My Flying Adventures

[James Chan]

Here are some photos that I've taken or obtained from friends on our various flights in a Cessna:

South East England - Oxford, Brighton, Dover, London, Kent and Southend

Channel Islands

Western France - From Nantes to Perigueux and Pau

Northern Spain - From San Sebastian to Asturias

[Flintstone]

Your photo of the white cliffs of the south coast remind me of a an urge I have to fly along them but below clifftop level. One day.....

Did you go any further south into Spain? The thing that always strikes me about that country is how big it is (okay, fourth in Europe) but just how much of the centre is dry and apparently dead. What it needs........is a retail park

[Mark R]

Your photo of the white cliffs of the south coast remind me of a an urge I have to fly along them but below clifftop level. One day.....

Shame you can't do that legally anymore, but it's still pretty good at 500ft.
(Zoom in to spot the small chalk building just off the wingtip)


Click for full size

[Flintstone]

Your photo of the white cliffs of the south coast remind me of a an urge I have to fly along them but below clifftop level. One day.....

Shame you can't do that legally anymore, but it's still pretty good at 500ft.

I was 500 feet away, m'lud. Just not 500 feet above

[Mark R]

I was 500 feet away, m'lud. Just not 500 feet above

But it's now 500ft above with EASA

[Flintstone]

Shush. You're spoiling my fantasy.

[GrahamB]

Shame you can't do that legally anymore..

You can in the UK until December 2014. Fill your boots while you can.

[Mark R]

You can in the UK until December 2014. Fill your boots while you can.

Ah good point! I'd completely forgotten that the CAA had elected to defer the implementation.

Flintstone, your dream is still alive!

[akg1486]

Go to Switzerland and Austria to find yourselves some real mountains. No problem finding mountains beside you towering quite high while maintaining a lot more than 500 ft GND. But ok, I haven't seen any white cliffsides like that in the area.

/Peter

[Paul_Sengupta]

Go to Switzerland and Austria to find yourselves some real mountains. No problem finding mountains beside you towering quite high while maintaining a lot more than 500 ft GND. But ok, I haven't seen any white cliffsides like that in the area.

Better still, find an airfield among the mountains, then you don't have to maintain 500ft as you'd be taking off or landing. In fact, when I fly into Rhigos I'm usually downwinding alongside the mountain well below the top.

But the cliffs are great. Depends on how much you trust your engine as to how low over the sea you go. Or take two engines. Mike M and I did a photoshoot in two Bulldogs with the ex-boss of Beagle in one aircraft with the backdrop of the cliffs.

[Dutch experiment]

Very nice picture, but why did you not put the location in the text box? Like the final on your first picture.......great but where was it?

Ton

[James Chan]

Did you go any further south into Spain?

We didn't this time round. There is a plan to do so in future!

great but where was it?

Birmingham? It should be in the text box now.

[The Westmorland Flyer]

Go to Switzerland and Austria to find yourselves some real mountains. No problem finding mountains beside you towering quite high while maintaining a lot more than 500 ft GND.

No need to go that far. Plenty of places in the Lake District and Scotland where it's possible to fly well below the mountain tops completely legally. Living near the Lake District it is fairly common practise for me!

[phijip]

Also, I was not aware that there was no minimum altitude for VFR in Austria , but I didn't check the AIP. Is there?

[phil_socata]

Also, I was not aware that there was no minimum altitude for VFR in Austria , but I didn't check the AIP. Is there?

It's 500 ft AGL or, in case of "congested areas", 1000 ft above the highest obstacles within a 600-metres-radius (AIP ENR 1.1.).

Of course, many of the official "bad weather routes" in the Alpine valleys would be unusable if you obey these rules word-by-word. Prosecutions seem to occur only in really conspicuous cases ...