Where have you been? What have you seen?
#1785318
(Edit 17 September: you'll find a video in a post further down.)

I recently posted a link to a YT video from a weekend trip where I (sadly) didn't participate. But I did fly in this year's main club trip. :D

Our club in Gothenburg, Sweden, has arranged a five-day trip around Europe every single July since 2005. I've been an organiser every year and a participant every year except one. It's been a success: 49 members have participated at least once, and more than half of them at least twice. I can't recommend this way of vacationing enough: you learn a lot from flying with others and it's also a safety net. Our clubs in Sweden are perhaps a bit more social than the ones in UK, for the simple reason that it's usually the clubs rather than syndicates that own the aircraft, but you get to know your fellow pilots very well when you spend all hours of the day for a week with them.

This year, it wasn't just the weather and the service situation that threatened the trip but also the you-know-what. We usually travel south, but that wasn't an option this year. So we chose our home country instead. And it was by no means a bad choice! Our fleet consisted of two PA28 and one C172, each with three pilots.

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Our route was as follows: ESGP Göteborg/Säve - ESSX Västerås/Johannisberg (lunch+fuel) - ESNH Hudiksvall (overnight) - ESNC Hede (lunch+fuel) - ESNM Östersund/Optand (overnight) - ESUG Gargnäs - ESPA Luleå/Kallax (overnight) - ESNO Örnsköldsvik (fuel) - ESUH Härnösand (lunch) - ESNY Söderhamn (overnight) - ESVE Stegeborg (lunch) - ESGK Falköping (fuel) - ESGP Göteborg/Säve. So twelve legs, and with three pilots in the aircraft that translates to four legs each.

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We had planned ESVE Stegeborg on our route north, but poor weather on the Baltic coast forced us to make an early change. Västerås/Johannisberg is an airfield that even serves some people living in Stockholm since almost all GA airfields in our nation's capital are closed. It's a bit busy with both gliders and parachuters but with clear visibility and using the frequency everything turns out well. Small airfields in Sweden don't have anyone on the ground, so it's all air-to-air.

Sweden has many airfields built in the 60s-70s with the intention of serving the local community with scheduled traffic. More or less none of that traffic ever materialised, but some airfields still remain. ESNH Hudiksvall, for example, has a small tower (now deserted) and it used to have a runway of 1500+ meters. Parts of it is now a drag racing track, so "only" 900 meters remain. It's owned by a construction company that uses it to store building material, but it's open to the public. When we arrived, the owner of that company was doing circuits with an FI in a microlight. He was delighted to see so many visitors.

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On day two we wanted to go to mountains. They aren't as dramatic as in the Alps, but there are several peaks above 5,000 feet. After re-fueling in Hede we turned towards Åre, the biggest ski resort in Sweden and the only one with alpine World Cup races. The weather deteriorated somewhat, but we had good weather at all times between ourselves and the destination for the day: Östersund/Optand. (Arsenal played in Europa League in Östersund a few years ago. It was in the spring sometime, so there was still snow on the pitch. Arsenal won, despite being unused to the weather.) We couldn't get all the way to the mountain in Åre, but we did get a good view of it.

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During the lunch stop at Hede we were not only treated with waffles with cloudberry jam, but also to something that I've never seen before: a sort of mechanical PAPI. If you fly the right approach, the lines on the boards line up.


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(Never tried cloudberry jam? You really should! They're like blackberries, but smaller, golden and sweeter. It's a specialty in nothern Scandinavia.)

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The "PAPI" at ESNC Hede

On day three we decided to go to Luleå/Kallax. It's a shared military/civilian airport with an interesting modern history. The local government invested a lot of money in the 90s to extend the runway to more than 3,500 meters. The idea was to entice cargo airlines to make this a stop on the way to Asia. Because of raised fees for the use of Russian airspace, and possibly other reasons as well, this never materialised in any big way. But the runway is still there.

The highlight of the trip was perhaps the lunch stop we did on the way there: ESUG Gargnäs. It's smack in the middle of nowhere in the endless woods that make up most of northern Sweden. It's a really beautiful and well-kept airfield where the approach from both ends are over water. When three aircraft from southern Sweden arrived in close succession, that was almost the event of the year. The airfield operator, like everyone we met on the trip, was really welcoming.

The difference between the two approaches we did that day can be seen here:

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The flight home from Luleå had to be planned with two parameters in mind: where can we find hotels for nine people and where can we get AVGAS? Not an easy equation so solve, but we did find a way. Fuel at Örnsköldsvik (home of many NHL hockey players), lunch at Härnösand and fuel and an overnight stop at the former air force base in Söderhamn. The base was, I think, dismantled in the 90s, but it looked very sad: a lot of junk was just left on site.

On the last day, we still wanted that lunch at Stegeborg, located very picturesquely on the east coast just east of Norrköping. Two of the three aircraft made the route slightly longer by flying over Arlanda airport and Stockholm City. Air traffic has picked up a bit, but there's still not enough to prohibit such nice excursions in a GA aircraft. Anyone intending to give Sweden a go for a trip from the UK should stop by Stegeborg: very beautiful and with lunch only a few hundred meters away. No fuel, though.

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Overflying central Stockholm.

The last leg, including a short stop to top up the fuel so we could arrive home legally, was nice but straightforward. It felt strange setting our "own" frequency on the radio when approaching our home base.
This year is of course bust, but anyone wanting to fly in Sweden next summer is welcome to PM me. I know much more Swedish airfields now than I did two weeks ago. :D
Last edited by akg1486 on Thu Sep 17, 2020 7:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
MachFlyer, UncleT, patowalker and 3 others liked this
By UncleT
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1785394
Looks like a great trip; thanks for posting.

The mention of cloudberries - something I have only ever had the pleasure of eating when in Sweden - has made my mouth water.
#1785410
UncleT wrote:The mention of cloudberries - something I have only ever had the pleasure of eating when in Sweden - has made my mouth water.

The wonders of a digitalised world: https://www.scandikitchen.co.uk/product ... -jam-283g/

Where I live, we can only get frozen cloudberries. I buy those sometimes and make my own (expensive!) jam.
UncleT liked this
#1804239
PhilTheFlyer wrote:hoping to do this in the spring any further info on airfields would be great

I'd recommend checking the pilot notes in Skydemon (if you use that). If you read German, there are comments and experiences from a lot of Swedish airfield on the site http://eddh.de. We found ESUG Gargnäs that way. You'll also find other trip reports in this subforum about trips to Sweden made by UK pilots.

I'm happy to answer questions about specific airfields. There are far more than just these in Sweden, of course. PM me if you have such questions.

You won't find a lot of plates for small airfields in the Swedish IAIP (which you can find here: https://aro.lfv.se/Editorial/View/IAIP). We use an add-on to Skydemon called "Svenska Flygfält" (="Swedish Airfields") but those plates are all in Swedish. Many airfields and flying clubs have web sites, often with visitor information in English.
Iceman liked this