All our planning and preparation have led us to this point. We are finally on our way to Slovakia for the 7th European Advanced Aerobatic Championships!
This morning Paul, David J, Tom Bennet (ferrying John's CAP 232) and I fought our way through typically crap British weather to get to the desolate Lydd, which really does feel like the edge of Britain - with Dungeness power station looming on the horizon and only sea beyond.
The wind was blowing a 'hooley' on landing, but the good news was that the weather to the east was better and the 'hooley' would be right up our chuff all the way to Koblenz in Germany - our refuelling and lunch stop.
After a bit of faffing, a lot of paper work, a very welcome phonecall from Airbox to unlock my GPS (a problem sorted overnight by the ever resourceful David J) and various interpretations of breakfast we climbed into our aircraft for the last time on British soil.
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| Crossing the channel - Tom and David T are down there somewhere! |
We took off in a sort of loose formation and headed east out over the English channel towards our first waypoint - Traca - south of Calais. David J deftly handled the radio while the rest of us tried to keep up with the numerous frequency changes enroute.
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| Refuelling at Lydd |
Soon we were in Belgian airspace squeezing between control zones with David's workload increasing by the minute. All that the rest of us had to do was keep station and (in Paul's case) roll the odd fag. As we crossed into Germany, we were able to shake off the constant radio chatter and change to our own 'chat' frequency upon which much merriment and persiflage ensued. We enjoyed the scenery, admired the castles and endless forests and quietly hummed the theme tune from The Dambusters.
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| Koblenz |
Two hours after departure we arrived at Koblenz, a delightful airfield among the hills to the south east of Bonn. After congratulating ourselves on flying four toy aeroplanes to the continent under our own steam, we refuelled and ate the most delicious 'Greek' lunch of barbecued pork kebab with tzatziki and chips, whilst resisting Paul's suggestion that we order "four large beers".
We filed our flight plan then hopped back into our aircraft, but not before handing out Team GBR postcards to the small crowd of families that had gathered to observe 'zeez humorous Engleesh and zere funny leetle Flugzeug" (or at east that's what I imagine they would have said). Anyway they all cheerily waved us off as we departed for the Czech Republic and our training base at Most.
This time Paul was in the lead and his first job was to show us some of the German countryside (and radio masts) at closer quarters. We rarely climbed above 1000 feet and occasionally veered slightly this way and that to look at points of local interest. Germany looked very pretty from this perspective. Paul then changed tactic and climbed us up to the 5000' cloudbase to see if we could gain a few extra knots from the thermals in addition to the helpful 20-30kt tailwind. Whether it worked or not I don't know, but it was fun skimming along just under the cumulus clouds.
As we crossed the border into the Czech republic the landscape seemed to alter dramatically. Pretty villages gave way to small towns with concrete buildings painted in gaudy colours. Gone were the endless forests to be replaced by vast open cast mines and coal fired power stations.
We called up Most Airfield only to find that they had signed off for the evening and instead were preparing us a supper of breaded veal and potatoes smothered in butter. As we landed and taxied in we spotted 4th team member John Askew and his wife Christelle who had driven all the way from Lincolnshire in one day and were waiting to greet us as we arrived. We were met also by our hosts for the next few days, an extended family of mother, father, Uncle, grandparents, daughter and friends. We put the aircraft to bed and were shown to our basic, but spotless rooms which overlooked the runway…heaven!
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| Our hosts. Vodka just out of shot... |
Before we could unpack our food was on the table and ice cold beers were trickling down our throats. The family then invited us to a BBQ behind the hangar where we were introduced to the local sausage (delicious) and, of course, the local vodka.
So we made it. A big thank you must go to David J for organising so much of the 'stuff' that is required for a trip like this. The route, the permissions, the training base, the hotels, our team apparel, everything really. Thank you David!
The forecast for tomorrow looks poor for the morning so we have asked for a lie in. Breakfast at 0900 instead of 0700!
Dobrou Noc (goodnight)
David T
