This is just a stunning landing you can watch on youtube: Look, ma! No wheels!

Yes, I know, I owe you all a post. Soon, I promise. :)

Fear of Landing will be down for server maintenance all day on Tuesday, September 18th. We’ll come back showered and refreshed and raring to go!

In the meantime, you can take a look at some of the new photographs I’ve uploaded over at Flickr.

Janet wrote:

> just got a car, after months without, and re-learning standard stick shift
> routines. today’s big stressor was parking on a hill.
>
> but, no, there was no control tower. and no one watching.

I was in this situation the other day. I don’t tend to have to drive here in Spain. In fact with local roads a bit of a mad-house and parking nigh-on impossible in the summer months, I make a point not to drive if I can possibly avoid it. And I’m good at avoiding it.

So good that I managed to go a couple of months without driving at all. Then something came up and I found myself at the wheel of the huge Lincoln Navigator 4×4 that we continue to use even though dirt roads are now a rarity and driving through the sand to the beach is strictly forbidden.

I drove into city-center Málaga and got lost and then got unlost and did what I needed to do and then drove home again. And on the way home it struck me how I simply accepted this as the way things are without getting stressed. I clearly wasn’t driving as well as when I used to commute every day. I was obviously out of practice and slow to react. I had to think about how things worked.

So why is that totally not a big deal, but getting into the plane after 6 weeks of not flying scares me to death.

The difference struck me pretty much immediately. It’s not that no one is watching (in fact, there was at least one blare of a horn to show how irately one person WAS watching as I dithered), but that I can stop. At almost any point, I can make the decision to pull over. I can make the time to sort things out. Get a map out. Phone someone for advice. Take a few deep breaths. Have a little cry.

Once you are in the plane though, you just have to keep going. OK, sure, you can call for an emergency landing and really cause chaos (especially when you explain that it was just because you were feeling a bit upset about it all) but realistically, you are stuck now until the end and if things go too fast, well, you just have to learn to get faster. That’s what freaks me out … what I really want is to be able to pull over at the side of a cloud for a moment or two and catch my breath before carrying on.
The answer, of course, is to not let 6 weeks go by without flying. To keep reading about flying and good flying practices when it can’t be avoided. And I have to admit that writing about flying has helped me think about how I fly and what types of situations cause me problems.

But really, deep-down, I think my instinctive solution would be the best one: a great big pause button on the dash of the plane. I just want the option of saying “Please hold. An operator will be with you in a moment. Thank you for your patience.”

It’s not so much to ask?

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? :)

I’ve not gone missing, just that time seems to be slipping away from me at the moment. I’m working on two projects that are eating up quite a bit of time and the summer sun is proving quite a distraction.

Back soon… :)

Here’s the view as we fly away from our initial destination at Lake Constance. No, you don’t get a view of us flying to it as I was busy with the plane at that point!

At the wing tip you can see the airfield, the same one that I linked to on Google in the previous entry. Let me tell you, it looked a lot smaller in real life.

Especially when I realised there was someone coming in straight at me to land on the same runway, in the opposite direction.

The controller was totally focused and whisked me off to the side (with explicit directions, no chance of me having to pause and work out where the parking was) whilst bringing the jet in. It was pretty impressive.

More about the trip soon, I just wanted to let you know I was back and we had a great trip. :)

I sit at my desk, staring at the web browser. A voice inside my head says, Pass your message.

“November 666 Echo X-ray is a PA32 travelling from Beziers to Altenrhein, Switzerland. We are currently west of the Alps at 7,500 feet and requesting a flight information service.”

7,500 feet! Flying past the Alps! Wow, this is going to be great.

Cliff is going to do the first leg, getting us out of Málaga (who don’t accept VFR traffic on weekends) and to our fuel stop in France. Then I’ll take us to this wonderfully large runway in Switzerland. If you click on the link and zoom out a bit and you’ll see the stunning location on Lake Constance (Bodensee). Have I mentioned lately that I love the fact that I can check out runways on Google Earth before I go there? It makes them so much easier to spot.

Then on Sunday we’ll be crossing over Austria to go to this rather smaller grass airstrip in Bavaria. Frustrating that the detail disappears right before the airfield! This is Kempten-Durach, the highest civil aviation airfield in Germany. It also happens to be right down the road from my cousin’s bed and breakfast. :)

On Tuesday, we’ll do the flight back home, stopping at Ampuriabrava for fuel.

(Cliff did the planning.

“Where?” I asked him.

“Ampuriabrava. In the north of Spain.”

“Why?”

“Because it looked convenient. Why not?”

I somehow can’t get over this arbitrary choosing of exciting sounding places to stop in. Why not, indeed?)

I can do the flight into Málaga as long as we get in before sunset (I went through all the trouble to get my night-rating and they won’t accept VFR traffic after dark!) although I’m tempted to ask Cliff to do that leg so I can take photographs. But that would mean me flying into unknown airfields, which, given a choice, I’d rather avoid. I know I can find Málaga without any difficulty!

I think all the details are worked out. I hope so — it’s been almost 3 months since I’ve flown and about 6 months since I’ve flown a flight that needed planning (luckily Cliff’s done the bulk of the work!). I’ve looked at all the airfields on Google and noted down pretty much every possible frequency we might need, with little sad faces next to the ones that say “non-English”. Cliff assures me I’ll cope. The weather looks like it’ll be good and we might even get tailwinds on the first leg tomorrow.

Wish me a bon voyage!