I could try "The Claw", a tiedown system I bought last year at Sun & Fun.

It consists of aluminium bars that are fixed to the ground with three nails, and it really woks well. They claim that it works on any terrain, including sand, let's hope I get the chance to try this soon.

When walking to the C-Office I noticed the C-3605 C-494 parked near the hangars, a plane I once flew in as navigator all across Germany. I have not seen it for years, and it has been nicely renovated, nothing compared with the fading paint it was wearing before. A description of that trip can be found here.

We then spent a nice evening in Locarno, and did a boat tour on Sunday to the Brissago Island, before heading back home Sunday afternoon.

On the lake we saw some other flying "thing", they are operating hydrofoils on Lago Maggiore.

Here some views from the Brissago Island, home of an absolutely beautiful botanical garden that was planted around 125 years ago.

Here the nice village of Ascona, which lies next to Locarno.

When going back to the airport we saw a SpeedCanard taking off, not a very common sight.

We then flew back from Locarno, seen below, to Lommis, which took a little more than an hour.

Below a view back at Locarno airport, with the concrete runway on the lower left edge of hthe picture, and the two grass runways to the right of it. Locarno is home of the basic training unit of the Swiss Air Force, operating Pilatus PC-7 and PC-21, and PC-9 for target towing. It is however also a civil airport, and home of the largest para jumping centre in Switzerland.

We then flew into the Maggia Valley, over the Ritom lake, over the Lukmanier-Pass...

...and past the Tödi at around 12'000 ft. The flight was again a nearly continuous climb of nearly 12'000 ft, followed by a continuous descent to Lommis. Flying is definitely faster than taking the train, which takes around 4 hours, and going by car, which can take anything from 3 to 6 hours depending on traffic.

25.07.2011: We are back from a two week holiday in Tuscany, Italy. We were really lucky with the weather, as we had sun and around 25 to 30 degrees every day, where else the weather at home was quite miserable, with hardly a day where I could have gone flying.

Today however I decided to go for a little tour, as my wife has to work again but I still have a week of holidays. When I arrived at the airport I noticed a military helicopter parked behind my SportCruiser. Only then I remembered that this week we are running a Sphair course, which is a course for young people that intend to become a military or airline pilot. It takes twice two weeks, in which they receive around 15 to 20 flying lessons.

I also noticed one of the new Tecnam twins, a really nice plane. Maybe that could be a next project, but I doubt they are selling kit's.

Here a view of the panel, a fully IFR certified Garmin 1000 suit.

I then just did a little tour through the mountains. It was quite cloudy, but that makes it a little more challenging and thus also more interesting.

I am really happy with the Garmin GPSMAP 695, it's perfect for situational awareness. I however hardly use any of the many features, except once in a while a "direct to".

On the way back I flew over one of the former Bloodhound anti aircraft rocket launch sites. Publishing a picture of the site would have been a crime only a few years ago, but the system is now out of service. This site now hosts a museum, the other sites are being demolished.

26.07.2011: I quickly drove to the airport to pick up some stuff, and when I got closer I noticed an ambulance helicopter parked next to the runway. When I got even closer I noticed our L4 HB-OXI lying on it's back next to the runway.

I learned that a student pilot training for the tail wheel endorsement managed somehow to mess up a landing so badly that he left the runway and nosed the plane over. The pilot was not hurt, but the accident investigation was still ongoing. Once the experts were finished we turned the plane back on it's wheels (by hand over the nose, with the help of around a dozen pilots) and moved it to the hangar.

Already a first investigation revealed that the damage was quite substantial, with the fin and rudder smashed, the lower strings of the rear fuselage bent, the left struts bent and the spar of the left wing split.

27.07.2011: Today my wife and I decided to fly to Bressaucourt, the first new airfield built in Switzerland in many, many years. It is actually a replacement of the airfield of Porrentruy, which is now closed.

On the way there we flew the northern route around Zurich airport. The lower limit of the TMA there is 3000 ft, with the terrain up to 2200 ft, resulting in some low flying. The airliners are passing only around 1000 ft above you, which looks quite spectacular.

We then flew past the Leibstadt nuclear power plant, which serves as a visual VOR.

Bressaucourt lies in the north-western corner of Switzerland, that's around one hour of flying from Lommis. The route is mostly along the Jura mountains, only near the airfield the terrain gets a little flater.

Here the new airfield, it sits on top of a ridge that has been created by depositing material excavated from a nearby highway tunnel that is still under construction.

There is an embankment of around 15 m just in front of the runway threshold, which makes landing a bit tricky due to the missing reference of the ground. They have therefore installed a PAPI, which can be seen on the left. On the right one can see the futuristic airport building, with two round hangars behind that incorporate carousels. They will add a third carousel to this one, and have space for a second, three carousel hangar behind the first one. The airfield complies with all of today's regulations, and has an 800 m runway.

Here a closer view of the airport building, with a "tower" on top, some sleeping rooms on the first floor and a restaurant on the ground floor.

As we were the only plane on this morning we got a nice tour of the facilities, here a view from the "tower" onto the tarmac.

Unfortunately the restaurant in Bressaucourt is not yet open, so we stopped on the way back in Birrfeld for some lunch.

Once back in Lommis I saw a nice Bücker Jungmeister parked outside, coming for a visit.

29.07.2011: I did a little flight to the mountains again today to try out some of the electronic gadgets in my plane.

One that I really like is the FLARM, the anti collision warning system with which nearly all gliders and helicopters in Switzerland, and nearly all gliders in the rest of Europe are equipped. Below in the centre a typical indication of a traffic, here 1.3 km away at a two o clock position, slightly below.

Looking out once can see a glider circling ahead and above the wing tip.

31.07.2011: Today we flew to Mollis, which is a military airport that also used by some GA planes. It is however closed to outside traffic, unless one of the locally based pilots invites you. Urs has his SportCruiser PH-URS based there, so it was of course no problem to get invited...

We went there to try the seat cushion that CzechSportAircraft now offers for "vertically challenged" (smaller) pilots, as my wife doesn't really see over the nose without a cussion. It is a really nicely made cushion that also brings the pilot a bit forward, and it really works well, so I am going to order one.

Below the two SportCruiser parked in front of the RUAG maintenance hangar.

Mollis lies in a spectacular location, the downwind of the circuit is at 2200ft next to a wall (below on the right) that goes all the way up to 7500 ft. After passing overhead (left to right on the picture below), one flies straight towards that wall and then turns left / right onto the downwind just before the wall depending on the runway in use.

While we had lunch the RUAG hangar was opened and quite some heavy metal was rolled out, including a King Air, a Challenger and a helicopter.

After the visit we flew home again, of course with some little detours through the mountains. Just after landing we saw Urs land in Lommis too, he decided spontaneously to do a little sightseeing too.

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