Our aircraft (12)

While paying a visit to our friends and former colleagues Diana and Tim in Canada, we made our first trip in a seaplane. Circling over the Hudson River is a spectacular experience. Very appropriately the carrier's name was 1000 Island Airways. The Hudson near Belleville is dotted with smaller and larger islands. We had the honour of being flown by the carrier's CEO who also happened to be the only employee.

Oct. 5, 2000, De Haviland B, 1000 Island Airways, 
circular flight  Gananoque (Can), 41/451,749 miles

During my last years with KLM I was involved in the set up and implementation of cargo security procedures. To that end I was a member of the BLACKS group. BLACKS was (is?) the acronym for British Airways, Lufthansa, Air France, Cargolux, KLM and Swissair. There we tried to agree to common security measures for the main European cargo carriers thus setting a standard for Western Europe. Later, this group was also suspected of fixing certain cargo pricing elements. I can safely deny this because there was no truth in that accusation. Anyway, the flights to Frankfurt and London had to do with this BLACKS group.

May 19, 2003, Airbus A321-100, LH, SPL/FRA, 228/465,775 miles
Photo ex Digitaltrends

July 9, 2003, Boeing 737-900, KL, SPL/LHR, 230/466,233 miles
Photo ex airline-pics

The flight to Catania, Sicily, was a holiday flight. I remember that there was a considerable delay on the way back. So we had ample time to test the airport facilities for passengers there (none) and the comfort of the chairs in the departure hall (none). But Taormina was nice!

Sept. 6, 2003, Boeing 757-300, HV, SPL/CTA, 1,140/468,871 miles
Photo ex zap16.com

With a pilot in the family I was able to add a Piper to my list of aircraft types. On the outbound trip we went to the island of Texel. We passed the Schiphol tower and flew overhead our house in Castricum. On the way back we flew via the city of Zwolle.

April 27, 2012, Piper Cadet PA28, Vliegclub Lelystad, Lelystad/Texel, 90/473,982
In the background good old PH-BUK at its final destination

CTA = Catania, Sicily
FRA = Frankfurt
HV = Transavia
KL = KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
LH = Lufthansa
LHR = London Heathrow
SPL = Schiphol Amsterdam airport

For the time being this is the last post in this series. I am 26,000 miles short of reaching the 500,000 miles mark. Whenever I reach it, I'll let you know. In the meantime I hope you have enjoyed the 12 posts on this subject. Thank you for reading them.

Flying the Piper Cadet

Yesterday weather conditions for flying were good. A cloudy but sunny day with a visibility of more than 20 miles. The day started with force 6 winds from the south west but the prediction for the rest of the day was that the winds would diminish to force 3-4.
I have the good fortune to have a son-in-law with a pilot license for small aircraft. So yesterday we set off for the airport of Lelystad, Hollands' largest airport for general aviation. There we embarked in a Piper Cadet which would fly us to the island of Texel, some 90 miles north west of Lelystad airport. I never flew in a Piper before so I can add this aircraft type to my 'our aircraft' series.

Piper Cadet PH-VFB in the hangar at Lelystad Airport.

Upon take off our captain obtained permission to fly through the Schiphol CTR (control area) and to pass the Schiphol traffic tower at an altitude of less than 1000 ft. Having worked at Schiphol for more than 20 years, it is nice to have a look at it from a different angle.

Schiphol Airport with the WTC (the white building to the right), the tower
in the middle and the cargo handling area top left. 

Our next goal was to have a look at our apartment building in Castricum. So from Schiphol we flew in the direction of Zandvoort and then along the coast towards IJmuiden. As also Castricum is situated in the Schiphol CTR, there are limitations as to the maximum altitude. But for our purpose, flying at around 800 ft was exactly what was needed.

Castricum

From Castricum to the village of Heiloo, where members of the family live, is just a very short hop. 

Heiloo, with the Laan Eindeloos (Ypestein) running from left to right.

Flying over Holland in this time of the year makes clear that the bulbs are flowering. Colored rectangles are visible everywhere.

Bulb fields in the province of North Holland north of Alkmaar.

 After a flight of a little over an hour we touched down at De Kooy, de airport of Texel. Here was another first for me, it was my first landing on a grass strip.

The PH-VFB with captain H. (r) and my fellow passenger at De Kooy. 

After a decent lunch we flew back tot Lelystad. Our route went via Lemmer and Zwolle. As we paid a visit to the latter city recently, we circled the city center to see how it looks from above. I added a  picture of the Grote Markt to the blog post 'Zwolle & Assen'. Around 17.00 hours we safely returned at Lelystad Airport. During this flight we covered 190 miles bringing my total mileage flown at 474,082. 
Earlier that day we learned that the Aviodrome will reopen its doors to the public today (April 28). And that is good news! Final closure of this aviation history museum has been looming around the corner for some time. The PH-PBA, a Dakota in old KLM-livery keeps history alive (and roaring) there.

Scenic flights are made from Lelystad Airport.

Update May 1, 2012 Below the air map with our outbound route. It is not very clear but we followed the purple line via the yellow stars. The yellow star a little below the center of the map, is Lelystad Airport (EHLE). Then west via Schiphol (EHAM) and to the north, to De Kooy (EHTX) via a.o. IJmuiden en Castricum.