It was a beautiful sunday morning with magic mist rising from the downs, some cotton candy clouds swimming on top of the mist just like marshmallows in hot chocolate and severe clear above about 3000 feet. So what else to do than to jump in the car, drive to the airport (35 minutes) and preflight my little red robin.
I filed a flight plan because I wanted to fly into Austria and do a tour along Lake Neusiedl. By the time I had her pushed out on the apron my EOBT had come. I started her up, let her warm up a bit and got clearance from the tower. There was virtually no wind and no other traffic reported. I chose 16 to depart from simply because the taxi way intersection gets me to closer to the departure end of 16 than 34. "DCMRCA, winds calm, QNH 1024, sqawk 7032, runway 16 clear, right downwind departure approved."
I got airborn quickly and flew toward the border crossing point I had filed, the Hungarian town of Sopron. After reaching 1500 feet MSL (about 1000 feet AGL), it looked very murky, and I estimated visibility to be around 5 km. I talked to Budapest Info for a bit, who handed me over to Vienna Info after Sopron. And with the border crossing came the sun. There was quite a bit of chatter on the frequency and I was happy that sombody else's eyes were looking out for me in all that bad hazy visibility.
First I flew over to the Austrian town of Eisenstadt, the regional capital boistering a whopping population of 10.000. We are a rural country patch, my friends. But each town to speak of features its own castle and here is Eszterházy castle of Eisenstadt. Every time I see it, I am reminded of the summer jobs I worked there as a tourist guide.
I followed the hill crest north for a couple of kilometers, then turned east toward Lake Neusiedl. The lake mediates the climate around its shore and transforms it into a world reknown wine growing region. And I really DO mean it: if you think that French, Italian, Spanish or Claifornian wines are great, visit me and make sure you have nothing planned the next day...
Particularly well known for its wine is the little town of Rust. Sometime in the 17th century they bought their freedom from the emperor by supplying him with a generous amount of wine. That special status they were granted back then still is in force today. Anyway, that's what Rust looks like from the air:
A bit further east, I passed over the yacht harbor of Rust.
From there I turned south east, essentially taking a beeline back to Fertöszentkikos, where I departed from. Remembering that I enjoy looking at other people's cockip shots, I thought I bore you with one of my own:
South of Lake Neusiedl the plot thickened again and there was dense haze under an inversion. So why not go on top and enjoy the sun? I thought it looked like a shot out the window of an airliner at 30.000 feet instead of 3.000 feet.
On the radio again with Budapest Info, and knowing the area like the back of my palm, I decided to do a bit of "IFR" flying back down through the clouds instead of around them. I set my GPS to "artificial horizon" mode, trimmed my gyro to fly hands off and set up a confortable 500 fpm descent at 120 km/h. I was in "actual" for all of 10 seconds at most until I broke out again at an altitude of 2000 feet or so.
Here's a glance at runway 16 while on a right base.
If you look carefully, you'll see the grass runway parallel to the asphalt and to the left of it. The taxiway crosses just before its threshold. It's always good practice to land with throttle at idle across the taxiway. Since it is only about 4 meters wide, this is a good exercise, particularly when the winds are calm. As an added bonus: you save time and gas taxiing back to the apron.
Hope you enjoyed the little trip around,
-- Chris.
P.S.: Giorgos, that's what I had planned to fly when we went up. Now you see it from the comfort of your armchair ;-)
I filed a flight plan because I wanted to fly into Austria and do a tour along Lake Neusiedl. By the time I had her pushed out on the apron my EOBT had come. I started her up, let her warm up a bit and got clearance from the tower. There was virtually no wind and no other traffic reported. I chose 16 to depart from simply because the taxi way intersection gets me to closer to the departure end of 16 than 34. "DCMRCA, winds calm, QNH 1024, sqawk 7032, runway 16 clear, right downwind departure approved."
I got airborn quickly and flew toward the border crossing point I had filed, the Hungarian town of Sopron. After reaching 1500 feet MSL (about 1000 feet AGL), it looked very murky, and I estimated visibility to be around 5 km. I talked to Budapest Info for a bit, who handed me over to Vienna Info after Sopron. And with the border crossing came the sun. There was quite a bit of chatter on the frequency and I was happy that sombody else's eyes were looking out for me in all that bad hazy visibility.
First I flew over to the Austrian town of Eisenstadt, the regional capital boistering a whopping population of 10.000. We are a rural country patch, my friends. But each town to speak of features its own castle and here is Eszterházy castle of Eisenstadt. Every time I see it, I am reminded of the summer jobs I worked there as a tourist guide.
I followed the hill crest north for a couple of kilometers, then turned east toward Lake Neusiedl. The lake mediates the climate around its shore and transforms it into a world reknown wine growing region. And I really DO mean it: if you think that French, Italian, Spanish or Claifornian wines are great, visit me and make sure you have nothing planned the next day...
Particularly well known for its wine is the little town of Rust. Sometime in the 17th century they bought their freedom from the emperor by supplying him with a generous amount of wine. That special status they were granted back then still is in force today. Anyway, that's what Rust looks like from the air:
A bit further east, I passed over the yacht harbor of Rust.
From there I turned south east, essentially taking a beeline back to Fertöszentkikos, where I departed from. Remembering that I enjoy looking at other people's cockip shots, I thought I bore you with one of my own:
South of Lake Neusiedl the plot thickened again and there was dense haze under an inversion. So why not go on top and enjoy the sun? I thought it looked like a shot out the window of an airliner at 30.000 feet instead of 3.000 feet.
On the radio again with Budapest Info, and knowing the area like the back of my palm, I decided to do a bit of "IFR" flying back down through the clouds instead of around them. I set my GPS to "artificial horizon" mode, trimmed my gyro to fly hands off and set up a confortable 500 fpm descent at 120 km/h. I was in "actual" for all of 10 seconds at most until I broke out again at an altitude of 2000 feet or so.
Here's a glance at runway 16 while on a right base.
If you look carefully, you'll see the grass runway parallel to the asphalt and to the left of it. The taxiway crosses just before its threshold. It's always good practice to land with throttle at idle across the taxiway. Since it is only about 4 meters wide, this is a good exercise, particularly when the winds are calm. As an added bonus: you save time and gas taxiing back to the apron.
Hope you enjoyed the little trip around,
-- Chris.
P.S.: Giorgos, that's what I had planned to fly when we went up. Now you see it from the comfort of your armchair ;-)