Flying South West

Gyro_Kai

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2006
Messages
3,279
Location
near Frankfurt, Germany
Aircraft
MT-03, Calidus (rent)
Total Flight Time
about 150
BEWARE, large photos, allow some time to load

Excuse the sometimes off-colour, I had to do some heavy editing to get rid of the haze.
This time I went down South-West twice, once to Idar Oberstein and once to Becherbach. I mixed the pictures a little, it is the same track.
I took the MTOsport equipped with a Neuform Prop, which is smoother and gets more performance. At WOT I got a steady 7m/s (1400 ft/min) climb

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Along the Rhine to the West I turned left near Bingen
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The rocks in the Trollbach-Valley are much more impressive from the ground. As people complain about the airplane noise I didn't want to go closer.
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trollbach.jpg


While I went solo on the first trip to Idar Oberstein, on the second trip we went with passengers, 2 trikes and me.
We started from Langenlonsheim, a very nice little aeroclub with great food at the weekend and very friendly hospitable people.
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We crossed the city of Bad Kreuznach. It has a beautiful classic city center.

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As the title Bad already implies it is a spa. A spa, to aquire the title Bad and be allowed to raise special taxes, must have some special re-creational or health promoting properties. Bad Kreuznach has saline springs which produce a high concentration salt solution. This is being dribbled over 50ft high walls mostly made up from stacked twigs, thereby producing a sea like spray which evidently is good for people with Asthma and other respiratory ailments. Originally this method was used to increase the concentration of the saline solution.
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The river Nahe cuts its way through the mountains, leaving large rocks and cliffs around the city. The castle on top dates back to 1209.
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tbc...
 
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Another look back
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Here are my two co-flyers
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The area behind Bad Kreuznach is not densely populated but still worked as farm-land
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This is the airport Idar Oberstein. They are famous for their fantastic restaurant. Frequent visitors have memorized the menu and announce their order over the radio.
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...
 
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This is Reipoltskirchen close to the aiport I went with the trikes, Becherbach
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A break is needed before we return.
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I*let the trikes go ahead and do some fancy turns with my passenger
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Another look towards the cliffs of Bad Kreuznach
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I*wonder how this works in our not so sunny climate.

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This is my "spot the trike" riddle.

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Here you can see the airport Langenlonsheim, nicely situated in the loop of the river Nahe. I*still have difficulty finding those grass airstrips, my best clue is:*unmotivated buildings in the middle of green.
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Man, get that grin of your face. I*really enjoy my new heli helmet.
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This sign in the men's room caught my attention.
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Hope, you enjoyed the trips, comments welcome.

Kai.
 
Thank you for sharing Kai

Thank you for sharing Kai

Those are some great pictures.

How high were you flying?

How many miles did you fly?

Is there a Good Kreuznach?

I love the idea of sharing the passion of flight across borders, language and culture.

Thank you, Vance
 
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Hi Kai

Beautiful pics and nice flexwings with BMW's

Good to see you are getting a bit of flying


Paddy
 
I remember taking a boat trip on the Rhine when my Air National Guard unit went to Ramstein. Every time the tour guide would describe one of the castles she would say, " Built in 1210 (or some year) and destroyed during a French invasion is 1267 (or some year)". Maybe I was enjoying the wine too much but I thought it was funny after a while. I swear it was every single castle!!

I wish my pics from that trip would have been made from the air like yours!! Very NICE!

Rene' Gonzales
former chock kicker on C-130's
 
That was awesome Kai, I really enjoy flying over different parts of the world with my friends on here!!!
Thanks for sharing!
 
Thanks guys.

Vance, the airport elevations on this trip range from 295 to 1380 ft MSL. I normally fly around 1000 ft off the ground. Only near Bingen I went to 2000ft as they already complain about too much airtraffic. I don't want to be a nuiscance.
Good Kreuznach is great, No, it just means bath or spa in German. The distance of each trip was about 73km 45 miles.

John and Vance, I see it the same, it is a great experience to fly with all the friends here in different countries.

Paddy, we had so much rain this year, Germany looks lush and green like Ireland normally does. I was lucky to have the few good days coincide with the weekend. So flexwing is the word, not trike? We often invent English sounding words or abuse real English words. Like Handy for mobile phone or Wellness for health spa treatment.

Rene, I posted a thread with "rhine river" in the title (use search function), where I flew up the route, you probably took by boat. Often you have 2 castles at the mound of one small valley, 3 miles apart, probably waging war against each other over centuries. I guess they didn't have television back then.

Kai.
 
Hi Kai
Flex-wing, weightshift, Trike, All the same


Do the trike pilots Like the BMW's? Have they had any in service problems? What sort of real world power output are they getting, do they think the BMW is more like the 912 80hp or the 912s?

Have you any idea how much the engine costs over there?

Are you expecting to come over here this summer?
 
Hi Paddy,

The guy I know well, with the more basic trike, was gleeming over the great improvement from a Rotax 2-stroke to this one. Neither of the two pilots have tested a rotax 4-stroke. But, the BMW is about 10 kg heavier.

This was 3 years ago. However, recently, as I described before:
He encounters a strange phenonemon:
After about an hour of warm up time a vibration starts and the left exaust temparature suddenly jumps by 50*C. His theory was, that ignition in the right cylinder was unreliable, causing the lambda probe to pick up too much fuel and therefore lean the mixture also for the left cylinder. However, after replacing all parts of the right ignition it is still producing the same issue.
He guesses anything between 2-6000 Euros for a good engine, unless you know of an accident-machine.

The big plus is, that you find a lot of people and workshops who know this engine and are not charging extra for the word aviation.

Kai.
 
fantastic photos!

I love the castles and river valleys!
 
Gyro- Kai,
Amazingly beautiful pictures. Superb harmony...... you've suceeded in making me jealous again.
Thanks.
 
Hallo Kai, wie tun Sie?

I spent some time in Frankfurt and Hanau many years ago. Awesome country. Loved it. Would love to visit again. Anyway, can you tell me who manufactures the helmet you're wearing. It's similar to the helmet I wore when I was crewing Army helicopters. Thanks.

Dave
 
Looks can be deceiving but it would seem that with a long hard rain, Reipoltskirchen would be flooded. Thank you for the great pictures Kai!
 
Hello and thanks again for the nice words.
Giorgos, just come and visit and we have a closer look :).

Dave, the helmet is an original HGU 56/p military helmet as used in I believe most military helicopters now, although I am not sure about the Apache. I attached a different microphone with a little aluminium block, which you can see in the picture.

Ed, I think most of these villages do not have dangerous floods, their creeks may occasionally jump the curb, but that's about all. Floods are a bigger problem along large rivers, because they collect the water of entire counties within hours, while these small creeks only get one or two valleys worth of water.

Kai.
 
Hi Kai,

good to see you are making good use of the nice weather, too. For some reason I haven't explored Germany from the air as much as it deserves. This past Friday I flew from Hildesheim to Hungary (LHFM) and opted against the more direct route across Czechia. The about 500 nm went by in a breeze gawking at the landscape. On the radio I heard a lot of chatter of pilots making a trip to Helgoland and other North Sea islands. I am resolved to head up there soon...

Great pictures, I enjoyed them a lot.

-- Chris.
 
Kai, Thanks for those beautiful photos.

Could I ask how I could purchase an axel that your gyro machine. I would like to adapt it to my RAF 2000 GTX SE

Benjamin
 
Hello Ben,

As I am chartering, I don't have a direct contact to the manufacturer. However, they are normally very open and have sent parts and pieces to many builders and even companies.
This is their address:
http://www.auto-gyro.com/en/

Kai.
 
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