Route: APRILIA – TS LORENZO – WPT1 – WPT2 COAST LFKJ
Up early, breakfasted and paid up and off to the airfield. The chap who knew how to operate the fuel bowser wasn’t there yet, so I set Dan to packing and checking the aircraft while I did some flight planning revisions with Timothy and Derek. I had planned a northern loop around Elba, but they found a way to go direct over the sea with a dog-leg to avoid two danger areas, so of course I copied them!
The fuel guy turned up, but I was worried about the effect of the strip on the landing gear, so I only put 40l of fuel in so I was reasonably light.
We all walked the length of the runway to inspect for ruts, holes and debris. The wind (such as it was) favoured a 04 departure, but we noted that this was slightly uphill and of course you have to clear the cables at 30’ at the end of the runway, whereas 22 was slightly downhill, albeit with a tailwind and pylons about half a mile out. We all decided on a tailwind 22 departure.
Andy and Timothy were first up and attracted quite an audience, with curious motorists stopping on the road at the end of the runway to watch the spectacle. We paid particular attention of course! The take off run looked good and they were up about 2/3rds along the runway and clawing their way into the air. Timothy later tiold me that the stall warner was blaring for quite some time and he feels they staggered over the power lines.
Next up was Ben in his Piper Dakota, with it’s big and powerful engine. Then me. I held it on the brakes and let her run holding the nosewheel as light as I could. At nearly 60, I popped one stage of flap and the mainwheels were very light. I held her in ground effect for a moment, but probably got the rudder pressure wrong as she veered slightly to the left off the runway track. No drama as we were airborne and climbing, but a lesson for the future. We made it over the pylons, but failed to get a response from Pratica Approach so called Rome Information instead.
Rome cleared me to a heady 1000’ and asked us to report every 30 minutes. Rome seems to have an enormous zone of class A airspace that extends for miles out to sea from 1000’ up. We scuttled out for what seemed ages at 1000’ and could hear Timothy in front and Derek behind us. Eventually we cleared Rome airspace and I climbed to 3000’.
Rome handed us over to Olbia and this is where the fun started. The Olbia controller did not seem to be on the ball. By this time, we had passed Timothy heading for the first dog-leg waypoint on the GPS to keep us clear of Italian D017 and also clear of French R66.
I was about to call, when Timothy came on frequency and passed his message, including details of the route. Several parts of the message were repeated and I think the route was explained two or three time, with particular emphasis that we were aware of the danger areas and were taking this route to avoid them all. The controller eventually acknowledged and warned of the perils of D017 and that we must remain clear!
So I piped up immediately after and said basically, same as G-BRCD except that we are a P28R and current position is x etc.
At random intervals, this guy would call us up and warn us of D017. Timothy got fed up with this and blurted out in a posh English accent ‘are you sure that you understand our routing?’ and proceeded to explain again that we would dog-leg shortly to avoid his precious danger area. After Timothy had finished – you guessed it ‘Roger, avoid danger area 017 it is active’ – AAAARRRGGHH!
By now Derek had overtaken Timothy and Timothy was last. Needless to say Olbia then came on and asked Timothy to change to Figari (Corsica). I then requested frequency change Figari as I was first in the gaggle. I’m afraid I again held off on my call and sure enough, Timothy made the call and concluded by saying ‘I am the last of three aircraft on an identical routing and I have been handed over to you first – I don’t know why’ (exasperated). I then chimed in ‘same as G-BRCD except…’. Such fun!
Suffice to say the French controllers were a model of professionalism compared certainly to Olbia!
Land was looming and we could clearly see Sardinia on the left and Corsica on the right. Corsica is a beautiful island with lots of sandy beaches and turquoise seas. We saw a huge five masted sailing cruise ship – I thinjk it must have been the Club Med one.
We were routed by both Figari and Ajaccio via their VRP and these were obvious and easy to spot (thank heavens for Jeppesen maps).
As we approached Ajaccio, I was given a left downwind join for runway 20. Good landing then a long taxi to the pumps. Ajaccio is a large commercial airport with a lot of flights for the holiday trade, but it was very quiet. I was followed ten minutes later by Derek, then five minutes after that by Timothy, so we all arrived pretty much together.
The French pompier came and said it was French credit cards or cash. I pointed out that that was only true if we used the automated facility and that I am sure they would accept Visa – Dan did his French stuff and the guy said he would ask. That worked and we had to be ferried in the back of his van back to the office while he proceeded to try to get the van onto two wheels on every corner he could find.
We were then accosted by a second wave of ground staff who relieved us of EUR30 per aircraft for landing and handling. We were ferried to the police bit where they checked our passports and got us to fill in a form. They apologised and said they thought it was all pretty pointless as well.
Timothy got a message on his phone that we were being joined by Geoff Hill and Rob Winship who had set out on Saturday and got stuck at L2K and could only catch up with us here. We later found out that this was Geoff’s first trip out of the UK and that he had flown from Teeside. I have to say, we were all pretty impressed with an effort like that.
We checked in but the hotel was 25 minutes walk from town and needed Pete S ID and signature (as he did the booking) so they could get the funds from the agent. Could be a problem as he had to cancel and wasn’t there. Timothy got on the phone and got Pete to fax his passport and we signed pp.
We hoofed it into town and had a beer stop at the marina. Then on up the main street until we fetched up at the old harbour, which was lined with cafes etc. So of course we had to eat at a restaurant called ‘The Forum’.
Had a very nice meal of tuna steak with beer and wine. We wandered back to the marina for another beer while some got a taxi back to the hotel, while we walked to take in the air.
