When I came to my flying club last Saturday, my club mate Jan was doing his training flights. He recently went solo, and was doing perfect landings and take-offs:
Lennart was chilling out in Thore’s hangar; it was a much warmer afternoon than anticipated.
I had the aircraft booked from 17:00 and hoped to have a 2-3 hours flight. There is no better way to spend a Saturday evening than go flying. Whilst waiting for the aircraft that was occupied by Jan, I prepared the fuel:
I first went to Holbæk, and didn’t really know where to fly to. Two-three hours is nothing; you cannot experience much in such a short time. After some considerations I decided to go for a flight over Copenhagen.
Last time I flew over Copenhagen was at Christmas last year. We had white Christmas, I wanted to see it from the air, and it was so beautiful that day.
I flew to the reporting point Vallensbæk, my intentional point of entry to the Kastrup airport control zone. It was very busy on the Kastrup Tower frequency, and I doubted I’d get permission to entry, but it wasn’t a problem. For the first time I got a squawk code for crossing the control zone – maybe a new procedure.
Entering via Vallensbæk, with the view to Arken, museum of modern art, and Vallensbæk marina:
Avedøre airfield on the photo below which is Denmark’s oldest preserved airfield from 1917. The red hangars are made of wood; that’s where the history of the Danish Air Force began. The runway is still in use (yellow stippled line). It is 300 metres long, and is not a straight one. When you land, you cannot see the end of the runway because it is slightly turning.
Meanwhile, I was getting closer to Copenhagen:
It is always exciting to fly over Copenhagen. Where else can you fly in 1,500 feet or below over a country capital?
You need to be airborne to realise how small this city is:
But the views are breathtaking:
Kongens Nytorv square in the centre – finally green after all that construction work that lasted ages:
Kastellet, one of the best preserved fortresses in Northern Europe:
10-15 minutes, and the flight over Copenhagen was over… It was a wonderful experience, to fly over the city again. I continued flying around, feeling happy and hoping to see the sunset from air.
There was a little rain on my way, and it seemed the clouds on the horizon would block the sun in the last minutes of the day; it was beautiful anyway…
It was getting dark, and I landed.
In EKML, I had to get the aircraft into its hangar, and it turned out to be a nightmare. It has never been easy for me to do it alone, but this time there were extra challenges: one of the tires of a platform used for rolling an aircraft into the hangar was flat:
I got the aircraft off that platform, and pumped the broken tire. The tire had to be patched, and I didn’t know how to do it. Well, shame on me! I could have learned it long time ago! I got the aircraft back on the platform, and began the most difficult task: to push the whole thing into the hangar. The problem here for me is that it is damn heavy. I can only push it (not pull), thus I cannot see whether it goes into the right direction. I have to make frequent stops in order not to hit something on the way. And of course, that damn thing never goes into the right direction, so I have to push it back and forth again and again, till I get it right. To any grown up man, that would have taken no longer than 5-10 minutes, inclusive tire patching. For me, it took more than an hour…
I was completely exhausted, and had back pain that stayed also the day after. I was so tired that I even didn’t want to drive home. At least not immediately. I was sitting in our club house for a while, having a cup of tea or two, and looking at the pictures taken from air – that helped.