Alps

Planning? What Planning?

by Nigel Webb

30-MAR-03

For the past couple of years, a group from the Flyer magazine e-mail forum and a few friends have attempted a group fly-in to somewhere a bit off the beaten track, preferably, with some element of challenge to it. The fly-ins have taken place in June/July and have a variety of aircraft and pilots of varying experience levels from PPL (no IMC) to ATPL. Last year, we went to Iceland, and the previous year, we went to The Faeroes.

Since Iceland was nibbling at the reasonable limits for a PPL with no IMC rating, we, the self-styled Flying Pirates, have been looking for adventure in a different direction for this year. The feeling was that it should be none-the-less adventurous, but perhaps a little more doable if the trip is to be conducted under VFR in a PA28.

Much electronic head-scratching on the Pirates mailing list had failed to provide an answer, so this weekend became earmarked as a "planning session". One of our number, Julian Berry was due to go to La Plagne in Alpine France on a skiing holiday with his family starting this weekend, so we hijacked the occasion and flew down with him. The next few paragraphs tell the tale of a thoroughly fun weekend.

The Flight Down To Geneva

The Pirates for this occasion were, Julian, Berry, Chris Wright, Tim Emrys-Roberts (non-list), Adrian Beney, Mike Turner, Jonathan Smith, Richard Willcox, and myself.

Since alleged work commitments precluded an early departure on Friday, and since the weather in March is not at all predictable, we chose Geneva as the nearest reliable airport to fly down to. Anticipating a night landing in amongst the mountains in potential IMC, many other candidate airports drop out immediately.

In the event, one-by-one, the Pirates all skived off work, "worked from home" or claimed illness and by Friday lunchtime, one bunch found themselves in the Green Man pub, just down the road from Cranfield, whilst another gathered between Shoreham and Blackbushe. Flight plans were cancelled and re-entered (you can't bring an IFR flight plan forward), and C421 N156RH took off from Cranfield for Geneva at 1525.

Meanwhile, C310 G-BTFF picked up its passengers and took off from Shoreham.

I assumed that having two of NATS' finest on board would guarantee me an easy routing through the London TMA, but this turned out to be a false hope. Leaving Cranfield to the South, with the expectation of joining airways at Brookmans Park, we ended up being held down below 2500 whilst Luton Approach attempted to fit us in between his own inbound stream. Finally, leaving Luton Zone to the South, we were cleared up in stages to 4000 feet, and eventually up to FL110, our filed cruising level. The routing filed was BPK-LAM-DVR, although in the event, we came out over DETling, and thereafter direct to a point called TRACA, just inland from Boulogne. Sods law being what it was, the cloud tops were also at FL110, so after a quick chat with Paris, we were cleared up to FL130 and sat back to watch France pass by. The routing is a pretty one, following the airway down to Cambrai (CMB) and thereafter down towards Reims (REM). Invisible in the cloud and mist of Friday afternoon are the trenches and war memorials of Duomont and Vimy Ridge. Eventually after about 1:15 in flight, the champagne fields of Reims emerged from beneath the thinning cloud layer along with its two airports, The Commercial "Champagne" (surprise surprise) and the very welcoming Prunay. In the modest headwind, we managed around 200 knots and were almost entirely unable to persuade Paris to offer us a more direct routing. The airways routing then takes you on a right turn down past the new Freight mega-airport at the old Vatry Airforce Base and past Troyes on the right hand side. The airport at Troyes and its Novotel (open-all-hours, buffet restaurant - highly recommended) stand out very clearly, sitting as they do, some way out of town. Visiting Troyes in 1999 ferrying an aircraft back to England from the South, I was lucky enough to see the Breitling Fighters, stopping at Troyes for similar reasons as me. That was just a few days before the untimely death of Mark Hanna. Approaching Dijon via the superbly named ARSIL (always guaranteed to raise a smile), we we allowed to cut the corner and route directly to the equally superbly named LIRKO (pronounced by a succession of British pilots as Lurkio). LIRKO marks the start of the arrival transition into Geneva. We had been listening to the Paris VOLMET on the way down, and had in fact, from 150 miles out, been able to receive the Geneva ATIS. This told a story of a basically pleasant evening with occasional heavy rain. The runway in use was 23, which, on a nice evening, allows you gently to descend over Lake Geneva with the City on your left and if you are lucky, the famous Jet D'Eau (a 200+ foot fountain in the harbour).

This was not a nice evening though. Once over the 7000 ridge of mountains that delineates Lake Geneva, the lake was under solid cloud cover, a mixture of Cumulous and stratus, more visible on the weather radar than in the darkness that encased us as we descended into it.

The cloud was full of light freezing rain and we picked up a modest coating as we were descended into it in preparation for vectoring onto the ILS. In a short heart stopping moment, both alternators tripped offline as I selected Prop anti-ice on. Selecting the switches to off, and then on again in turn fixed the problem and avoided the need to think hard about load shedding. The anti- and de-ice did the job very nicely, and coming down through 4000 feet, we were turned onto the ILS and could see the runway lights 11 miles across the lake through what was now heavy liquid rain. Touchdown was 2 hours and 20 minutes after take-off, with a short 5 minute taxi to our stand on the French side of the airfield next to a King Air. We had briefly heard our team-mate, G-BTFF one sector and approximately an hour behind us as we approached Dijon, so we hurried onto the courtesy shuttle and checked into our hotel. The beers were going down very nicely by the time the others showed up. Dinner in the hotel's own Teppanyaki-based Japanese restaurant rounded things off very nicely.

Things To Do In Alpine France

The camaraderie born of previous trips together meant that the two people-carriers full of Pirates that left Geneva airport on Saturday morning were already laughing and joking. Jonathan Smith, ever a man for Gadgets sat in the front of one, with his laptop and GPS plugged into the cigarette lighter attempting to get a signal. When finally a couple of satellites deigned to talk to us, Autoroute Express leapt into action. We were, it turned out..... in Algeria, heading towards Morocco. More satellites came in over the next hour or so, as we drove towards Chambery. I think Autoroute Express was just about capable of telling us that we had arrived.

One of our number, Tim, is an experienced Bobsleigh driver and had been persuading us over the last few weeks that we would really love to hurtle down the track in a flimsy little bobsleigh - better still, on a tea-tray, they call the luge. People of the Pirates' general age-group recall John Noakes riding the Cresta run on his backside, having parted company with his Bobsleigh, so there was a general sense of relief to discover that the season had ended a couple of weeks before our arrival. Instead, we settled for the truly picturesque spectacle of riding two cable cars all the way to the peak at "L'Aiguille du Midi". At 12,604 feet, this was an interesting experience. You feel light-headed as you walk around the platform. Walking upstairs to the cafeteria caused most of us to feel distinctly out of breath, with others complaining of head-aches and similar. A useful lesson on human limitations of direct application to aviation.

From Chamonix, we headed on to the resort town of Megeve, famous to aviators for its ski-jump style altiport, nestling high up in the mountain. 8 of us crammed into 3 Jodels and went for a 30 minute flight back over Chamonix, over the glaciers and finally to land, up the ski-jump in the opposite direction to our take-off. Rental prices were very reasonable and the whole experience was very memorable. If I can persuade Kate to let me out for a day or two, I'll definitely be back to renew my Mountain rating.

A second night of revelry in a small town outside Albertville gave way to Sunday morning, and the need to part company with Julian - condemned to spend the week with his family, skiing(!)

We dropped him off in the Alpine resort of La Plagne, built largely for the 1991 Winter Olympics and headed off back to Geneva, via both of the airports at Chambery....Jonathan and the GPS were navigating!

The Flight Home

Sunday was a lovely day in Geneva, although the visibility had dropped quite badly and the combination of the warmth and the orographic uplift over the mountains had led to large towering cumulus clouds lining the lake. The standard instrument departure calls for a climb over the lake to 7,000 feet before making a climbing left turn direct to Dijon. In the event, we were one of many departures, so that we ended up being vectored, not only to avoid other traffic, but to avoid the worst of the build-ups. We had originally filed back at FL100, but in the end, came back at FL160 to keep us out of the tops of the clouds. We last heard G-BTFF some way behind us at FL80. I don't know how the ride was, but it looked as though Chris and Tim might have got a bit shaken and wet.

Once past the source of orographic uplift, the cloud settled down nicely and benefiting from the higher altitude, we managed 230 knots cruise despite the wind having come round to northerlies.

Retracing our outbound route, we were handed to London whilst overhead Amiens and given direct DETling before coming across the Southern edge of the Stansted Zone. Thereafter into Luton's tender loving care to leave controlled airspace just south of Cranfield for a visual join onto 04, 2 hours and 25 minutes in the air, and just 5 minutes before Cranfield was due to shut.

This was yet another superb outing for the Pirates. We even got a little planning done too. I think we came to some conclusions about where we might be going later in the year, but in the finest traditions of our outings, you'll have to wait and see where that might be :-))

Nigel