The year started from snow flying. I love snow and frost, and wish we would have more of it, but so far it is only a couple of days a year – when the weather conditions are also good for flying.
The snowy landscapes are so beautiful from air:
In the first quarter of the 2024 I was often very ill, like having a tough flu, a cold, maybe COVID or all of them, repeatedly on and off. I got a severe eyes infection and at times couldn’t see much. It lasted from February till June, when I lost patience with public healthcare, went to a private hospital, paid what it costed and got efficient help. Therefore, I didn’t fly during those times and missed flying a lot.
Closer to Easter, I was fine, the weather looked great, and I decided to fly to Konstanz, a nice town on the border between Germany and Switzerland. It was spring there, with air temperatures 10 degrees higher than in Denmark. Flemming joined me for that tour and, staying in Konstanz, we also spent a day in ZĂĽrich and another day – in the pictureresque town of Meersburg, with its castles and palaces:
On our way back, we stayed over in LĂĽbeck in the northern Germany, and appreciated the night walks by the river Trave making its way through the city center:
In April, I did 400 hours maintenance of my Aeroprakt, together with Vagn, a longtime friend from my flying club:
A good chance to have a trip to Hamburg in Germany came on a long weekend in May. The yellow rapeseed fields on the way, south of Heiligenhafen:
The Port of Hamburg celebrated its 835 anniversary with lots of cultural activities during daytime and spectacular fireworks at night:
Going to a concert at Elbphilarmonie was so exciting! I loved the building:
My sommer vacation was spent together with Flemming in Germany and France.
We stayed in approx. 12 different places, and my favourite was the small ghosty town of Joigny in France:
Looking for a new destination to visit, I found out there was the largest private collection of jets (around 100) in a castle close to Beaune, so we flew there:
The quality of Flench food doesn’t need any advertisement. Staying in Dijon, we would go to the local Market Hall (which is one of the best in France) and buy lots of gourmet things that are either hard to find or cost a fortune in Denmark:
We planned our tour so that we would visit as many new places as possible. One of them was landing on Mont Royal in Germany with quite spectacular approach:
If you are interested, you can read the summary of the 3-week tour here.
September was rather a warm month, and together with a friend we stayed on TĂĄsinge island for 3 days, with tents under the wings of my Aeroprakt:
We biked around the island and explored the different corners of it.
A long weekend in Getterön nature reserve in Sweden in October is also worth mentioning. Hiking, swimming, and sunset watching with a glass of Veuve Clicqout:
The autumn in Denmark was very colouful, and I enjoyed just flying around and spotting the golden forests:
I was going to be on vacation in December 2024 – January 2025, and lots of staff had to be done at work. I basically had to do most of my work for those months in advance, so I put many long working evenings and weekends into that. When I sometimes had a chance to have a local flight, I was very happy…
First snow came in November, unexpectedly early, and it stayed for some days. The Aviator and The Blue Bear made a snowman for me:
In 2024, I landed on around 25 different aerodromes in Europe:
On vacation in French Polynesia, I had a flight with an instructor over Tahiti island in December:
You can read about that wonderful experience here.
In 2024, I had flights with my friends and colleagues, and it was great, but I’m being more and more convinced that I prefer flying alone 🙂 I don’t know how many hours I logged during the year, most likely around 100, because I was close to do 500 hours service on my OY-9797, though somehow it feels like I didn’t fly enough. I reached 2 important milestones: 700 airborne hours logged, and 1000 landings in total.
To point out the best or most memorable trips is always a difficult task. In this blogpost, I tried to go through the seasons and choose just one or two of the flights or experiences that were special to me in one or another way.
It’s great to be a pilot and to have your own airplane – one of the best things I’ve done in my life.