Flights: Switzerland, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway: To the Arctic Circle

Not too long after my experience of alpine heavenly Catholic terror, it was time to point the nose north…quite far north. The trip was never supposed to happen (and neither was 2023 in Norway, but I digress). A combination of factors in 2023 converged: 100 hour inspection issues, the Swedish Air Force persistently using some airspace for training runs, a bit of poor planning, too much work, bad weather, and finally first snows north of the Arctic Circle. Annoyingly, I had to leave Norway whilst having not completed a small amount of glaciers in the vicinity of Bodø.

As I flew south through Sweden over the Scandinavian Mountains in September 2023, I snarled about my upcoming Iceland plans, and how it “might be some years before I can get these few glaciers.” I thought about the prostitutive concept of renting an aircraft (how dastardly even saying it) in Norway, and then I tried to forget.

For those that read my vitriolic diatribe about the debacle in the Netherlands with the PA-11, the plot on that misery thickens. The project management calendar called for a series of events with that shop, in linear order, that would end with both a registration change for the PA-18 and, at the time, the plan to ship it to Iceland in spring of 2024. Since they couldn’t complete tasks remotely in the same year as agreed, I pulled the plug on Iceland 2024 in early November 2023. It simply wasn’t going to happen. A whole summer, a whole glacier season…out the door…though this is the nature of the ongoing battle that glacier flying entails albeit I usually expect my adversary to be weather and not supposedly skilled professionals.

When life closes a door, it opens a window. With the project management schedule figuratively having flown into the side of a mountain, I decided to get those remaining glaciers near Bodø in summer of 2024. The time had come to fly north, as the weather was good.

I initially was just going to swing up there, fly for a few days, and come back. It would be 10 days of flying, with no car, and winging it in hotels based on weather. My wife decided she wanted to come, though a 3.5 day drive each way made no sense and, as she said, “you’re renting a hotel anyway, why not an AirBnB?”

Europeans have a sanguine approach about long flights in small aircraft. Wake up early, do some flying, stop somewhere for a 2 or 3 hour lunch, visit a museum and….never get anywhere. Rain comes, the trip is cancelled, and they try it next summer on their next vacation, and then it likely never happens.

My approach is the opposite. The goal is to fly as much as possible, as far as possible, in one day, or else….I don’t know what…the world ends? In 2023, that meant Switzerland to Gothenburg, Sweden in one day, landing at 9PM. This time, I decided to try a philosophical compromise. I moseyed to the airport at the pace I saw fit, with the sole obligation to get to Frankfurt. Things went well, so I continued to Braunschweig, where I overnighted for the first time.

The next day, thunderstorms were something of an apocalypse over Hamburg, though they were stationary. I had decided that the flight up the west coast of Sweden was repetitive, so I planned to fly directly north over the Jutland Peninsula, and then grimacingly cross the water via Laesø Island. I planned a stop at Flensburg, Germany and then Aalborg, Denmark, before the flight into Sandefjord, Norway via Sweden. It was nice to break up the miserable distances and liberate one’s rear end from the suffering of endless aeronautical toil.

Overnight was at Skien, where I bought the plane a few years ago.

The next day, weather wasn’t so hot to the north, so I took my time. It was splendid in Skien. I had offered the seller of the airplane a ride, and he had to decline owing to some obligations. When I got there, he was there, looking for his ride. “Some people are not happy right now. I am making them wait for a meeting.” And yet we still took a ride anyway, which puts a smile on my face. It reminds me of my willingness to directly accept punishment when I was 5 for lying to my parents and absconding to go flying with my grandfather.

I wanted to get to Trondheim in one go, though the distance was a bit much, and the winds were a tad on the headwind side, with some concern about crossing the mountains. With all those issues, I decided an intermediate fuel stop would make sense. After some research and phone calls, the flying club at Frya indicated they could sell some fuel, so I took off to the north.

Frya is a pretty place, with fjells up above, Nordic skiing villages around, and some downhill skiing. The runway was down at the bottom of the valley, with an approach that rivalled a typical Swiss mountain airport. Winds were wild, to say the least, blowing astoundingly hard after I landed. Apparently, downdrafts off the hills can really get quite furious on days with wind from the north.

I took off for Trondheim with some concern about the ability to cross the hills, owing if anything to a lack of information about exactly what is going on in the wilderness. I use webcams to fill in the blanks, though they tend to be in habitable regions versus up on the peaks.

Trondheim was blowing quite hard, and the leg to Bodø was certain to be a hair-rising scud run over the Atlantic. I decided I wasn’t in the mood, parked the plane, put the covers on due to the sea spray, and walked over to the Radisson Blu hotel at the airport, which I have stayed at before. It was the right decision. If a plane needs to be covered from sea spray, perhaps it is too windy…

The next day was the scud run. It had improved, but not by enough to liberate one of concerns. It is a 3 hour flight with no fuel alternates (though plenty of non-fueled airports along the way). Terrain gets worse the farther one goes north, inland and coastal. I carry a jerry can for moments like this, so if I have to land at one of these alternates, I can take a taxi 5 times to a fuel station for mogas 98.

Crossing to Namsøs was the most questionable part, with MVFR conditions and a flight down the deep fjord, though it eased up once I got to the Atlantic. From there, it was VFR to the left and IFR to the right (wedged up against terrain) meaning no VFR access to inland airports…just the coastal ones. The further I went, the more things seemed to be fine.

Eventually I crossed the Arctic Circle and landed at Bodø. From there, I picked up the rental car, met the wife as she got off the commercial flight, and then we went to our lodgings. The timing couldn’t have been more precise.

Wine country in the Rhine valley.

Somewhere north of Frankfurt.

Northern Germany. Some kind of exceptionally strange compound.

More weirdness.

“Kayakers floating above a toxic algae bloom, Denmark.” A still life.

Somewhere on the Jutland Peninsula.

“Danish Motorway.” I plan on having this auctioned at Sotheby’s.

Joining the circuit at Aalborg. There was a NOTAM that “EKYT [Aalborg] is not able to receive or accommodate alternative for foreign aircraft with armed guns, missiles or rockets due to no available safe parking.” I had to remove the Hellfire missiles in Gstaad before I left.

At 4,500 feet before leaving the Danish mainland. Having extra altitude over water allows more time to contemplate one’s entrance into a watery grave if the engine quits.