Saturday 16 November 2013
Back to Charleroi (EBCI)!
3 weeks of trip, 8 countries, 12 pilots and student-pilots, 22 airfieds visited and 85 flight hours per aircraft!
We would like to thank all participants who made the dream possible. Next year, we will try new horizons … looking forward to going back to Africa again!
Friday 15 November 2013
We are in France! We landed in Valence (LFLU) yesterday night, after sunset. The Mistral was very strong in the Rhone valley yesterday (more than 40 kts) and our ground speed was never more than 70 kts between Calvi, LFKC (where we did a fuel stop at midday) and Valence. We hope to reach our base, Charleroi, tonight. We will have to circumvent clouds and showers of rain but it should be fine.
Wednesday 13 November 2013
It is over for Africa. Back to the European continent tonight! We landed at Cagliari (LIEE), in Sardinia, just before 3 pm today! We have been lucky because this morning we still had no parking permission in Cagliari at 9 am and storms in the region of Tunis were threatening our crossing of the Mediterranean Sea. We’ve had to climb to 13,000 feet above mean sea level (!) to avoid Cumulonimbus around Tunis, in the north of Tunisia.
After almost 3 weeks of couscous and tajines, we cannot wait to eat good Italian pasta tonight!
Tuesday 12 November 2013
We are stuck in Tozeur 🙁
Impossible to take off for Italy this morning, there is a local air control strike in Tunisia! In any case, weather is terrible in the south of Italy at the moment and it is very unlikely that we could have reached our destination (Lamezia, LICA) today anyway.
We hope to leave tomorrow morning and aim for Cagliari instead, where the weather is supposed to be a little bit better. In the meantime, we will go and have a walk in the sand dunes of the desert nearby Tozeur 🙂
Monday 11 November 2013
It was a beautiful takeoff this morning over the bay of Oran. We took off for Tozeur (DTTZ), in Tunisia, for a 5-hour flight. The bad weather on the north of Algeria this morning made us choose to fly eastbound to Alger in the beginning, and then southbound to El Oued (DAUO). With a ground speed of 160 knots at moments, we reached our destination of the day faster than expected, for every one’s happiness!
When we approached Tozeur, we flew over a sand storm! It was impressive to watch from the sky at FL115. Weather was clear in Tozeur, windy, but luckily, no sand storm anymore.
Tomorrow, we will try to reach Europe and the south of Italy.
Sunday 10 November 2013
Landed in Oran (DAOO), Algeria!
Saturday 9 November 2013
We could not reach Fez tonight, as planned, because of a NOTAM which prohibited all civil aircrafts to overfly Fez and land there… We had to stop in Errachidia (GMFK), which is a city located by the Algerian border, just on the south of the Atlas Mountains, at the Far East of Morocco. Luckily we found a beautiful Riad for the night, in the middle of nowhere and we hope to have a good sleep and reach the north of Algeria tomorrow afternoon.
More pictures at the bottom of the page soon …
Friday 8 November 2013
Back in Agadir! We aim to reach the north of Morocco tomorrow evening….
Thursday 7 November 2013
We finally obtained our landing permit for Dakhla (GMMH) this morning! We left Nouakchott in the beginning of the afternoon, flew along the beautiful coastline of Mauritania during 4 hours and landed in Dakhla just before sunset with more than 28 kts of headwind! Tomorrow we will head off for Agadir, where Najat, Benoît and Charles will catch an airplane to go back to Charleroi in Belgium. André, Dermott and Luigi will join Cedric, Valerie and I in Agadir to continue the trip through Algeria, Tunisia and Italy.
Wednesday 6 November 2013
We landed in Nouakchott airport (GQNN) just before sunset today. Back in Mauritania. Found it very easy to fly here, the air controller gave us landing clearances in sequence, there was nobody else in the airspace. We also went out of the airport very easily, quite surprising for the airport of the capital of Mauritania! No police or customs controls, no taxis outside of the terminal, welcome in Nouakchott! Two old men finally gave us a lift in their old cars to our hotel. Quite simple and rough, but clean. And we have air-conditioning!
Tuesday 5 November 2013
We stayed in Senegal today and flew from St. Louis to Dakar (GOOY), through Podor (GOSP), on the shores of the Senegal river. Dakar is the most southern stop of our journey in Africa. Tomorrow, we will head off for the north.
Monday 4 November 2013
We are in St. Louis of Senegal (GOSS) !! We did it, we did it! 😉
Sunday 3 November 2013
@ Nouadhibou (GQPP), Mauritania!
Friday 1 November 2013
We have reached Morocco yesterday! After a very intense day of flying yesterday (more than 850 nautical miles in two legs), we landed in Ouarzazate (GMMZ) just before sunset yesterday (no VFR night flight in Morocco). We did a stop in Fes (GMFF) to refuel and have a short rest and took off less than 1 hour later for Ouarzazate. After a relaxing time at the hotel this morning, we are now about to take off for Agadir (GMAD). Fred and Sabrina will leave us to go back to Charleroi and Najat and Benoît will join us in Agadir to continue the journey with Valerie, Charles, Cedric and I.
We are in Agadir (GMAD) ! Najat and Benoît are now with us! The objective is to leave at sunrise tomorrow morning for the south, Dakhla, at the Mauritanian border….
Tuesday 29 October 2013
We are in Algeria! We have landed at Ghardaïa (DAUG) after 3 hrs of flight from Tozeur in Tunisia, crossing the Algerian boundary westwards, passing overhead El Oued (DAUO) and Touggourt (DAUK).
Monday 28 October 2013
It was a long day of flight today, with a crossing of the Mediterranean Sea between Olbia (LIEO) in north Sardinia and Tunisia, at FL095, a fuel stop at the international and busy airport of Tunis Carthage (DTTA) and another leg in the afternoon until Tozeur (DTTZ) in the very south of Tunisia! Thanks to the excellent service of FAST (First Aviation Services in Tunisia), we managed to leave Tunis airport after 2 hours and land in Tozeur, just before sunset (no visual night flight in Tunisia). It is a little paradise here, in the middle of the widest palm tree forest of Tunisia; temperature was near 30 degrees today but nights are cool.
Sunday 27 October 2013
We are visiting Avignon this morning, waiting for the sky to clear up a little bit, and we hope to take off for Corsica around noon.
We are in Olbia Costa Smeralda (LIEO) in Sardinia!
Saturday 26 October 2013
Here we go! We are off to Africa for the 4th edition of our African flying safari! The aim this year is to fly all the way down to St Louis of Senegal. It will be our first trial. Six pilots will be flying with two 4-seaters, our PA28 OO-JET and a Robin Ecoflyer F-HBIT. Both aircraft fly on Jet A1, which is indispensable for Africa (almost no AVGAS can be found on airports there).
The very first leg of our trip brought us to Roanne (LFLO). We had planned St. Yan (LFLN) but an unexpected very strong headwind considerably slow us down and it was too late to get fuel at LFLO! First diversion of our trip! No regret though as sun was shining there and the aero club very welcoming.
We then took off again for Avignon (LFMV) and landed there at night! Avignon will be our first night stop of the trip!
