Happy New Year! Happy 2023!

The beginning of 2022 was a bit boring – the weather wasn’t much for flying, and I remember doing lots of local flights. Only a couple of times could I fly to North Jutland and Southern Sweden that were at least a little longer trips.

Then came Easter with very nice weather in Germany, and I headed for Dresden. On my way, I did a stop-over in Lüneburg and saw that charming old town.

I spent several days in Dresden, walking around and admiring its architecture, went to a classical music concert, and just enjoyed the spring – some days it was up to +23C, others – cold and rain. I found the “other side” of Dresden (in Neustadt, on the other side of Elbe) more interesting and authentic than the polished tourist side, though I didn’t always felt safe walking there.

One of the best things in Dresden was hot chocolate… Camondas Kakaostube is worth mentioning for their top quality:

On the way back, I visited different towns in Germany: saw historic aircraft in Grossenhein, spent several days in Stendal, and had a stroll by the sea in Haffkrug.

OY-9797 celebrated its 2nd birthday on the 23rd of April with a daytrip to Skælskør.

It was also first time in Skælskør for me. The town was very cozy, and fish restaurant by the harbour served great food.

In 2022, I became the owner of a hangar place. Shaking hands with Paul, its previous owner:

Later I had an incident with my OY-9797 that had to be transferred to the Aeroprakt facility in Poland, where skilled engineers were going to repair it. My good friends and even other pilots I had never met before quickly reached out and offered flights – I really appreciated their kindness and understanding.

One of the memorable trips was with Niklas to Fjällbacka, in his SportStar. It was one of those “the only one” weekends with +30C, not much wind, and clear skies. I had a really nice time in Sweden, and many thanks to Niklas for arranging the practicalities. Fjällbacka was so charming! We spent time hiking in Veddö nature reserve, and enjoyed good food by the sea:

I had planned mountain flying in September in the French Pyrénées, and had an agreement with the Leon Morane flying club in Tarbes. Gilles, former fighter from the French Air Force, was my instructor:

Training in Pyrénées was simply terrific. Gilles tought me the basics of mountain flying and the art of landing pattern.

Every day, we would land on different airfields. We also landed on one of the most challenging airstrips in Haute-Pyrénées, called Barèges, at 5,400 feet with 21% slope gradient and 200 m short:

When a mountain flight instructor from the area has to pass a skills test, (s)he needs to land in Barèges to prove the master class.

When I got back to Denmark, it was cold and and dark – good opportunity for night VFR flights, also over Copenhagen. We did it with Flemming in his Piper 28, and the views were spectacular:

We had many other good trips with Flemming, mostly to the beautiful Danish islands.

The annual gala dinner with Danske Flyvere, the oldest pilots association in the world, was great as always. We call it “the best party of the year”:

There were many other good things, too. In my company NAWICO, I sold several canopy covers, and my customers were very happy about them:

Just before Christmas, I sent the last order – a set of side compartments for Aeroprakt A22:

It was nice to learn that other pilots appreciated my work.

In December, we were lucky with the weather, frost and snow. I was flying a lot – I love snow and winter flying.

Especially afternoon flights were beautiful, with long shadows on the ground, and soft sunset light. One day we even had -12C, quite unusual for our country.

I think, I will mostly remember 2022 for the mountain flying with Gilles – I’m so glad I did it. It was also nice to finish the year with snow and Christmas flying. Let’s see what 2023 brings!

Happy New Year!