Bölkow G-EJBI

Nick Wright had organised a Bölkow fly-in at Popham so I flew G-EJBI down with my good friend Robert. Routing west of Stansted, south of Luton and north of Heathrow the trip took a little over an hour. It was in the 1970’s that I last visited the airfield which has expanded somewhat. A lovely event which I hope will be an annual affair and many thanks to Popham Radio for spotting us taxiing for take off with the pitot cover still on, oops!

The end of July and the begining of August saw G-EJBI fly quite a few local flights from Tibenham. It is always nice taking passengers for a trip, either sitting in the back where they can enjoy the comfort and exceptional view or in the front seat where they can sample the lovely light and responsive controls. Pictured here is Andrew taking a couple of visiting Australian lifeguards for a trip.

Another of my favourite airports is Calais. This time around they had an active ATC and an open Restaurant. I like that it is quiet, cheap and convenient, €10 to land and only a 2 hour immigration notification required. I flew there with two good friends, Jasper and Christine. Always the creature of habit it was lunch at the airport and then a 20 minute walk into the local village for a visit to the supermarket for some wine.

A few days after our Eelde trip, Paola and I flew G-EJBI to Priory Farm. The airstrip is virtually next door to Tibenham and is home to a fairly eclectic mix of light aircraft. Here is a link to the Priory Farm Aviators website where you will find a large collection of home and visiting aircraft pictures, they have some very keen and very good photographers in their club. Pictured here is G-EJBI on a previous visit to the airfield.

The reason for our early morning trip to Eelde was to visit the motor racing circuit at Assen for the Dutch round of MotoGP. Earlier this summer I had bought a couple of Brompton folding bikes. The two bikes are a perfect fit alongside each other on the back seat of the 207. The cycle ride from the airport to the circuit is around 20km all of which is on dedicated cycle paths. Assen circuit is often described as the ‘Cathedral of Speed’ and is certainly a great place to watch MotoGP. After the race it was a cycle back to Eelde and then G-EJBI to Tibenham.

A week after returning from the ‘Bölkow and Friends’ fly-in at Melle we were back across the North Sea, destination Eelde in the Netherlands. Again we took the direct route rather than opt for a shorter sea crossing. I doubt I would be so keen to do this in winter or spring with the cold sea temperatures but we carry a dinghy and lifejackets plus I am assured that the plane should float if we had to ditch. Around €30 to land park for the day, fuel, like at all the places we have found in the Netherlands, was quite pricey.

On the way to Germany our routing took us just to the north of Amsterdam and on the return we passed just to the south. This pushed us below 1200ft for a while as we passed Amsterdam airport. Rather bizarrely we were asked by ATC to switch off our transponder as we passed close by the airport so as to avoid departing aircraft receiving TCAS alerts. I noted a touch of irony in switching off your collision avoidance system due to the proximity of other traffic. Clear of Amsterdam we were then able to climb to a more respectable altitude for the direct crossing to Tibenham.

After the Bölkow and Friends flyin it was a short flight from Melle to Muenster to clear immigration and refuel. Now Muenster is a major 24 hour airport with a big runway, biz jets and airliners. We had follow me cars to the apron, to the refuel station and back to the apron. There are extensive flight planning facilities and we enjoyed the very comfortable airconditioned pilots lounge complete with free coffee and biscuits. It was somewhat of a suprise to find that the landing fee for all of this was less than €7. To be fair, there was a bill of €10 which arrived a couple of months later from Deutsche Flusicherung for Air Navigation Services Terminal Charges.

 

This was the first leg of our trip to Melle-Groenegau for the Bölkow and Friends fly in. We chose a direct track from Tibenham which passes just to the north of Amsterdam and meant around 50 minutes flying over the water. Dutch ATC were, as usual, very helpful and didn’t seem concerned about our lack of a mode S transponder. Lelystad have an arrival proceedure from the south and despite our arriving from the north we were asked to follow their proceedure. Reasonable fees and good customs availability, we were soon on our way to Germany.