It was great to see so many Europa's, and to meet the owners.
(Of course, so many new faces and names, forgive me if at subsequent
meetings I will still have some of the faces coupled to the wrong names,
or worse, coupled to the wrong airplanes.)
Thanks especially to the Europa club for its warm hospitality! We
received a special reward for having the long distance travelled to
Popham, English TEA has now a new meaning to us and also the mug is
appreciated very much.
The return home was uneventful, apart from that we got to deal with
immigrations & customs at our stop at EHMZ. Interestingly the other
Dutch folks were not subjected to their questions, as we were the only
ones who managed to got our flight plan activated through the clearly
overworked manning of London Information. (There were problems at
Popham, and also Farnborough was unable to get the flight plans going,
and London Information was almost too busy to get through).
Weather was ok over the channel, although it was a bit cloudy here and
there. We crossed at about 3500 feet but had to descend to 2500 feet in
Belgium airspace because of the lower ceiling.
Although most of the Dutch planes (two Europa's and some 4 of another
kind) departed individually from Popham and via a different routing,
everyone made a fuel & food stop at EHMZ (they have mogas and excellent
food) so we had a small reunion and a subsequent lunch together before
we all departed to our own destinations. (We decided to refuel as our
fuel flow got somewhat higher since the cooling system finally works so
well that we are now cruising with the needles on the other end of the
scale, leaving the oil and water a bit too cold for economic operation).
The last part of our journey was the hardest part because we were
clearly tired. Obtaining better camping (sleeping) equipment is now high
on our priority list.
Thanks to all for a wonderful weekend!
Frans
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