Well, that is my ‘big trip’ for 2007. This year, I had to ‘pivot’ around seeing our friend and neighbour in Lausanne, Switzerland. A quick look at the map for the one week trip showed the options to be limited, given that we wanted to spend at least one, preferably two days in each location and to try to avoid two leg days.
Given these constraints, I decided on Koblenz (as I had heard so much about it) and Dan fancied Chateau Chambord, so Blois in the Loire Valley was the other destination.
With hindsight, we didn’t need as many days in Koblenz and could have tried for a night somewhere else in Germany headed towards Switzerland, but there you go.
I accumulated to total of 9 hours ‘loggable’ flying time over a total of four legs over one week. The longest leg was just over 2.5 hours and there was plenty of fuel left. I would be quite confident of flying a three hour or a three-and-a-bit hour leg in the Bonanza now (yes, its got a fuel flow wotsit, but it is a real confidence builder to eyeball and dip the remaining fuel).
This was the first time I have flown in a small plane to either Germany or Switzerland and certainly my first time getting up close and personal to some serious mountains.
All in all, it was a great trip. Maybe not a ‘epic’ as the 2006 Flyer Forum trip to Italy, but then it was never planned to be.
Well since Dan is ‘banned’ from coming back to Europe next year without his wife and I don’t want to play ‘gooseberry’, I think my big trip next year may have to be with my wife (she might come) or maybe a fellow pilot. I’ll look out to see what Flyer Forum may have planned and maybe hook up with that. Mind you, the wife is talking about a tour of northern Spain, so flying may be a good option. Wait and see really.
I hope to get a trip to Deauville / Honfleur with the wife and may try to take my neighbour on a battlefields tour of the Normandy beaches.
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The adventures of a bog standard Private Pilot
