Everything is ready for the next flight. Cliff will do the first trip IFR. We’ll be flying up the coast of Spain and then across to Menorca for a refuel and last minute check before a long water crossing directly to Rome. Then we’ll continue on IFR (so constantly under watch, which strikes me as a good thing) so we can enter the Class A airspace and go directly to the Roma Urbe airfield.

Roma Urbe on Google maps

Click and then zoom out to see the location. It’s amazing, right on the northern side of Rome! That river is handy too, that’ll make the airfield loads easier to spot.

A few days in Rome (yay!) and then we will bundle my mother into the plane and I’ll fly us to Mannheim. Cliff thinks we can route right over my cousins house in Bavaria on the Austrian border, which will be neat. We’ll be high (argh, Alps!) but if it’s clear weather it should still be some pretty spectacular views.

It’s a three-hour flight, which compares really well to a commercial flight: the time you spend queuing and getting your luggage checked in and yourself through security adds up fast so I suspect we’ll make better time than my mother would have with a Lufthansa flight. Certainly more interesting!

I spent formative years in Mannheim and so although I’ve never landed at the airfield, I don’t think I’ll have any trouble finding the airfield from the sky.

See if you can spot it.

See how Mannheim is nestled in between the Rhein and Neckar? The airfield is just south of the Neckar, which is the lighter, smaller river on the north east. Now you don’t plonk runways in between houses so forget about any built up areas and look for a clear field that could fit an east-west runway.

Found it? Hopefully you’ve zoomed in close and ended up at this lovely airfield.

If you zoomed out and got lost and ended up in Coleman, the US military is likely to want a word with you. So don’t do that. And lets hope that I don’t!

Axarquía (more properly called Leoni Benabu, but no one ever does) is a dusty little airfield north-east of Málaga city. It’s a rural area with one of my favourite restaurants in the area: Las Cruces. During the week Las Cruces acts as a type of Venta, offering what I like to refer to as “Spanish fast food” with a set menu that the waiter rattles off. There are always three starters and three main dishes — you pick one from each category and choose a drink: water, beer or red wine. Because there are so few dishes, your food arrives in minutes. I have seen them deal with difficult tourists who want to personalise their dish: “Can I have chips with that? Substitute the vegetables for some salad, please!” I always want to cringe but the waiters take it with good grace and comply when they can . The place is full of farm workers and truck drivers from miles around, happy to receive a quick and hearty meal. The waiter then reappears with a cafe sólo and takes your money: as it is a set price per person, there’s no need to write anything down. On Sunday, the scene changes to a huge barbecue with a full menu. Lamb chops, slices of pork loin, beef entrecote. Grilled peppers, Grilled cheese, Grilled bread rubbed with tomato and olive oil. If they can grill it, they will.

But I digress…

We went to Axarquía and I took the plane out for a spin. I immediately flashed back to my lessons, Tom’s voice reminding me that it was inconsiderate to fly over the villages and that I should get just a little bit higher before turning towards the hills for the crosswind leg. All this time I’ve been fretting about Axarquía, I’d ignored the obvious advantage:

I learned to fly there.

I spent 50 hours flying into and out of that airfield - out of less than 200 hours total flying time. There is no other place that comes even close. The six year gap was irrelevant by the time I was on my second circuit. I didn’t even hear Tom’s voice nagging me by the third. It was a breeze.

I struggled a bit trying to get everything done in time for what is a small and very fast circuit in the Saratoga but really, there was no reason for me to be nervous about the airfield at all. And when a few more planes joined the circuit, we called out to each other (me in English, them in Spanish) and kept a good look-out and the lack of a control tower didn’t seem to matter one bit.

So, that was nice and easy and I can take passengers again (and yes, my Mom does read my blog. Ooops.) and I have gotten over my fear of Axarquía.

Now I just need to organise flying there in time to get Sunday lunch at Las Cruces.

I’ve done it again. I need a measly three take-offs and landings within the last 90 days in order to take passengers. It’s a sensible rule: they don’t want people getting out of practice, then bundling the family into the plane and crash-landing due to incompetence. If you’ve flown within six months and think you can hack it, you can kill yourself. Just don’t mess with other people. Seems fair.

Thing is, my last flight in the past 90 days was our trip to the Alps: one take-off, one landing. Obviously, these tend to match.

We are meeting my mother in Rome in a week and flying her to Germany. She’s never been in the plane and is very excited.

Now I might not do the flying, based on weather or other factors. We tend to leave this stuff open … and that’s fine. But I need to be able to fly. I am certainly NOT telling my mother that I’m not flying because I’m not allowed to, because I let my license lapse. Ugh.

The Saratoga is in Málaga so I could just jump in and go flying. There’s only two issues:

1) I hate Málaga.
2) Málaga hates me.

That’s only half true. Málaga is totally overloaded and really does not have the time to deal with nervous pilots in light aircraft. It isn’t personal. But they tend to be abrupt and unfriendly. This makes me nervous and starts off a downward spiral where I get less and less competent and they get more and more stressed.

I’ve been avoiding Málaga all year.

It’s crunch-time though: I have to get up in the air. We came up with a clever plan: Cliff will fly the plane from Málaga to Axarquia, the small airfield north-east of Málaga. I will drive there and then get in the plane and do a few circuits, that way we can leave the plane there for maintenance and drive home at leisure.

I’ve not flown at Axarquia since I originally did my license in the Cessna. If I’m honest, I’m scared. The airfield is surrounded by hills and if I don’t watch myself I’ll fly straight into Málaga’s airspace. It is also a bit confusing because it has a displaced threshhold: the initial stretch of runway isn’t useable, you have to land a few hundred metres down. This is a safety issue — there are trees and power cables right at the start of the runway and they don’t want you descending into them.

But there’s nothing for it, I’m going to have to bite the bullet and see how I do. Someone warn Easyjet.

Yet another counter-terrorism bill aimed at safe flying — protecting the good old US of A against western Europe.

This time, the European Commission took a stand. “We are following with concern the tightening of security measures in the US, which impose a burden that is not justified by the benefits,” said the BDI’s Carsten Kreklau.

The answer: make Americans go through the same rigmarole when they fly to the European Union: Brussels would like to “operate on a reciprocal basis”.

I can’t help but wonder how much nonsense people will put up with … but it seems like an awful lot when the magic word “security” is trotted out. I’m not sure making travel miserable on principle makes sense but I can understand the frustration from which the response is borne.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f490402c-4518-11dc-82f5-0000779fd2ac.html

I haven’t even written about the last flight and we are planning the next exciting one: Rome! As in Italy, not Indiana. We’re planning to fly there, meet my mother (who is visiting friends), take her to Mannheim and then fly home. My mother is very impressed at the taxi service she’s being offered … which means something is sure to go wrong.

I’ve never been to Rome! I suspect their air space will be horrifically busy - I wonder if I’ll have the same problems understanding them as I do the French? Scary!
I hope my mother doesn’t pack to much luggage - I want to go grocery shopping while we are there: vinegar, porcini, pasta, pancetta, olives, wine!

Can you tell I’m a bit excited? :)