Stockholm once more

Some airshow shenanigans: note our plane in the mid ground, with the boeing stearman with 2 wing walking ladies in the middle of the frame....  One of Haakan's rare WWI Klemm airplanes in the foreground

A few old warbirds go overhead

We had a fun day exploring Stockhold with Mats and Tina, who we met last year at Skaa and have kept in contact with, here on one of the islands  Thanks guys!

We met Haakan at the Eslov airshow, his Klemm planes are very rare so he brought one in for people to look at and it was parked next to our plane.  In the short time he was at the show, he was kind enought to invite us to his airfield near Stockholm and let us stay in his man cave.

Haakan has lived a varied life and has dozens of crazy stories to tell about his adventures.  In Lithuania in the early 90s he bought some broken down horses, dug a pit, shot the horses and waited for the wolves to come......

Airstrip, farm buildings and the conference centre one of his sons runs.  Yellow is traditionally the colour that the nobility (or the rich) painted their houses in Sweden.  Haakan's estate is historically significant, but I'm afraid I've forgotten the details.

One of the Klemms

At a friend of Haakan's former petrol station

Having a chat with Haakan standing still for a moment on the left, Niko on the right

Nearby Sigtuna's town hall.  Sigtuna is Sweden's first city, founded in 980AD but long surpassed by Stockholm

Jimmy is a local of Sigtuna and very kindly showed us around, including some of the church ruins.

Bunge privately owned ex-military airfield

Yep, it's like a dream come true. We were met with a very kind welcome from Gert, Inga, Gert's son Claes and his brother Tore, who were having a working bee and had a great time staying there.

It is an amazing airfield with a quite beautiful wooden ceilinged hangar.  Most of the original furnishings from the military were left behind, but we opted to stay in a bedroom rather than a bunk room :-)

Ju & Tore

Gert very kindly showed us some amazing flying movies, which great footage in his cinema and in the future they will have a little aviation museum which we will come back to see.

One of Visby's 12 ruined churches

Bunge is on Gotland, which has the most amount of sun per year in Europe (due to the long long clear summer days) and is a popular holiday destination.  We could see why.  The main town, Visby is a beautiful medieval walled town in good condition and the little island just a short ferry ride north of Bunge, Faarae is beautifully wild.

Special rock formations

thatched summer farm

fantastic Gotland sheep, they are so soft!

The terrain was harsh and hard on the tyres, but oddly beautiful

Visingsö, lake island

Visingsö is an island in Sweden's second biggest lake. Hopefully the coldest, as we had a dip at the end of the runway - I lasted 10sec and Ju 20.

It is a really beautiful location and you can camp on the shore of the lake (if you're not worried by the powerful cooling effect from the breeze over the cold water). It is also pretty much inside a golf course so is a great destination for flying golfers.

Lennart & Terry, fantastic guys we met at Eslov with their most awesome SeaMax flying boat

We cycled through town (there are hire bikes at the airfield for people who don't bring their own bikes) which was really very cute and had  little market where I bought a local lake salmon from the lady who had smoked it.

Then we tied up the bikes for the ferry to Gränaa (50kr return, bikes 30kr return), which is a nice journey. Aparently Gränaa is one of the oldest towns in Sweden, well we missed that because of all the candy cane shops, actually they're more the shape of Brighton Rock, though not so hard and come in all flavours you can imagine, plus some you probably can't (strawberry or raspberry salt licorice flavour candy canes anyone?)

That night Johan and Vanya from Stockholm/Siljansnäs arrived. Johan flew around the world when he was just out of university and managed to get sponsorship for.most of his equipment and much of the costs, brilliant!  They use scooters for getting around, which is a great space saving idea, allowing them to tour with their dog.  I'm thinking maybe in future we use scooters or just strap on roller skates.  It would make packing so easy!

Johan, Vanja and Vincent (little head in cockpit)

Eslöv fly in

This was an amazing event, organised by the Swedish EAA (light aircraft assosiation). It used to be held at the now closed Stockholm Barkaby airfield, and has been a roaming event for the last 3 years. Eslöv town was celebrating 100 years (of something), so the fly in was held there, with an airshow on the sunday for the people of the town.

Plane registration: SE for Sweden, X for experimental (home built and rare planes that are no longer factory supported).

We arrived on Friday night and parked next to the adventurous aerial photographers Dieter and Marie Betz. Dieter lived in Alaska for 8 years with the bears and has written several childrens books about them (also several other books, I just haven't yet checked alibris to see what is available). He has a beautifully restored Piper Cub and a tent that is a perfect colour tone match to his paint scheme.

Dieter & Marie

The charming Carsten, from Anholt (tiny Danish island)

Friday and Saturday night the air club had organised bbqs for dinner. The had about 10 half oil drums with coals and a grill over the top. You queued to bring your dinne ticket to the counter, got given a very large amount of meat, which you then grilled yourself. This was a great way of doing a dinner, as you naturally ended up chatting to the other people.

The airshow on Sunday was great, my favourites were the glider aerobatics (like gymnastics) and the army Saab Gryppen, an amazingly powerful jet. I'm not sure how you're meant to be stealthy in a plane like that...  We didn't take many photos as we were getting information overload and having trouble focussing on one thing at once :-)

Old American navy Boeing Stearmen (the one at the back is marine), I like this photo, as it shows how low they are flying

Femø, another picturesque Danish Isle

We stopped here for a walk and lunch as it was on our way from Femo to Eslov. The airstrip belongs to a guesthouse at the centre of town/the island. We had planned to stay the night, but it was too expensive at €100. Lunch was fun and typically danish: we had no idea that our grilled fish would be served on bread! Landing is free if you purchase something.

Ju lunching

Before lunch we walked all over the island, there are lots of little jam stalls and it's very relaxing. We walked past the pond and could hear a lot of very loud ducks, but couldn'twork out why we couldn't see them...... turns out they were frogs.

Syd Fyn Taasinge, a flying visit

Had to add this lovely picture of a yacht.  I was pleased that I managed to find the owner and send them a copy :-)

Sovdeborg, a very pretty little town, a bit sleepy on a Sunday

The club members were really lovely

Talinn city of culture

Watch "Fantastic artwork at Talinn's Kumu art gallery" on YouTube

Aerø half timbered houses and model ships on windowsills

Aero from the air

A particularly nice picnic lunch on the airfield at Aero

We had a few more days to spare in Denmark before the Eslöv fly in, so we decided to finally see Aerø - something we hadn't done so far as we try to land where the landing fee is cheap. There is no club at the airfield, as it is a commercial enterprise, but we were lucky to be allowed to camp and use their shower for 2 nights.

The airfield dog inspecting our equipment.  Why do dogs never smile for photos???

Aerø seems wealthier and more touristy than Samsø, with very attractive half timbered houses in Aerøsköbing, a short bike ride away. (Bikes and a car are also available for hire at the airfield). Nearby Marstal also has a lot of museums and is restoring an old ship, so is another interesting place for a visit.

Marstal from the air

We were probably lucky that we arrived a couple of week before the main tourist season started, as there were already quite a few Germans bobbing around in hire yachts and I can imagine the narrow cobbled laneways get clogged in the season.

Ju at the beach

Aero used to be to a large extent under water, one of the things we saw from the air was this fantastic raised farmhouse....

raised farmhouse with bridge between house and barns..

Pannkosh, the big Danish pancake fly-in

flying into the farm

We weren't sure to do one gray Sunday and we wanted to catch up with Lars, who said why not come to the big pancake fly-in. At the mention of pancakes I was sold.

pancake house in former border control box

Pannkosh is held the last Sunday each month over summer and all proceeds go to a Danish childrens charity. There are two pans and a whole heap of batter and jam and you go for it.

It is held at Revninge airstrip, near Odense and we were given a very warm welcome by the owner and his wife (who gave me a lace Danish heart she.makes herself - currently adorning my jacket, although it needs a little more starch after a couple of weeks).

Erik and his wife, owners of Revninge airstrip

Pannkosh is the brainchild of Bo 'crazy dane' Ronnow, who does a lot of charity work as well as aviation work: when we met him it was a week before a trip of 30 microlights up to the Finnish islands off the Stockholm archipelago.

Bo 'Crazy Dane' Ronnow

Samsø, friendly island

After Cris and Rosi's visit we had a week to wait before the Eslöv fly in and some planning to do. So Samsø seemed an ideal destination. We had hoped to outrun the weather, but were unsuccessful in this respect, so ended up sitting in the clubhouse with the Morsø iron wood burner running of an evening, so cosy. We luckily were in time to catch the airfield manager, Rune before he went to Australia to have a go on some sea planes. Rune is one of the most energetic and enthusistic people you can imagine, I'm looking forward to his scheduled sea plane service between Samsø, Århus and Copenhagen it's a brilliant idea.

We went and helped out at the school fête on the Saturday. Well, when I say helped: I played with Mille (Rune and Eva's very cute, very determined daughter) letting her parents work. That's good being helpful, right?

Last year we were interested to discover that a Venetian couple, Lorenzo and Valentina, had moved to Samsø and opened an Italian food store. This year their plans have moved along, with a new location and soon to be opened cafe and Gelateria. Mmmm. We wish them well in their endeavour, Cafe Tua. We tried to take them for a fly, but the weather was inclement.

Bonn Hangelar, destination extraordinaire, sanctuary for endangered species

Weeks later I realise that I neglected to post anything about Bonn Hangelar, outrageous!  We were met with an extremely warm welcome from Juergen who runs the airfield and he had organised that we were met by representatives of some of the clubs on the airfield - it is the second biggest general aviation airfield in Germany and has around 160 planes based there.  (General aviation or GA is people like ourselves, as opposed to commercial aviation or scheduled flights which is people like Ryan Air).

Christian in the middle, Juergen on the right

Juergen is a pilot himself and very kindly took the time to suggest local destinations, copy their information and contact their aeroclubs, which is incredibly kind in someone running such a busy airfield.

Christian who was Germany's ambassador to China in former times organised a meeting with a journalist from Aerokurier who wrote an article about our trip.  He also helped us with some ideas (and charts!) for our eastern block travels.

Julian and Heiko from Aerokurier, with a Fieseler Storch, owned by a member of his flying club

Bonn Hangelar is basically a very large field, which means that a special, endangered, flower grows well there, which it can't in the surrounding built up area.  Maybe not quite as sexy as the pouched marmot that lives on Brno's airfields, but preserving bio-diversity is an important, though little considered aspect of an airfield's role in its community.

This special flower meant that the pope was unable to hold his youth congress on the airfield in approx. 2000, I think the plants are much more important.

Bonn itself is a lovely, quiet town, with some beautiful buildings, its location makes it a good destination as there is a lot to be seen in the area, as evidenced by my previous posts!

G-CGOL's first flight for 2011

This is a video taken on my phone, now that we've tested how it works, we'll be doing more video blogging.

How do we decide which airfields to fly into? (Or: how did you find us?)

We get asked this question all the time, by the curious and by those wishing to promote traffic to their airfields, so I thought this could be a good place to put in a detailed answer.

The probably less helpful ways we decide are: prior knowledge of tourist hot spots (e.g. Rothenburg ob der Tauber), geographic location - river, sea, lake and mountain locations generally mean either beautiful scenery or often very old town centre, e.g. Albi, Annecy, Skaanes Fagerhult.

Now what you really want to know is which websites do I refer to:

I think the Danish based ultralight market website has the best listing, with links to airfields recommended by other aviators.  There are many other interesting sections on ultralight market's website (trip reports, links to organisations, rules and regulations etc.)  The link provided above is to the Nordic countries listing, there are listings for everywhere else in the world too though.

For Germany I rely on Angela's co-pilot's guide, which is a subjective guide, which is what we want.

For Austria I go with aviator.at

For Switzerland I trust Nelly

And the Hungarian listing (once google translate has done its magic) is a really good tool as well.

For France Alasdair Arthur has done a great job

I have also been known to look at the UNESCO world heritage city listing and then search for the nearest airfields.

I also go on flying forums (Flyer, the German Flyer, the Italian forum) and read trip reports, making notes.  Aerokurier magazine has excellent trip reports as well.