Happy birthday!

My dear friend Hans Christian has birthday today, and I thought I’d write a post about him, his role in my life as a pilot, and some of our flying adventures.

In the air

I met Hans Christian in Nordsjællands Svæveflyveklub (NSF) shortly after I became a member some years ago. In gliding sport – or at list in NSF – you don’t have a personal instructor. There are always 2 instructors present on any flying day, and all of them are volunteers. You fly with the one who is available, and you always get the best training. Sometimes you don’t see the same instructor for a long time whilst others are coming to the club more often. Hans Christian has always been one of those contributing most: as an instructor, a winch operator, and a handyman.

He was my instructor and with time we became close friends. All my gliding instructors were excellent, and I always keep warm thoughts about their professionalism, but Hans Christian played a special role. At the time I joined gliding sport, I had lots of other obligations and priorities, and couldn’t commit enough. So it took me longer time to learn gliding than I and my instructors would expect, and I almost lost interest. Hans Christian noticed that and went an extra mile for me. He coached me, gave extra lessons, took me on flying trips. All that worked very well, and soon he sent me solo. That was a very happy day for both of us, and I consider him as a man who taught me to fly and made me a glider pilot.

Preparing for a flight

Since then, we had many exciting flying trips together, and I will just mention some of them below.

One of our first tours out was to the island of Endelave on the 26th August 2011. We landed on a neibourgh’s field (not the airfield!) which from the air looked identically to the EKEL airstrip.

Note the grass!

We wandered over why the grass wasn’t cut, why there were no bicycles, and why everything looked different from what we assumed. Without speculating too much over the practicalities, we went on a walking tour and enjoyed the day. When we came back, there we spectators waiting with their cameras. They explained the situation, and we all laughed a lot. We got photographed and probably came to the local news.

The owner of the field was used to such kind of guests: we were not the first ones landed there by mistake. He took his tractor and drove in front of us making a la runway on his field so that we could take off. We were grateful.

Way to make airstrips for uninvited guests

We visited a number of places, and some of our favourites were the islands of Vejrø, Ærø, Samsø. Vejrø island is a marvellous place to visit. You can get a guided tour around the island, there are pristine beaches, and it has a sublime restaurant. You feel very welcome, taken good care of, and also free to explore the island on your own.

Lunch at Vejrø restaurant

Samsø is also a very nice place to visit. This photo of the island is one of my favourites of all times. I even have it on a wall at home:

Approaching the island of Samsø

EKSS has bikes for rent, and it is easy to get from the airport to Langøre Havn or the city of Nordby, both awesome places.

Samsø international terminal

One day on a trip over Copenhagen we got permission to make a low pass over runways 12/30 in Kastrup Copenhagen airport which we were very proud of:

EKCH RWY30

I went through thousands of pictures from trips with Hans Christian before I wrote this post, and it was a big pleasure to look back and to remember all these wonderful experiences.

Happy birthday!

One of my favourite photos of Hans Christian