Tag Archives: Egypt

Showdown at the Lake of Constance

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This trip went way too smooth. Neither technical nor any other problems lead to the desasters that our scandal loving readership expected. After an additional day of spa wellness in Dubrovnik, the stars promised luck for today's leg home. Few clouds enroute, mostly blue skies north of the Alps and a broken layer of clouds at our destination. The icing on the cake was a strong tailwind so we were convinced our last leg was going to be a home run.

The first two hours were just like we expected, maybe a few clouds more than forecast but 30 knots of free thrust from behind. North of the Alps no clouds, just a bit of mist. Starting at the Danube Valley the situation changed completely: an overcast cloud layer at about 8000 feet and a bit later another layer of clouds on top. We continued to our destination Heubach (50km east of Stuttgart) at 10 000 feet, hoping to find a hole in the clouds allowing us to change from IFR to VFR (visual flight rules). Our backup strategy was to continue north to Schwäbisch Hall, slide down the ILS (instrument landing system) through the clouds and continue visually to Heubach.

Overhead Heubach we had a short discussion with Jörg Lohmann on the tower and it was clear that we would not land there today. So we continued to Schwäbisch Hall. The colleague there just told us "forget it, 400 feet cloud cover, no way to make it to Heubach". Not great either.

So on we go to Stuttgart, still reporting a broken cloud layer 1200 feet above the runway. Stuttgart Airport is not cheap but from there we can take the metro. Air traffic control was very supportive and allowed us to continue at 8000 feet (outside clouds) to the instrument landing system of runway 25 in Stuttgart. When it was time to descend, we saw once again an overcast cloud layer which appeared to be rather thick. We could descend through the cloud layer but would pick up some ice and might have a problem if we have to go around. We were allowed to hover around the airport looking for the reported holes and the controller asked airplanes in the vicinity for holes but nothing. The controller on the tower of Stuttgart also reported an overcast layer. The weather report for Stuttgart was definitely wrong which is quite scandalous as pilots have to rely on it.

Now we were out of preplanned options and had to look for something else. We had good weather coming from the south and it was getting worse the more north we got so we had to return south. The DFS controller was extremely professional and first asked for our endurance to judge the options and urgency. 3.5h so no problem at all. We discussed possible aerodromes, contacted Mengen but were told there is the same overcast cloud layer. While discussing other options, the controller contacted us and told us he spent some time phoning airports and recommends Friedrichshafen (EDNY, Lake of Contance) with blue skies. This was the perfect solution: only 20 minutes away, fully equipped with an instrument landing system, excellent infrastructure, customs and reasonable prices. So we continued to the beautiful Lake of Constance, were put on the ILS runway 24 by Swiss Air Traffic Control and landed with excellent weather. The aircraft was tied down, we passed immigration, had a little snack and reevaluated our options.

We did not expect conditions in Heubach to improve today and the short jump to Stuttgart would help much (other than increasing the cost). So we got a rental car and took off to Heubach where Markus's car is waiting in the hangar.

The real final of this journey will be in a few days when Achim takes the train to Friedrichshafen and brings the Cessna home to its hangar in Heubach. By this time, Markus will be sitting in his cube farm working on support tickets.

Touch down Dubrovnik

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Once again we got lucky with the weather: taking off from Iraklion we flew of the Greek Island and Albania back to Croatia where we just touched down in excellent weather. The enroute weather was good, only in Greece we flew over an overcast cloud layer at 14 000 feet for about one hour. Today's leg was the longest so far: thanks to a strong headwind it took us about 5 hours.

Our departure from Iraklion got a bit delayed due to administrative hurdles. Several times, they pointed out the the lack in staff as the reason for the issues. We were unable to verify this as every office was manned by at least four persons and for every task like refueling or driving us over the tarmac were executed by at least three employees. Our highlight was the taxi from the terminal to the handling agent's office: three handling agents drove in their Fiat at walking pace while we tried to follow behind carrying our luggage.

Paying our landing fees was not easy at all. The handling agent (a different one but almost as pretty) led us through a maze of marble floor hallways to a locked office with a Greek sign hanging on the door knob saying something like "I don't feel like working"). After about 15 minutes of communication via mobile and radio and the arrival of several officials, the responsible person finally arrived and invited us into his office. There he wanted to know a lot of things that he as airport official should know best (e.g. our arrival time the day before) which he entered into his DOS program and printed out using two dot matrix printers on forms with carbon copy. The end result of the exercise was a invoice about € 1.37 — due in cash and without change. Our handling agents then wanted another € 33 — in cash and without change. Normally it's the job of the handling agent to take care of such administrative tasks but — as mentioned before — they were short on staff. Refueling worked without any problems and even though we were told the amount was due in cash without change, they accepted our credit card.

 

Insha’Allah

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Everybody has heard the Arabic expression Insha'Allah which is ubiquitous around here. It means something along the lines of "hopefully God agrees" and alludes to the fact that while man might plan and wish for certain results, the ultimate decision for everything is with Allah. While Europeans don't like to admit this obvious fact, the Arabs are well aware of whom the decision is with and openly communicate it. In radio communication between airplanes and air traffic controllers, it is an indispensable component and part of every request and permission. In the Middle East, you have to forget about your standard phraseology that you learned when doing your pilot license in Europe and adapt to the local customs. One of the biggest surprises of this journey was the excellent quality of air traffic control in Egypt — controllers with fluent English, a relaxed atmosphere and people supportive of our needs. For the benefit of European pilots and air traffic controllers, we have collected a few examples:

  • "Cairo RADAR, Cairo, Cairo, D-EDGK, salam aleikum, request shortcut direct El Gouna, insha'allah"
  • "D-EDGK, approved, direct El Gouna, isha'allah"
  • "El Gouna Tower, D-EDGK, salam aleikum, request landing information, insha'allah"
  • "D-EDGK cleared to land runway 34, insha'allah"

El Gouna to Marsa Alam at 8 knots

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When two pros like Markus and Achim are in town, it doesn’t take long for difficult jobs to emerge. Yesterday it was about bringing Ocean Diva II, a 74 foot catamaran, from its previous harbor El Gouna to Port Ghalib (Marsa Alam), 120 nautical miles south.

Due to the revolution and the subsequent decline in tourism, OD II (as friends like to call her) spent some time alone in the harbor and therefore the trip was also a sea trial. 30 knots of tailwind and arrival at an unknown marina in the middle of the night promised an interesting trip.

Another goal was to try out Achim’s newly acquired trolling equipment. The latter was fully achieved: after about 15 minutes a 10kg thuna, two monster fish that first bent the rod and then went off with an aching jaw and last but not least a marvellous 20 kg dorade. Both were expertly cut by Khaled and served as the traditional welcome gift for the harbor employees. Achim — economist by profession — immediately determined the return on investment for his fishing gear (4 more fish) and we are currently working on our business plan as fishermen in Egypt.

This trip was not for sissys (which is why Markus didn’t fully enjoy it) and there were a few challenges that made it more interesting:

  • The crew had to improvise on several occasions, this was clearly not an everyday’s cruise
  • Sea maps and especially harbor entrance maps were considered as non necessary payload
  • The main sail couldn’t be hoisted due to incorrect reefing and correcting the problem at 30 knots of wind and 3.5m waves was deemed too risky
  • The starboard engine broke down due to a problem with the propellor shaft bearing (not the first time, bad workmanship by Volvo)
  • Continuing the trip on one engine and only the jib was slow and impossible with the fuel reserves we had
  • It was then decided to hoist the main sail which did not complete without putting the ship and crew at risk
  • The marina entry at Port Ghalib (no maps!) was quite interesting due to broken and invisible marker beacons. Markus was constantly mumbling something about life vests and dying.

All in all a successful trip. Today we are heading back to El Gouna in a car.

No flight today

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After reaching our final destination El Gouna yesterday after 13 hours of flight, we will stay on the ground today — or let's better say on the water. Enjoying the Egyptian temperatures while swimming, snorkeling, fishing, wakeboarding and relaxing. Our next take off heading north again is planned for mid next week and we will of course report here again.

Getting ready for Africa

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5:45am local time (that means 4:45am German time) is definitely way too early, in particular if you have to share a hotel room with the snoring Achim and couldn’t sleep at all. However, today we have a challenging leg ahead and need every minute we can get. While yesterday Achim managed to drop the Cessna from meters high onto the runway, today it’s about flying over the open Med for about 3 hours, going from Europe to Africa. The particular danger with a single engine airplane is that in case of an engine failure we’d have no other option than to perform a water ditching somewhere on the ocean. That’s why during the whole flight we will by wearing life jacks and have the life raft and grab bag with our survival gear readily available. Fingers crossed we won’t need any of them. Our first destination in Africa is “Port Said” (well known from TV and radio) where Ahmed is going to help us with immigration and the famous Egyptian paperwork. Also we will be siphoning the fuel that we filled into jerry cans in Dubrovnik and that has been sitting on our back bench, into the aircraft’s main tanks. We could also buy fuel in Egypt but at a price of over $5 per liter and availability at one one airport that is not on our route, we prefer our jerry can solution. If Allah agrees, we will continue onwards to our final destination El Gouna, north of Hurghada.

BTW: We’ve managed to resurrect the SPOT and hope that our live tracking feature will be back today.

Flight Planning with Mursi

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You can read it in the press: the Egyptians like to celebrate their revolution in a rather extrovert manner. President Mursi has enacted martial law for 3 Egyptian cities for 30 days, including a curfew at night. Well, our planned date of arrival is about two weeks from now and apart from the fact that one of the martial law cities is on our planned route, our local helper Ahmed, who is responsible for securing the necessary landing and overflight permissions, appears to have disappeared. We surely hope that all is well for him and that he will manage to get us the permissions.

Apart from this little issue, we are making good progress in our preparations. Today our pilot uniforms arrived, which make Achim look like a cheap callboy. Achim did a few traffic patterns yesterday and refreshed his memory of the basic functionality of the Cessna 182. In the meantime, I am reading the user manuals of the autopilot, glass cockpit and FLARM (anti collision monitor) and our feeling is that we are well prepared. Now it's up to Mursi and the weather and of course Ahmed our friendly helper to decide whether we can take off as planned on February 14th.