6/1/18:
Over the pond…
Leaving Atlanta on our Delta flight was delayed by 2 hours due to afternoon thunderstorms
over and around the airport. Otherwise crossing the Atlantic Ocean
"pond" was pleasant due to the nice selection of in-flight movies to
watch.
6/2/18 … and arriving in
Strasbourg
Basel?
We arrived at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam 2
hours behind schedule. An agent told us to go to the Transfer 2 desk,
who then told us to go to the Transfer 6 desk, were we could not find
ourselves in the kiosk. A text showed our flight to Strasbourg was
departing in 30 minutes, but we found that there was a 30 minute line to
get through passport control on the way to the gate. The customs agent
directed us to another Transfer 2 desk, were we found out that we were
booked on another flight to Strasbourg 2 days later on 6/4. The
Delta KLM agent was able to get us to Basel, and was were told that we
could get a train for the 70 miles trip to Strasburg. We found we
lost our rental car, and only manual transmission cars were available.
We messaged Raymond, and he said that the trains were on strike, but he
would come and get us in Basel. After arriving in Basel, I
recognized Raymond instantly and we hugged in French fashion. We had
wonderful conversation of family and plans on the road, and he dropped
us off at our hotel, the Best Western Plus Monopole Metropole. That evening, Liz and I went to
Restaurant Le Kuhn up the street from the hotel and ate
delicious flammekueche (Alsatian pizza).
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6/3/18:
Strasbourg
It was Sunday morning, and we walked 20 minutes to the large
Cathedral in Strasburg for 9:30 am Catholic mass. The church itself was
magnificent, and the inside was beautiful. Unfortunately, we could not take any
photographs of the inside of the church. Mass, of course, was in French.
The choir was made up of several men, and they're singing sounded like Gregorian
chant. After mass, we saw that there were children ready for their first
communion. A long line of prisoners was there for the 11 mass. After a walk back
to the hotel, we were met by Raymond who took us to his house for lunch. We met
his wife, Laurence, and his son, Jean. We spent 3 hours eating, talking, and
drinking wine. We went back to Strasburg, taking the tram. We then went on an
hour long boat ride through the canal in Strasburg, learning about the history
of the city. We learned that Strasburg is one of the capital cities of the
European Union. Raymond arranged for us to have a wonderful dinner at Brasserie
Les Haras, following which we walked around, looking at the lights of the city.
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6/4/18: Alsace Family
Raymond came to pick us up early Monday morning, and drove us to Château du
Haut-Kœnigsbourg, a restored medevial castle that
was on a mountain ridge. After touring the castle, we drove to Raymond's
brothers home in Hartmannswiller. Michel, Raymond's brother, treated us like long lost family. We
met Raymond's mother, Antoinette, who was a Doenlen, prior to her marriage. We also met
Michel's wife, Monique, and his two adult children, Vincent and Marie. Vincent's
boys, Arthur (the eldest) and Augustin (the youngest) at lunch with us. We later
met Marie's daughter, Milia. After lunch, Vincent
led us on a bicycle ride through Issemhein, which is one of the ancestral homes
of the Doenlen family. We bicycled up a hill to a small church. Liz and I were glad
that they rented ebicycles to help pedel up the hills. Our 8 mile path took us through many
vineyards. That area of outside is known for its many local wineries. at the end
of the bicycle ride, we stopped at the town hall of Issenheim to look for the
death records our common great-great grandfather, Theodore Doenlen. Unfortunately, we were not able to find
what we were looking for. Raymond drove us back to Strasbourg, and we had dinner
at Le Schnockeloch restaurant.
The next day, on Tuesday, Raymond
insisted on picking us up to take us to the airport. This time the flights went
very much as expected. The main annoyance was that we stood in line for over an
hour before we could get past London Heathrow's passport control. We found Clare and
the other travelers in the bar at the Harte & Garter Hotel. After drinks and a
little chat, Liz and I had a late dinner at the All Bar One bar.
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6/6/18:
White Waltham
At 9:30 a.m.
on Wednesday, we rode cabs to the White Waltham Airport. There, Clare gave us a description
of the tour, and Ian briefed us on flying in Europe. We also completed our
briefing for the first days flight. After returning to the hotel, we had dinner
at The George restaurant.
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6/7/18:
Windsor
We left early
Thursday to White Waltham Airport to start the process of flight checks. Clare drove us
to Blackbushe Airport where we picked up our airplanes. My airplane, G-BOOF,
was a
Piper Archer. As Ian and I taxied to do the engine run up before flying, and I noticed
that my right foot pedal was not working. A rod had come loose and the pedal actually
flipped over inverted. Ian was able to find a mechanic who quickly determined
that a pinhead had split. The mechanic had a replacement pin and was able to quickly fix it. I
was also having problems with the number 2 radio not working clearly, but this
would not significantly affects our flights. We
then took off for my orientation and flight check (blue line on the chart). Ian showed me the entry points
for a landing approach into White Waltham Airport. We then did a simulated an engine
failure emergency. I had some difficulty getting used to radio communications
in the European Union fashion. After the flight check, After calling up
ATC with the full airplane registration, further calls were to be made with the
first character, which is the country code, followed by the last two characters.
My airplane would then be called Gulf Oscar Foxtrot. I flew the Archer
back to the White Waltham Airport (green line on the chart) and filled it with
fuel. Everything was all set to go. That evening, we had dinner at the Harte & Garter restaurant.
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6/8/18:
Honfleur
After
breakfast on Friday, we left for White Waltham Airport at 8:45 am, and arrived at the
airport shortly after 9:00 am. We planned for take off at 9:30 am, but we
quickly determined that we would have to delay our departure until 10:30 am due
to fog on the Normandy coast. Then at 10:30 am, we saw that the Normandy coast
fog was not lifting. We finally saw that the weather was good enough at the
Deauville Normandie Airport at 1:00 pm,
and we took off. The flight through southern England at 2000 ft went as
expected. We flew west along the English southern coast to take a look at the
Needles lighthouse. Then, we made a turn to the southeast and south over the English
Channel and climbed to 4500 feet. Once we saw the Normandy coast, we
descended back to 2000 feet. Unfortunately, we
soon found ourselves above a low cloud layer. We headed east so as to not get too
far into the foggy area. Deauville Approach gave us airport weather that was
1800 scattered and 3000 overcast. We then flew at 1500 looking for clouds above
us. We found them north of Deauville Airport and approached the airport by
circling around a prohibited area associated with a refinery, then following the
river until we saw the airport for landing. I was concerned that the
Deauville approach controller could not see my transponder signal. After
clearing customs into the European Union and a taxi to Honfleur to the Absinthe
Hôtel, we had dinner
at Brasserie L'Ostrea. Being on the coast, I found myself eating fish soup and Sole. Liz had
escargot and a mixed seafood in sauerkraut dish. We had some time to walk around
and take photos as the sun set over Honfleur at 10:00 pm.
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6/9/18: Chateau flight
We woke up early
Saturday morning, expecting a long day of
with two flights to be made. We arrived at the Deauville Normandie airport at 9
a.m., but found that the airport was pretty well fogged in. It looked like a
quarter of mile visibility with ceilings of maybe 100 or 200 at best. It was
close to noon before we could go through security and get to our airplanes. Ian
took a look at my transponder and declared it dead. We took off with the ceiling
somewhere around 2000 feet. As we flew our route South, I found that the
controller did not mention any problem seeing our transponder. We were told to
contact Paris information if it was available. We did that but got no response.
We later learned that the French Air Traffic Controllers were on strike that
day. About 2/3 of the way we encountered thunderstorms but I turned right and
flew to the east
around them. As we approached the Saumur Saint Florent Airport, we were told to watch for parachute
jumpers. We landed, got fuel and were briefed for the next flight.
The second flight of the day to Epernay was exciting. It was called the
Chateau tour. On the way there were about 4 to 6 Chateaus that we should have been able to see
along the route of flight. We saw the
Château d'amour in Saumur (row 2 center),
the Château de Chenonceau over the Cher River (row 2 right), the Château de
Chambord (row 3 center), and other chateaus. When we flew into the Tours airspace. Sienne
information did not appear to have a problem seeing my transponder. The weather
was nice until about 3/4 of the way when we again encountered a thunderstorm in
our path. I gave the thunderstorm a wide birth then flew a direct route to
Epernay Plivot
Airport. Buy the time we arrived it was about 6 p.m. and we took a taxi directly
to the Hostellerie La Briqueterie, our hotel.
We were having dinner that night at the hotel, and we were told that we would
need to dress up for it. I wore a jacket and tie. It was an amazing dinner
with champagne and wine matched to the food we were eating. There was champagne
with the appetizer of foie gras. For the main course I had roasted duck with red
wine and Liz had fish with white wine. It was also amazingly tasty. We then had
a cheese course and I could taste several new kinds of cheese for me. This ended
with a little dessert.
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6/10/18:
Epernay
The next day we had the Sunday morning off, and we would not be needed until 3 p.m. for
the Champagne maker tour. The front desk told us that there would be a 10:30
Catholic mass at the Eglise de Mosse in the next village.
It was a 25 minute walk to the village church. I was a little unsure
that there would actually be a service there, but as we got close we thought
cars going in that direction. The mass was in French, and the Homily was lost on
me. After the mass, we spoke with the Deacon who was very friendly but did not
speak English. Liz with able to try her French with him. After some photos, we
started the walk up to the church of Saint Martin on the hill. An elderly man
who was at the church service came up to us and asked in English where we were going.
He then walked
with us away explaining as best he could with the English he knew about the
history of the area. Liz and I then finished the 20 minute walk up the hill to the Church of Saint Martin
which gave us a very nice view of the surrounding countryside. We heard some
thunder in the distance, and walked 20 minutes back to the hotel arriving around
1 p.m.
Around 3 p.m., Natalie drove up in her mini bus. She took us to the family
vineyards, and showed us how the vines are pruned to grow the best grapes. Then,
we went on to their winery, Domi-Moreau, where she showed step-by-step how the
grapes were pressed and fermented, and how champagne was made by carefully
fermenting the wine again in the bottle. Their champaine is "Proprietaire-Recoltant,"
meaning their champagne was made exclusively from grapes on their own property.
It is sold privately and the labels on the bottle don't have the usual warnings.
The tour ended with tasting of their champagnes, and we bought home two bottles
of Rose champagne. That evening, we went into Epernay for dinner at the
Brasserie La Banque.
We walked on the Avenue de Champagne, looking at the great champagne wineries.
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Annecy landing
video on YouTube |
6/11/18:
Annecy
On Monday, we knew ahead of time that there were low clouds and
visibilities, so we slept later and left at 10:00 am. We arrived at the
Epernay Plivot Airport 30 minutes later and took off around 11:30 am.
For the first half-hour, we flew at 1800 feet, skirting under a cloud
layer. The weather opened up and we could climb to a more comfortable
3000 feet. After Chalon-sur-Saône, the elevation began to rise as high
as 3500 feet, and we climbed to 4500 to clear the mountain ridges.
Northwest of Annecy, we could see that many tops of mountain ridges were
obscured by clouds, and we determined that it would be safer to curve
around and approach Annecy from the southwest where the terrain was
lower. After a 2 hour 20 minute flight, we landed at the Annecy Meythet
Airport.
A cab ride took us to downtown Annecy. Annecy is a
beautiful town on northern shore of Lake Annecy, surrounded by
mountains. Due to our delayed departure, we only had 2 hours to walk
around Annecy and take a peak into the shops. The cab took us to our
hotel, l’Abbaye de Talloires.
We were told that this was a monastery from the middle ages. There were
no steps to our third floor room, but we had a nice view of the lake.
That evening, we went next door for dinner at that Hôtel Cottage Bise.
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Cannes landing
video on YouTube |
6/12/18:
Mountain flight
Our planned flight on Tuesday was into the
French Alps, flying in between mountain peaks at 9000 feet. Our route
would take use over the Courchevel Altiport, a dangerous airport with a
short upslope runway and no go-around procedure due to surrounding
peaks. We had hoped to get dramatic photos of the snow covered Alps.
But those plans never got off the ground, as we learned the next morning
that clouds would be scattered to broken at 1500 to 2000 feet. Ian
plotted a new flight plan into Sky Demon, which took us over lower
terrain to the west of the Alp's peaks. It was another day of delayed
departure waiting for the weather to improve and I didn't start my
engine until 12:30 pm. I initially climbed to 5500 to get a look
above the cloud layer which was at 4000 MSL. I hoped that the
terrain to the east would be relatively clear of clouds where the
mountains could rise well above the clouds. Unfortunately, I saw
nothing but clouds to the east and I descended back to 3000, picking my
way though openings in the clouds. From there, it was valley
flying like we had learned in New Zealand, staying below the clouds,
flying between 3000 and 3500, between the ridges and looking for saddle
passes to fly through. I had previously downloaded the high
definition terrain into Sky Demon on my iPad, which helped plan a safe
route as well as escape options. Using the moving map, we had to
fly a parallel route to the east of the route Ian had plotted.
After Château-Arnoux-Saint-Auban, the weather opened with higher cloud
bases, but we could see there were thunderstorms with visible lightening
to the east. The mountain ridges were higher at 4000 feet, and we
climbed to 5000 feet to clear them. At Pampelonne, we could see
the Mediterranean and were supposed to turn east heading towards Cannes.
We saw lightening and thunderstorm rain to the east, and found he had to
deviate into restricted area LFR95A to avoid the bad weather. The air
traffic controller gave us the frequency to contact Le Luc approach and
we got clearance though the restricted area. We then descended
over the Mediterranean making an off-shore approach to a landing at
Cannes Mandelieu Airport. Flight time was 2 hours.
After a long taxi ride, we
arrived at our hotel, Le Negresco. This was a very fabulous hotel,
paintings and large decorations on every floor. In our room, we
found champagne, chocolates, and rose petals arranged in the outline of
a hear on the bed. We walked a couple of blocks for dinner at Le Bistrot des Viviers.
The meal was very good. I had crepes flambé for desert, allowing me to
take a dramatic photo of the flambé flaming for our waitress. Even the
waitress wanted a copy of the photo to send to her mother.
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6/13/18:
Nice
After
breakfast Wednesday, we walked along the Promenade to the the old city. We were
met by a guide with a granny cart, to take us on Nice food tour!
First stop was the Patisserie Henry Auer Confiserie. We were told that
this candy store had been in the same family for 5 generations, and was
the go-to sweet shop for Queen Victoria. We walked into the old
city, past a square with a church, court building, and man making hugh
bubbles. Excited little children ran after the bubbles as the
breeze blew the bubbles away. Our guide proved to us that wine in
France was less expensive than bottled water. The wine was from a tap at
a winery, Caves Caprioglio. We rode a tram on the Boulevard Jean
Jaurès to where there was tram construction. We walked through the
Plassa Carlou Aubert with the Fontaine du Soleil and iconic Apollo
statue.
We then rode a tram up the
Avenue Jean Médecin, stopping to look at some vegetable stands and eat
socca, which is a slightly spicy pancake made of chickpea. We
stopped La Riveria to try a drink that tasted like black licorice.
Back on the Avenue Jean Médecin, we had wine and lunch at a corner
restaurant. We also stopped at the Olio Donato shop, which
features olive oil, truffles, and wonderful Creme de Noisette (hazelnut
cocoa spread).
After the food tour, we took a
walk up the Colline du Chateau, or Castle Hill. Well, we actually
started up, then down, and found the free elevator to the top of the
hill. There, we had great views of Nice and could see the ruins of a
cathedral and a castle. We walked down the east side of the hill and
back through the old city. Back at the hotel, I decided to talk a
walk on the beach. There was no sand, only pebbles and smooth rocks.
Dinner was on our own that night. Liz and I decide to take a break
from French cosine and try Italian. We went to
the Diavoletto restaurant for pasta, which was nothing
special. After dinner, we found a book store where we purchased a
book about the Alcase region for Will. Returning to our hotel, we joined our group outside
enjoying a round of drinks.
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6/14/18:
Eze & Nice
On Thursday morning, we took a ride to Eze, a walled town on a coastal mountain top on the road from Nice to Monaco.
After parking, we walked up, through the narrow streets of the town, to the
exotic garden at the top. After paying 5 euro each, we continued up the path to
an observation platform at the time of the mountain. Here, the views of the
mountains meeting the Mediterranean were beautiful. We watched some fire-fighter
airplanes practice skirting the Mediterranean picking up water. We
explored the garden further and went into the town looking into the shops. Time
ran out, so Liz and I grabbed sandwiches and water at the mini super market next
to the parking lot. Next to Eze was Parfumerie Fragonard, a perfume factory. The
tour guide explained how perfumes were invented, by free-lance trained chemists
known as "noses." This factory did not make perfumes exactly, but made scented
products such as the duck soap and oils.
That afternoon, in Nice, we found
a place that rented bicycles, Holiday Bikes. We had to rent for an
entire day, even though we would only have the bikes for a few hours in
the afternoon. We biked the promenade's bike path all the way to the
airport, back all the way to Castle Hill. There, I took a photo of Liz
in front of the I Love Nice sign. That even, we all went to Wayne's Bar
for a round of drinks, then on to La Favola for dinner.
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6/15/18:
Mediterranean Coast flight
After an hour cab ride to the Cannes
Mandelieu Airport on Friday, it took another hour to get to the airplane, taxi around to
the other side, and fuel up. We finally took off around 11:30 am, buy which time
my iPad was overheating in the sun and hot cockpit. On the takeoff roll, my iPad
refused to work, but we had Sky Demon working on Liz's cell phone for back up
navigation. This was a scenic flight westbound along the Mediterranean
coast, flying low at 1500 to stay below controlled and restricted airspace.
We were told to descend below 800 feet for about 20 miles when we were south of
Martigues, and then to stay below 1000 feet for the next 50 miles until we
passed Montpellier. This was low enough to see tankers closely. After a 2
hour 45 minute flight, we landed at Beziers Vias for fuel our airplanes and
ourselves with lunch. We were told to eat a light lunch, since we would be
having cassoulet for dinner.
We took off again at 3:00 pm, expecting a
short 30 minute hop into Carcassonne. To our surprise, the tower
controller at Carcassonne was not ready to allow us into their airspace.
We circled about 20 miles to the west of the airport. Of our group, I
was the last to be cleared in. Including circling 20 minutes, we
landed at the Carcassonne Salvaza Airport after a 50 minute flight.
As we drove to Carcassone, we saw that there
were yellow stripes painted on the structures. The stripes looked very
out of place and our cab driver was upset by them. We came to a parking
lot run by the hotel, and were told our luggage would be delivered to
our rooms. This allowed us to start exploring the narrow city streets.
After checking into the Hôtel de la Cité, we went to dinner at Comte Roger.
I was hungry for cassoulet which was prepared by staff next to our
table. The dinner was tasty and presented in beautiful fashion.
After dinner, I walked around as dusk and found that the yellow strips
were part of a series of concentric circles which could be seen at the
back gate. I looked this up and learned it was an art project to
celebrate the 20th anniversary of Carcassonne’s inscription on the
UNESCO World Heritage List.
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6/16/18:
Carcassone
On Saturday morning, we were given a tour of
Carcassone. This started in the Cathédrale Saint-Michel de Carcassonne,
which was built in the 13th century. We then toured the citadel
and castle, which had been present since medieval times. We
learned that the city was restored in the 1850's. The city itself
is surrounded by an inner wall and a lower outer wall. We walked
along the inner wall's defensive structures before finishing the tour.
After lunch, I walked into town to take a photo of the city from a
bridge over the Aude River.
That evening, we had an
amazing dinner at Restaurant La Marquière, where wine was paired with
our courses.
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6/17/18:
Rocamadour
Our planned flight on Sunday was to take us into the
low mountains to see a very cool bridge near Millau, but we found that that the
ceilings would not allow for flight about 3000 feet and the mountain ridges were
a little higher than that. So we decided to play it safe and take a more direct
route over lower terrain. We again waited for visibility to improve and took off
at 11:45 am. During that flight, Rinah caught our airplane on camera.
After a 1 hour flight, we landed at Figeac Livernon airport.
After a one hour taxi ride with a brief stop
to take photographs of Rocamadour from a distance, we arrived at the Best Western Beau Site,
our hotel. After checking into our room, we went off to explore the church
complex. The shrine was built into the face of a wall of rock, and there
were a series of 216 steps leading up to the several chapels. Although the steps
were used by penitents, we chose to pay the fee to take the elevator. We went
into the chapel where we heard singing, and found ourselves in the Notre-Dame
Chapel. Above the alter, there was the Black Madonna, covered in a gold cloth
and white veil, with the faces of the Blessed Mother and Jesus showing. We found
that the singing was the beginning of a Catholic Mass, so we stayed because it
was Sunday. There were models of sailing ships hanging from the arches,
apparently related to ship crews saved by the intercession of Our Lady. We
explored further and found the Chapelle Miraculeuse containing the Tomb of St.
Amadour and a very old clock. We walked a winding path with the stations
of the cross up to the top of the clift, where there was a Château. For 2 euros
each, we could walk the ramparts with great views of Rocamadour and the Alzou
Valley. We worked our way back down to the town, and walked down the hill
of Rue Roland le Preux, looking into the shops. We found a hat store that had
the black beret of the Basque people. We found one the right size for
Chris and bought it for him. We continued to the bottom of the hill outside the
city wall, where there was a wonderful cheese shop. That evening, we had a
nice dinner at the Best Western Beau Site.
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6/18/18:
Caen
We arrived at
Figeac Livernon Aerodrome around 9:00 am Monday morning and found that there was no one to help
with fueling the airplane. We also learned about a NOTAM that the grass was
going to be cut by one upset grass cutter who wanted our airplanes off the grass
where we parked. The clouds were low, maybe 1500 broken, which looked good
enough for a quick flight to Bergerac. We departed a little after 10:00 am
and climbed to 2000 feet, about 1000 feet above the terrain. About 15
miles out, it became apparent that the cloud bases were lower than expected, and
our flight altitude was being pushed lower, at first to 1800 feet, then to 1500
feet at 30 miles out. Using Sky Demon, I turned southwest where the
terrain was lower. By 20 miles to destination, we had been pushed down to 1100
feet, but the terrain had dropped to 700 feet. After a 38 minute flight,
we landed at the Bergerac Dordogne Perigord Airport. We pulled up for
fuel, but were told that our fuel would have to wait an hour because Ryan Air
was about to land and they would be fueled first. We spent the time chatting and
eating an early lunch.
It was after 1:00 pm before we
were finished fueling. We took off at 1:30 pm and headed northbound for
Saumur. Low clouds kept us at 1500 feet with terrain 700 feet below us for about
50 miles, but then the sky opened up and we could fly at a comfortable 2000 feet
for the remaining 100 miles. After a 1 hour 30 minute flight, we arrived at the
Saumur Saint Florent Aerodrome. On approach, we were able to photograph Château d'amour in Saumur (row 2
right),
Ian told us
that on the next flight, we could head northeast and see Mont Saint-Michel.
With full tanks, we were "wheels up" at 3:30 pm, and flew 2000 feet for 100
miles until we could photograph Le Mont
Saint-Michel
(row 3 center). Then, we turned northwest for another 60 miles, landing at Caen
Carpiquet Airport after a 1 hour 30 minute flight.
A taxi took us to a beautiful hotel, the Chateau d’Audrieu. That evening, we had
and enjoyable dinner at Hostellerie Saint Martin.
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6/19/18:
D-day tour
We left early
Tuesday
morning for our D-day tour. Being that our group was mostly American, the tour
would focus on the American landing beaches on Normandy. We first visited the Airborne Museum
and saw St Mere Eglise with the simulated paratrooper hanging from the church
steeple. Then onto Utah beach where General Patton's army started. We saw the
cliffs of Point-du-Hoc scaled by the army rangers 2 days before D-day. We
visited a somber German cemetery. Then onto the dangerous Omaha beach. We
finished the D-day tour with the stately American cemetery. Our tours in
France ended with with the Tapisserie de Bayeux depicting the story of William
the Conqueror shown in a 230 foot long embroidered cloth. We were given a
recording to listen to as we walked around viewing the panels. Unfortunately, no
photographs were allowed. Our last wonderful formal French dinner was at
our hotel, the Chateau d’Audrieu.
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Time lapse flight into England on YouTube |
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6/20/18: White Cliffs of Dover
After
breakfast and a briefing, we left for the Caen Carpiquet Airport and arrived
around 10:00 am., Wednesday. Here, we had to go though security, having our luggage
x-rayed and passports checked. After fueling, we took off around 9:40 a.m.
Our clouds were at 1500, and we were able to fly below them at 1500. Our route
took us northeast around the French coast about 150 miles to just short of
Calais. About 30 minutes after take off, we found the clouds were getting
lower, and climbed to 3500 feet so we could get better visibility of other
airplanes. Near Saint Inglevert, we turned northwest over the English Channel.
We got our last frequency change and "bye-bye" from the French controller, but
the British Southend controller did not want to talk to us until we were past
Dover. By mid channel, the clouds below us dissipated and we could descend to
2000 feet to photograph the white cliffs of Dover. We continued our flight north
of the Heathrow and London airspace. We could see the city of London though the
haze as we passed. Contacting White Waltham Airport radio, we were given a
"welcome back." After landing, we saw the customs agent waiting for us and
our passports were stamped back into England. I made one more quick flight
to return G-BOOF to Blackbushe Airport.
Altogether, we had spent 2 days briefing and 13 days on tour,
flying through 2 countries to 7 destinations. We flew 12 legs totaling 2,858
nautical miles and 24.9 Hobbs hours.
We took a taxi cab to the Hotel Oakley Court, on the River
Thames. There we enjoyed our last dinner together as a group at the hotel.
We continued to enjoy each other's company after sunset in the patio bar.
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