Flight Log: Cascais LPCS -- Hannover EDDV 03.06.2018

03 June 2018, Hanover:

We’d stored about 320 litres of aviation fuel in our extra tank so that we could fly the section to Hanover. However, the headwind we’d feared didn’t appear as the weather had changed slightly.

Beautiful summery weather with slight cloud prevailed over Portugal and Spain and the flight went smoothly. In Spain you could see some of the many wind turbines from the sky. But once we’d crossed the Pyrenees, the weather changed. The forecast of light thunderstorms over France proved to be a broad front of storms. Flying around this front would have been very difficult and, above all, taken a long time.

So we looked at the display on our stormscope of lightning frequency and then sought a way of avoiding the lightning on our approved route and managed to do so by and large. But we still had to fly through the odd water-filled cloud with gusty wind. When this happened, Kurt had to duck because although we were belted in we were often thrown towards the cabin ceiling. Kurt was sitting directly underneath the amplifier plate belonging to the high-frequency device so his head bumped against the ceiling even more quickly.

After heavy turbulence for about 15 minutes, we really had to hold tight but were amazed that the autopilot coped with it all without shutting down. Once the worst had past, the thunderclouds lifted again and we had a calm and pleasant flight when we crossed the border to Germany. It was a lovely feeling to see the Rhine and then hear the familiar Radar Langen and Radar Bremen stations.

The rest was routine with an ILS approach on runway 27 on the right. Marie was already waiting in front of the GAT alongside several female fans.