A romantic adventure or the biggest danger?

The air race aircrafts are sometimes transported by Boeing 747 from A to B. But often the pilots fly their aircraft to the next location. We take you on board during a ferry flight from Budapest to Porto.

Welcome in the logbook of Frank Versteegh.

Tuesday August 21^st, 07:30 hrs LT, the morning after the race over the Danube river.
A quick breakfast and I drive with my technician Martijn to the airport.
Weather: Very bad, rain, thunderstorm, wind.
All aircrafts are refueled and packed for the ferry flight.

Some pilots plan to go south of the Alps, some want to go North of the mountains.
Flightplans are filed and the passports have been shown to the customs at Tököl airport.
Via the wireless internet we check the weather enroute. Very bad, and my planned fuel stop in Portoroz seems impossible due to storms over Croatia.
A big thunderstorm approaches the Tököl airport and shelter is difficult to find as the temporary hangars are in the process of being pulled down.
The Breitling jet team takes of IFR to Dijon and the B-25 also left. We cannot fly in this bad weather as our race aircrafts do not have any instruments to fly in clouds.

A quick decision has been made and Nigel Lamb proposed to go o Salzburg and check the latest weather over there. The deal is, we go together and he will lead the first part of this adventure.
11:31 hrs LT Take off LHTL>LOWS (Immatriculation of 4 letters means L L’Europe H Hungary TL Tököl)
Pretty soon we fly in good conditions and slowly climb to max 10.000 ft (3000 M)
At 12:51 hrs LT we land at runway 16 (Magnetic heading) in Salzburg.
Extensive weather check for the next part of the route, and we do concentrate on the low and flat country side, in order to avoid, “scud-running” in the mountains.
The plan is to fly direction Bodensee, Basel, and than shoot into the Rhône valley in order to stay in flat terrain.
We refuel our airplanes at Hangar 8 of Red Bull.
A quick sandwich, without drink, (no toilet on board of race plane) and ready for departure.

14:47 hrs LT take off from Salzburg. The first part of the flight is uneventful and we enjoy the lovely and friendly Austrian country side.
When we enter Switzerland the clouds get lower, the terrain goes up and it is raining. We cruise with a ground speed of about 320 km/h. When the visibility goes back to 3 km’s it is time to consider turning around and heading north for better weather.
We change formation and I move to Nigels tail in order to make quick turn. Sometimes cables, wires, obstacles make a quick turn of vital importance.
The weather is not good and if we look south, there is no chance to fly through.
We will have to land here?
No, fortunately after a few minutes the visibility improves and we decide to fly through south Germany and cross north of Basel.
We fly north of the Jura mountains and find that the weather in the Rhône valley is good. Some isolated thunderstorms are reason to zig-zag a bit, but we enjoy the country side.
I am very lucky Nigel has the lead in the first part. (He will be tired when we land :-))
We cross the Lyon Control zone in the west and shoot south, with a nice tailwind direction our destination Valence.
17:39 hrs LT we touch down in Valence. Time to refuel and find a toilet. (in reverse order)
Nigel is nagged. (And I am the one who went to the after party and Nigel went to bed early. These Old Englishmen, no stamina. ;-) )
Refuel, lots of, slow, paperwork.
Now it is time for me to lead Nigels into Spain, the destination where we want to make a night stop.

18:28 hrs LT Take off to destination LEAP Ampuria Brava.
This part of the flight is really fantastic. We shoot direction Montpellier and Perpignan. On the left side we see the Mediterranean sea and straight ahead we see the Pyrenees coming up. There is even time for a nice slow barrel roll. Loosen up the stiff muscles.
19:35 hrs LT “Squeek”, the landing in Spain. We decide to leave the refuel for the next day, tie down and secure the planes for the night and RUN to the bar for our first, deserved beer. Cervessa por favor!
We book rooms in a hotel close to the airport and after a quick shower we enjoy our tapas at 21:15 hrs LT

Wednesday 09:15 hrs LT, breakfast in Ampuria brava.
The plan is to take off at 11:00 hrs LT and depending on the wind head for our final destination, or, land for fuel (and sandwich) in Madrid.
09:55 hrs LT arrival at LEAP, weather check and refuel.
I will lead Nigel, so I have to do the “work” now.
The weather is fully overcast.
11:24 hrs LT we depart from LEAP with destinations Porto for Nigel and Lisboa (Cascais) for me. Our alternate airport is Casarrubios LEMT south west of Madrid.
I straight climb to 7000’ (feet) and soon we encounter a serious thunderstorm system west of Barcelona. We see clouds below us and clouds above us, and a wall of clouds south of us. In the far distance I see the mountains, and decide to continue. “are you happy?” I ask Nigel. “Affirm!” is his response. So, we continue.
We loose radio contact with Barcelona radar and it takes a while before I establish contact with Zaragossa. During flights we always listen out to our “Formation frequency” and the leader can switch and talk to ground stations. Most of the time the leader takes his wingman with him to all the frequencies he talks to in order to make sure all information is shared.

Slowly the weather is improving and we decide to climb VFR on top (above the clouds, but with ground visibility). We are doing 190 Kts groundspeed. Still I decide to take no risk and plan to land in Madrid. (Toilet & sandwich). I tell Nigel he can continue, as his destination is closer than mine.
He decides to join me for a sandwich as well. :-)
Madrid radar is very helpful and guides us south of all control zones to our destination. As we get lover, the turbulence is getting worse and we see more and more BIG birds. Birds are a serious danger. When you hit one, it might be over, for the bird as well.

13:28 hrs LT Landing at the home base of Alejandro. A warm welcome by Ignacio the fuel man. A well prepared sandwich, a capucino and it is time to say goodbye to Nigel. Our ways split here. He will fly straight to Porto, and I will go to Cascais.
15:12 hrs LT take of in formation. Nigel left turn out, Frank right turn out. Hasta la vista baby! See you in Porto next week.
When I climb out and talk to Madrid I think of the thousands of miles I ferried with Nigel. To Helsinki, to Istanbul, Portugal etc. etc. We have seen almost all European countries also before the wall came down.
And still I do like to beat the bastard during the air race. “Whipe his bumm”

This old and long lasting friendships make me love air racing so much.

Cruising at 8.000’ I enter Portuguese airspace.
25 minutes to go to Lisboa. Portuguese air traffic control (ATC) takes over.

I now learn why Portuguese general aviation pilots have quite an opinion about their ATC.
The words ATC uses most are “Negative” “Immediate” & “Hold position”. After ATC did make me fly about 40 nautical miles extra, and made me hold over the beach in visual conditions, they “terminated radar service” and handed me over to Cascais.
My answer over the radio was: “Thank you for what YOU call……… SERVICE”.

After two days flying through bad and good weather I landed at LPCS.
16:44 hrs LT engine cut off and put the aircraft in hangar 4 at Tires.
Quick sms to Nigel! Oeps, he is ahead of me. As I create my text, his text is arriving.

Well, as long the only thing he is faster with, is texting………..

 

I consider calling ATC by phone and give them my opinion?
Or shall I go to the bar?...................
It choose for plan B.
Maybe this is the reason you see so many general aviation pilots in the bars in Portugal. ;-)

 

Details:
Distance route           NM      1596 / Km      2906

Max Altitude               Feet    10.000

Min altitude                Feet    400

Max ground speed    Kts      259 / Km/h     480

Min Visibility              Km      1.5

Max visibility              Km      75

Flying time                 Hrs      8:53

Landings                                5

Fuel consumption
(Average)                   Ltrs      60/hr

Total fuel route           Ltrs      540

Pictures of the trip in the new photo album within a few days.