My ride of the day!

What a treat - last friday I flew with our Piper Cheyenne, today it was a lot of aproaches, touch-and-goes and overshoots with our nice looking Cessna 425 "Conquest I" D-IAWG. We did about an hour of flying on a cloudless day an a lot of landings at Hannover, our homebase.

Spottertour mit Torben

Right after the wall came down during the early ninties several aviation friends of mine and myself went on countless drives through the unknown GDR, exploring airfields. Regular stops included Harbke, near the former border, where an IL-18 was put up as a restaurant, Oschersleben, where at that time an old Tupolev TU-134 was displayed in the middle of the city (also as a restaurant) and Magdeburg - a major base for agricultural aircraft.
This weekend I decided to go an a similar drive along with my new aviation buddy - Torben. Our first stop was again Harbke. The old IL-18 restaurant is closed today and the aircraft is slowly rotting away (although it is still in one piece), our next port of call was the hospital in Olvenstedt (a suburb of Magdeburg). About 18 years ago this was the base for an Mil Mi-2 rescue helicopter. Today a much more modern Eurocopter EC-135 serves these duties.
Just a few more kilometers away is the very quiet Magdeburg "Business Airport". Not much traffic here, all the agricultural aircraft gone (since many years). But at least there is a nice attraction here: the Tu-134 which was before on display in Oschersleben. I already uploaded some pics on my flickr.com site (click Mehr Fotos / mehr Pictures).

Buenos Dias Mallorca!

Finishing my old job and starting a new one resulted in some time to spare, which Katrin and I decided to spend on a short trip to Mallorca and escape the dull grey winter here in Germany. The two of us working in the aviation business enabled us to get a very cheap rate for flights and hotel.
I have been to Mallorca island twice before: Once with my parents and brother some 25 years ago and once just passing through with one overnight while supervising a flight with a Cessna Citation about 6 or 7 years ago.
We had 5 great days. We enjoyed spring like weather with blue sky and blooming almond trees. We drove hundreds of kilometers all over the island, had great food such as paella and tapas. We had coffee/cappuchino in lovely small cafes visitied various markets - and there was some aviation, too: I got a chance to visit the old former Aeromarket Douglas DC-3/C-47 EC-EJB (or better: the remains of it) at the entrance of the old Son Bonet airfield, to the north of Palma where it serves as a gateguard. When you read my blog regularly you know I just love these old birds! As always there are some more images of our trip on my flickr.com site (click the link more photos / mehr fotos) - enjoy

Namastee India!

With just two weeks booking in advance, Katrin and I decided on a rather exotic destination for our short winter vaccation: GOA, India. With a passion for indian food, indepth sight-seeing and general curiosity we could not have made a better choice for our holiday. So many impressions: we had the grestest food in greasy indian restaurants, saw the most amazing animals in nature such as wild monkeys, pics, cows, snakes, crabs, buffalos. During our 10 day stay we did not see a single cloud in the sky.
The bigger part of our GOA-experience could be named "India by foot"! We walked for miles and miles everyday and only occational took a Tuc-Tuc or a taxi. We experienced very nice and helpful people during our adventure. I will be starting uploading some pics on my flickr.com site soon.
Although this was not an "aviation adventure", I could not have survived this time without at least a few airplanes - the Naval Aviation Museum on the southside of the airport was the place to go. The pic shows the last surviving Lockheed Super-Constellation in India ....with truck tires.

The other picture shows one of the restaurants we had lunch at - nice and clean... but the most delicious food you can imagine.

Cruising

What a nice ride! On friday I spontaneuously decided to go for a ride from Hannover to Leipzig. It was a lovley winterafternoon with low sun. I got to spend the entire 35min on the copilots seat. The Piper Cheyenne is one of my most flown Turboprops and also this routing I flew already many times and I must say it never gets boring. My journey back to Hannover by car took a lot longer due to the first snow this year in Germany.

The bottom pic shows my homebase. This is where I grew up, this is where I work and almost live.... Hannover airport.

Libya!

I have been to Tripoli about 6 years ago with an Antonov 12 just stopping for fuel from N'Djamena to Ostend, Belgium. That time I thought this would for sure be my first and last time to Libya.

I was wrong: Last weekend I flew from Hannover, Germany to TIP. What a dirty, yet interessting country. Our ride was a Fokker F-100. We had a marvellous flight over the Alps - which is to my eyes one of the most rewarding scenes you can see from an airplane.

Tripoli is tha capital of Libya, and it has 2 airports. One is Mitiga, which is located almost within citylimits and is used for military flights, the other one is Tripoli International, about 20km to the south of the city. For an aircraft enthusiast like me both airports are interesting:  At Mitiga several Iljushins are parked on the ramp, Tripoli International has huge storage areas which contain anything Boeing built 20 to 40 years ago and several smaller aircraft. 

But it was not all aviation and hard and nerve-wrecking work: We also did some sight seeing and the most amazing thing was our visit to Leptis Magna - and old roman/greek city to the east of Tripoli.

In addition to these pics, you will find more (as usual) on my flickr.com site - please check the link in the right corner of this page - enjoy! 

Munich, Bavaria

Do you see the Alps? I don't either. Anyway, this was a nice one: Blue Line, a french charter operator invited us for a 40min flight from Munich over the alps (which obviously were covered by clouds) to Promote their MD-83 in executive layout. Usually these planes are equipped with 167 Seats, but this one only carries 60 passengers in business-class seats with lots of legroom and excellent catering. If you got enough bucks this might bring you to your next vacation.