Hurghada was a decent respite from the desert heat and I enjoyed a dip or two in the Red Sea. Interesting is its popularity with Russians – to the extent that the boards in the airport are in English, Arabic and Russian. They really capitalize on the tourism roubles of the Russian middle-class. That said, I was ready to trade Hurghada for the Mediterranean.
30 August 2024: Hurghada Egypt to Heraklion, Crete
It was a shorter six hour flight to Heraklion on Crete with no significant weather for once. Immediately ofter take-off from Hurghada I was back out over the desert and then crossing the Red Sea Hills. Eventually I started making out the Nile to my left as I approached Cairo. There was a fair amount of haze in the air but I knew where to look and as I came up over Cairo the pyramids of Giza showed up on my left wing.
Whereas one knows that the Nile delta is supposed to be large productive agricultural area, what surprised me is how densely populated it is. There’s a major town every few miles in all directions.
When I’m flying I’m always on an instrument flight plan, which means I’m always obliged to be monitoring my radios. So no time to listen to music, or drift off or anything. I don’t like to be distracted anyway – when I fly, I fly. So air traffic control chatter is the constant soundtrack to my entire trip. Every region and country has its own nuance and everyone actually try to acknowledge and be friendly to local language. So in talking to Tokyo Radio everyone, including myself, would start with “Tokyo Radio, Konnichiwa – November five eight one zero tango.” Over the Arabic countries it’s As-Salaam-Alaikum, and then Wa-Alaikum-Salaam from the controller in response. The various middle eastern airlines also use MaShallah (God has willed it) and Inshallah (God willing) prodigiously – particularly when announcing positions or future reporting points. Nothing is ever certain in aviation! So as I was leaving Egyptian airspace over the Mediterranean, the controller wished me “You have a very nice life my friend!” Made me smile – definitely loved flying over this area.
Crete had a bank of CBs over it as is typical for islands. Crete is also really busy with holiday traffic and it’s one of the few airports along the way where I had to have an arrival slot booked. I take a fair amount of pride flying to professional standards so was happy that I hit this slot perfectly as there was airline traffic right in front of me and right behind me. The unfortunate thing in these situations is that they want you to fly like a jet and you simply have to stand your ground and say the magic “unable”.
1 September 2024: Heraklion, Crete to Calvi, Corsica
The plan was to move on to Calvi the day after arriving but the weather had other ideas with a nasty bank of thunderstorms west of the island blocking my way. Really nice town and I enjoyed just moving around a number of Greek restaurants and whiling away the time in true Greek fashion.
Weather cleared up sufficiently on the 1st and I had another seven hour flight over the Mediterranean to get to Corsica. Another quirk of European flying is the CTOT – “calculated take off time” – where you have to wait until that time before you can take off – irrespective of when you filed for. So in this case it was an hour after my intended takeoff time which made arriving in time for customs at Calvi fairly problematic. The flight was fairly routine, passing right over the “foot” of the Italian boot and then all up the west coast of Italy over the Thyrrhenian Sea and then when I had Elba on my right, a left turn to Corsica, passing over Bastia and the interior for an amazing approach into Calvi. I was late though, and the handler was hopping around and basically bundled me into the minibus to get to the cops for a passport inspection before they shut down. Luckily some airlines were late too, so they were still around even though it was after hours. A bit of a faux pax, but my broken French and handing out one of my mission patches seemed to smooth things over.
I’ve had fascination with the French Foreign Legion for a long time. Within the Legion, the 2REP (2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment) is in many respects the most elite unit and based in Calvi. So it was quite coincidental that once I left the airport there was a substantial wait outside for a taxi. There was a young legionnaire next to me also waiting. I eventually called the hotel to send a taxi for me, which they did, and I then had the legionnaire ride with us to be dropped at Camp Raffalli just outside town. So my very first stop in Corsica ended up being the unit I had read so much about. (I later found out that there’s more than 40 South Africans in the unit – proud to hear that. Sadly there’s also a South African name on a memorial in town for fallen members of the unit. Gerhardus Jansen died in Afghanistan in 2011 in service of the Legion and France.)
Once at my hotel it was evident that I was going to stay much longer than I anticipated just by virtue of how nice the place was, and it was evident that weather over France was going to block my anyway. So I rented a motorcycle and was buzzing around the island, enjoyed the food and beaches and generally relaxed. It was also my birthday during this time and I intentionally wanted to celebrate while on this trip and while at a good location so all those boxes were ticked.
6 September 2024: Calvi, Corsica to Troyes, France
Friday was finally the day to leave. I’d arranged an oil and filter change with the Troyes Aviation, the Mooney Service Center in France. I’d pushed this out a number of time already and Laurent who runs the shop was very understanding. So after waiting for another CTOT before I could take off, I was in the air. Again and amazing flight passing straight over Saint-Tropez and then turning west passing north of Marseille before heading north to Troyes east of Paris.
At Troyes I taxi’d straight to the maintenance shop and they managed an oil and filter change very efficiently while I was talking to Laurent. Laurent flew Super Étendards for the French Air Force and also had an exchange with the US so he also has F/A 18 Super Hornet time.
I was also met in Troyes by Flemming Pedersen and his wife Angela. Flemming has flown his Mooney to every continent except Antarctica – including a round the world trip. We had a great dinner in Troyes that evening sharing flying stories. Really appreciated them making the effort to fly all the way to come and say hallo.
Being well-fed, rested and the plane in good shape, I was ready to head north to cross the Atlantic.
1 Comment
Pieter, very cool that you met up with Flemming and Angela. I’ve never met them but enjoyed reading about their exploits in “Honey Mooney.”