I have had so many great flying tours this year already, and enjoyed meeting old friends and new people, visiting new countries. And there was one thing I missed – having the freedom to fly alone. It is quite difficult to book an aircraft, have the time to leave the job earlier, and then the weather… But today the luck was on my side. I had pre-booked our OY-9465, and looked forward to flying alone.
The aircraft was standing on a platform I couldn’t move much (out of the hangar), so I did the pre-flight check in the hangar, and then waited for someone to come by and help me.
And soon a couple of pilots from my club were there, and helped med with the heavy stuff and other annoying things, like opening a lid on a fuel tank (that sometimes requires lots of power). I refuelled our club’ Aeroprakt, the rest was ready.
I dreamed of a long whole day flight somewhere to Sweden, but the weather seemed to be rather unstable, with gusts up to 25 kn, embedded CB clouds, and thunderstorms. Based on the information I had, I knew the best time for flying in my area would be between approx. 11:00 and 13:00. From 13:00 the wind was going to become stronger. So I stayed close to my home airfield in Måløv.
When I took off, it was quite fine. My plan was to do landing exercises on different private runways where I have permission to land. I did a round over the ferry that goes between the city of Holbæk and the island of Orø:
It was so much fun! And a round over Holbæk:
I could see that the skies in the north were turning dark:
But other areas were clear, and I continued. I was so happy…
I didn’t meet anyone on any airfield, and it was also nice. I just wanted to be airborne, and be alone in the air. To have all that pleasure purely for myself.
Meanwhile, the weather was getting more and more windy, the dark clouds began getting lower and closer, and the turbulence at times was high. I could see on the instruments, the gusts sometimes were around 30-35 kn.
I headed home whilst the conditions still were ok. The air was suddenly calm when I reached Måløv, and I wandered how it was going to be on final.
With the southern wind, we often have lots of turbulence on landing. And with the gusts like today… It was very difficult to control the aircraft – I was thrown up and down, to the sides, and almost thought I wouldn’t make it.
But – I managed. I was glad to be on the ground again, and safe. I was tired, but what a wonderful day it has been! And the feeling of freedom flying alone I was longing for…
