The Grumpy Gang

The Grumman Aircraft Pilots Association European Branch

Home > On Tour > Tour 2006 >  Malbork Poland

For Saturday, Rafal had organised a visit to a huge Teutonic Knights castle at Malbork, an UNESCO site, complete with organised another guide laid on.

Sunday morning, it was back to the airport and this was the official end of the tour with all aircraft departing to separate destinations. The 3 VFR craft were heading along the north German coast while Yogi and I returned to Bonn.

If the winds had been neutral, we could have made a direct flight in 4 hours 10 minutes, but hey were anything but in our favour! We had filed IFR and to get over the Polish military areas, they sent us up the FL110, where the temperature was minus 18C. We were in and out of light cloud from about 5,000ft, with no icing problems until we neared the German border, where we could see a build up of cumulus cloud. Fortunately, the minimum level on our route dropped to 4,000ft at the German border and ATC brought us straight down when we requested a descent to prevent entering icing conditions.

Even so, we picked up some in the descent and were again flying through snow. All the way, we were experiencing 40 to 45knot head winds (3,4 hrs to cover 301 miles!), but so were our VFR colleagues, so there was no gain for VFR that day. We stopped at Magdeburg to refuel, hoping for some lunch, but they were closed, so again, thanks to Yogi for carrying emergency supplies. Then on to Bonn, VFR this time, where it actually felt warm!