Paginatitel

Europe: Eisenach by David Vallance

Since I bought a half share of an AA1 six months ago, I have been looking forward to attending a proper fly-in. Four of those months have been spent waiting for maintenance to be completed on the engine. With only eleven hours in the beast and only six since the overhaul, I felt I was justifiably nervous about undertaking a 400 mile cross country. For you stateside cousins, it is important to realise that from Biggin Hill in the U.K., a 400-mile cross-country means that you have to cross four countries.

I bought the necessary charts and started clipping them together. The route looked OK from Biggin across northern France into Belgium, and... No, let's try it backwards from Eisenach. The route looks OK from Eisenach in the former East Germany back across West Germany to Belgium, and... At this point I should explain that a

sadistic cartographer with a penchant for crazy golf designed Belgian airspace. You drop a plane in the hole to the west of Brussels, it bounces up and down and side to side between the control zones and under the TMA and eventually pops out through another hole on the German border. There are danger areas, restricted areas, and impenetrable controlled airspace galore. I couldn't see how to join up these two bits of string which started at my home base and my destination. There was only one solution: Ask the Grumpy Gang.

This fine band of European Grumman owners is the most helpful group of souls one could wish for. My request for assistance elicited hidden passages through the maze which we call EBBU. Armed with my newfound knowledge, I drew lines boldly on the map.

My 160-hp engine is still running in, so we are burning fuel like it is going out of fashion. Consequently, I wanted to plan legs of less than two hours. The three legs would take me first to Kortrijk in the west of Belgium, then to Spa in the east, and then on to Eisenach.

Spa has an 800-metre runway, so I decided that I had better practice. Yes, I know it sounds stupid, but I had only ever landed this plane on our lovely, wide, 1800-metre runway at Biggin. So, I found myself a runway the same size as Spa's and did a quick sortie to build up my confidence. No problem, and just getting there and back added another 20% to my total time in 44L. I noticed that the aerodrome chart for Eisenach states that all radio is in German.

Now, I can order a beer in German, and then I can ask for the toilet. But that's about it. No problem, said Yogi Beck, our convention organiser. He assured me that if I joined overhead and asked for the toilet, the controller would clear me in. Good old Yogi.

So the day finally arrived. I was up with the lark. The first Grumpy contact of the day was Ni Thomas, Grumpy One, in his Yankee about 20 minutes ahead of me. He is based at least half an hour back from me. He must have been up with the owls, not the lark.

I crossed the channel at about 3,000 feet, musing over how busy the shipping lanes are and choosing which ship to aim for if the engine stopped. It didn't. The top left corner of France soon passed by, and I was over the Belgian border. The first two restricted areas had been switched off for the day, and soon Kortijk came into view. Kortrijk has a nice long runway, but I was still nervous about landing there. As I taxied to the pump, I got my second Grumpy contact of the day. Johannes, Grumpy Four, was pulling his aircraft out of the hangar and gave me a cheery wave. I imagined the whole Grumpy Airforce scrambling into action all over Europe. This was going to be a lot of fun.

The next leg was through the secret passages around Brussels, but I had read the runes and was prepared. André, Grumpy Three, had given me the coordinates of an allegedly unmistakable turning point called

Waterloo. I followed the GPS until Waterloo appeared on the horizon, a huge conical mound with a lion on the top. Easy to spot from 1,000 feet, and you have to be there because the crazy golf designer says so. Then overhead Namur. Well, not exactly overhead, because people jump out of aeroplanes there, and I had no room for passengers. From Namur the runes said direct to Spa, which I did. Spa is a remote little airfield on top of a hill and surrounded by pine forests. The apron has quite a steep slope, and the radio operator always adds, "Don't forget ze shoe" to her parking instructions. I was met by a large Belgian gentleman who got off his bicycle, washed my wings with avgas, and kindly spilt a little in the tanks too.