05 November 2006
Oktoberfest 2006 LEG 5 Fuersty to Siegerland
Below you can read the details of the first leg on the way back to Holland. This time in English for those who do not understand Dutch.. encroyable mes amis..! After a few extra days in Munich -due to the passing of cold front over Germany- I took my chances and left Fuerstenfeldbrueck (Munich) in the aftenoon. Weather was clearing quite well due to sun activity evaporating the large fog layers over south and middle Germany. On the other hand I could not wait too long due to expected bad weather coming towards Holland from the UK and Belgium.
A last wave-goodbye to Fuersty -hoping to come back soon!- and off I go, excited about what weather to find in the Frankfurt region. According to the German weather services, whom I called 3 times that day, the weather is clearing with some showers left. When I approach the Odenwald region I spot a lot of showers and try to circumnavigate where possible. I cannot avoid to enter a few showers, sometimes without warning, the windshield is covered in long wet stripes of waterdrops reducing the visibilty temporarily but these are small showers, mostly ony a few minutes or less. When I come closer the Spessart area (hills and small mountains) there is huge, massive cloudparty of rain and dirty weather appearantly lying at rest in a kind of valley somewhere East of Aschaffenburg. The sight is impressive and flying into there would be quite unwise. I choose to alter my course and fly east of the cloudparty to resume my course somewhere around VOR Gedern (GED).
Crossing above the CTR of Augsburg. The visibility is good, some rainshowers can be seen very clearly, nice to circumnavigate!
South of Wurzburg I pass the inactive military airport of Ochsenfurt. Their ADF is unserviceable.
I have just flown around this curtain of misserable weather (west of me). This the Spessart area, just north-east of the Odenwald.
The strut of my plane parts bad from good weather. The weather clears.. me to Siegerland..!
At Gedern my VOR instrument again seems to have troubles with receiving a signal, probably due to my low altitude due to cloudbase. My destination will be Siegerland (EDGS) and I try to use the ADFs available, but the NOTAM allready informed me that quite a few (former military) ADFs are unserviceable. VOR is still having a hard time so I struglle a lot with the navigation, the marks in the area are not really very clear. I am quite happy when I can switch away from Langen Info and call Siegerland Info. I request if radar service are available and get confirmed that I was 10 mile further southwest then I expected to be. Got a nice straight in, instead of the initialy lefthand base leg 31 entry! I spot the airport very late but the controller guided me exactly to the right point. Circuit altitude is 3000 feet which gives you the impression you are very high since the airport is situated on quite a high point. A bit of slipping brings me halfway the 1620m runway and the strong crosswind takes care of a not-so-very-good landing but thats part of the game isnt it.. You cant have squeezers all the time... :(
Just filled up at EDGS Siegerland airport, a nice site, Avanti Air is homebased here, with quite some Dutch pilots flying there.
This airport is G R E A T ! The runway has a 33ft height diffence and the taxiways and aprons even more! Groundhandling very friendly and the controller turns out to be an enthousiastic Tiger Moth flyer, flying to the UK regularly. Try and visit Siegerland if you can, it's a nice and friendly place..
A last wave-goodbye to Fuersty -hoping to come back soon!- and off I go, excited about what weather to find in the Frankfurt region. According to the German weather services, whom I called 3 times that day, the weather is clearing with some showers left. When I approach the Odenwald region I spot a lot of showers and try to circumnavigate where possible. I cannot avoid to enter a few showers, sometimes without warning, the windshield is covered in long wet stripes of waterdrops reducing the visibilty temporarily but these are small showers, mostly ony a few minutes or less. When I come closer the Spessart area (hills and small mountains) there is huge, massive cloudparty of rain and dirty weather appearantly lying at rest in a kind of valley somewhere East of Aschaffenburg. The sight is impressive and flying into there would be quite unwise. I choose to alter my course and fly east of the cloudparty to resume my course somewhere around VOR Gedern (GED).
Crossing above the CTR of Augsburg. The visibility is good, some rainshowers can be seen very clearly, nice to circumnavigate!
South of Wurzburg I pass the inactive military airport of Ochsenfurt. Their ADF is unserviceable.
I have just flown around this curtain of misserable weather (west of me). This the Spessart area, just north-east of the Odenwald.
The strut of my plane parts bad from good weather. The weather clears.. me to Siegerland..!
At Gedern my VOR instrument again seems to have troubles with receiving a signal, probably due to my low altitude due to cloudbase. My destination will be Siegerland (EDGS) and I try to use the ADFs available, but the NOTAM allready informed me that quite a few (former military) ADFs are unserviceable. VOR is still having a hard time so I struglle a lot with the navigation, the marks in the area are not really very clear. I am quite happy when I can switch away from Langen Info and call Siegerland Info. I request if radar service are available and get confirmed that I was 10 mile further southwest then I expected to be. Got a nice straight in, instead of the initialy lefthand base leg 31 entry! I spot the airport very late but the controller guided me exactly to the right point. Circuit altitude is 3000 feet which gives you the impression you are very high since the airport is situated on quite a high point. A bit of slipping brings me halfway the 1620m runway and the strong crosswind takes care of a not-so-very-good landing but thats part of the game isnt it.. You cant have squeezers all the time... :(
Just filled up at EDGS Siegerland airport, a nice site, Avanti Air is homebased here, with quite some Dutch pilots flying there.
This airport is G R E A T ! The runway has a 33ft height diffence and the taxiways and aprons even more! Groundhandling very friendly and the controller turns out to be an enthousiastic Tiger Moth flyer, flying to the UK regularly. Try and visit Siegerland if you can, it's a nice and friendly place..
