At the airfield

Now based Geneva!

2010-11-27T17:16:27+01:00

Shortly before summer holidays my airline decided to upgrade myself to captain, but therefore I had to move to Geneva - it was the conditio sine qua non...
As you can imagine, this doesn't get us closer to our home country (Metz was still quite close to Belgium), but alas, life is full of compromises...
As far as accomodation is concerned, rental-pricing is quite high here due to the proximity of Geneva city, so in the meantime a comfy hotel room with kitchen-unit at 600€/month all included (even internet!) will do the trick, albeit cheaper is still possible.
Thanks to my work colleagues who negociated that price - and also mom, aunt with rest of family who moved my appartment from Metz to Belgium, as I plan to come back again... well at least in the near future, hopefully...
If Belgium still exists lol ;-)

Chillin' and wandering in the parks around the lake, with a nice view on the Mont Blanc...

In the 'downwind' of runway 23 you have also a nice view of Geneva city and its airport of course...

Welcoming the Alps at dawn, just after initial climbout of Geneva bound to Milan, time around 7:15am...
The sun really pickles your still not-fully-awaked eyes on this leg honestly, sunglasses are handy even at this hour ;)

Finals RWY 35L at Milan Malpensa on the morning flight, no fog patches on this one...
Copilot nice on the glidepath (he likes to do it manual instead of autopilot, great!), as PAPI is 2 whites, 2 reds...

Passing abeam Nice airport on the leg Milan-Marseille

If you can remember October, strikes were going on in France, due to new laws willing to move the retirmement age a bit further. Oil refineries were blocked to close, and in flight we could see the big tankers waiting to deliver their precious cargo - here in the bay of Fos-sur-Mer.
Sometimes it looked rather like a big D-day 'Overlord' rehearsal...

Dusky contrails, always nice...

My work colleagues on the ramp in Milan

View from our critical midway point of the Milan-Geneva leg, aka AOSTA
Special procedures have to be set in case of an engine failure as we can't keep the assigned high level, so as to ensure a safety margin to cross the Alps... call it 'Drift Down procedure'...

Overflying Geneva airport after a RWY 05 departure to Marseille...

View from the Reculet (1719m), one of the Jura hills overlooking Geneva...
A bit gutted as a photographer as once on this hill Geneva-valley was hidden under a dense cloudlayer
My right hip was aching after this tricky trek by feet, deep snow over there and a mere 700m altitude difference...
of course I went over there as complete tourist, totally unprepared physically... pushing myself to the limits :)

Car is now fitted with snowtires, a necessary investment over here - and as my particular Honda is equipped with the Torsen differential I can safely pretend that driving in snowy conditions will be fingers in the nose!

View from my appartment today, fun to see how people try to drive up the slopes in these conditions lol

Last news from Metz...

2010-09-22T14:07:10+02:00

Well, this post should be have done within ages but I always forgot about it, although pictures were ready to be transferred, anyways... enjoy with some delay, sorry for that...

Metz airport crew saying hello in front of the Regional ATR before leaving...

Overtaking the Lyon-bound ATR 2000ft above, I contacted the captain of the plane through the air-frequency, got his email and sent him the pictures afterwards - he was quite happy with this souvenir ;)

A great view of Avignon and its Cité des Papes and its unfinished bridge, during the 13L arrival on Marseille

A busy ramp at Metz on July, invaded by Air Algérie planes

Canadair showing off its belly on its typical 31R short VFR pattern at Marseille

Plenty of frogs around Marseille airport, at least around the runways 13 threshold, wandering around to kill time - something you have to be acquainted to with Twinjet when you're off your typical homebase ;)

But Twinjet has good its sides (has to be said!) - this charter to Ancona in Italy, where we abused from the swimming pool, perfect weather, typical seafood... I can definately recommend hotel Federico II at Jesi, excellent value for money due to special crewrates I presume... http://www.hotelfederico2.it/

Here on the way back from that charter, we overflew Le Castellet and its HTTT aka High tech test track...

Finals 13L at MRS...

One of my colleagues found this child-figure in the plane, became our mascot for a few days ;)

Fiddling around with my sister's GPS in an empty plane bound to Farnborough for a free weekend over there - I smile as car GPS tend to go mad as they can't cope with the speed aboard despite the headwind haha ;)

The Be1900D on the rainy ramp at Farnborough...

... and after a very big journey by feet under miserable rainy, moisty, humid (typical?) English weather I got hand on this very cheap Honda Civic Aerodeck to replace my Nissan Sunny GTI as daily driver... After bringing it back through ferry at Dover it was very quickly codenamed "the copilot's car" by my work colleagues as it is right hand drive, but I don't care - it is quite fun and original to drive like this honestly... and its 169 ponies like the high rpm-figures...

White Be1900D from our company at Metz, F-GTVC being a 'special' visitor, transporting 'special passengers'...

Say hello to Nicolas, new born child since 1st March 2010 of my sister, I happen to be its godfather - captured one of his first smiles :)

Zorro was here (silly I know!)

Overflying Cité de La Défense out of Le Bourget bound to Le Mans on a weekend charter mission...

My first 'live' 14th of July (National day in France) experience at Paris, a bit rainy for sure, but worth it at least for the flybys if you're an aircraft buff like me... the fireworks at night were quite spectacular too, stressy Paris traffic is just stopped due to the people gathering to see it, this is quite fun to experience honestly...

See you on the next episode in Geneva this time, I was promoted with my airline but have to move from Metz...
One must give and take!

Back in 2010 more news...

2010-02-25T03:04:37+01:00

Ok don't worry dear readers, we're still alive and kickin' in 2010, let that be clear!
As usual I will try to bring you the best images which will now be in the 800 width format instead of the rather restrictive 640 one, this is mostly due to my now large and even wider computerscreen of my new computer-setup bought recently.Skynet doesn't allow pictures larger than 250kB each so larger resolutions are excluded for the moment...

Winter proved quite 'harsh' compared to the other years, before real cold started we encountered several episodes of dense fog which sometimes caused some trouble in the morning flights.
Here we overfly northern Lyon and only 2 cooling vapor contrails of some nuclear powerplant located nearby betrays life under that low layer...

And here a typical example why we have to delay the return flight from Marseille to Metz on a morning-flight: our Cat 2 minimums are not met (RVR>550m and DH>200ft)!

Nice dusky colours, watching the passengers board the Airlinair ATR on behalf of Air-France in Metz...

Our planes at the ramp of Metz during the day, waiting for the evening flight...

A quite unusual visitor at Marseille, we remember the typical silhouette of an AN124 here we sometimes had to load in Châteauroux...

A nice little ice dish that formed up in the final approach on the nose radome...

Leaving Brussels on my typical Ghent-Metz journey, here right after the usual holidays, date 04 Jan '10...

Lyon St. Exupéry is cleared of snow apparently...

Caught my colleagues on film, 1000ft below, while doing some holding patterns above the beacon GTQ on our morning arrival on Metz... all this due to a rather unexpected strike of Metz control tower...

A fuel pick-up during a charter mission - hell, here goes my salary... ;)

And this is to show that fuelmen at Marseille sometimes do have cold in the winter season, watch their original outfit certainly not supplied by Total :)

My old computer was getting too slowish so after some advice of my car-friends here, I decided to invest into something more powerful, here the specs as we built it piece by piece as it always should be!:

Asus M4A79XTD EVO motherboard
Processeur AMD Phenom™ II X4 925 2.8 Ghz
Ram Trancend DDR3 2 Go PC10666 (1333Mhz)
Graphic card Powercolor HD4890 1 Go
Case Advance Turboost
Harddrive Maxtor DiamondMax 23 S-ATA/II - 500 Go - 16 Mo
Power supply Corsair TX - 650W
Screen Asus VW225N (1680 x 1050)
DVD writer Samsung SH-S223F
Card reader Neo-tech 16-in-1
Microsoft Keyboard and mouse (with good old wires!)
Win 7

Yes, I'm getting younger with this while I play this kind of game online with my friends here ;)

Canadair doing a touch-and-go at Aix les Milles, we ferried a plane at our workshop over there for a maintenance check

And at the workshop we see our planes a bit naked, I don't dislike taking a closer look to all this ;)

On a charter mission between Bâsle and Bastia we overflew some of the Alps and Italy, this pic in flight shows - according to google maps and the shape of the lake - what should be Lago d'Orta with the typical small islet inside of it, San Giulio...

A nicely decorated passenger boat from Italy slides very calmly into the harbour of Bastia despite very heavy wind gusts we also experienced at take-off by the way...
I can strongly suggest you to buy some Corsican 'lonzu', a ham speciality which is delicious!

Three flags decorate the skies of base airfield, the outer right one is the Lorraine flag...

Yep, and this week is very difficult to fly, crew planning changes every day due to very heavy air traffic control strikes, so in the end you show up at the airport everytime but return to home approx. 3 hours later as the flight is finally cancelled... Waiting and not flying in the end is sometimes a bit frustrating as a pilot ;)

See you on the next episode (perhaps with a new used daily car to present!)

Cannes and a car mishap...

2009-10-18T13:07:11+02:00

Back with some news!

Let's start off with a really nice morning picture taken inflight...
I think it depicts the meteorological phenomenon of kata-ana-batic winds, effects that happen due to valley-mountain temperatures interactions...
I'm submitting this picture to a professional aviation weather man to have his opinion on the matter :)

Caught this police NOTAR-helicopter during my little cycling sortie to the Blaarmeersen during a little weekend in Belgium...

Dusk, moon...

A charter made me spending a whole weekend in sunny Cannes...
The tower reflects the 'strass' of the usual businessjets and VIP atmosphere very well ;)

I was fairly deceived after a little walk in Cannes, the Croisette with its luxus shops with rather appalling prices in these economical crisis-period being very indecent... At least a gathering of some 30 Mercs 190SL was worth a picture...It's strange atmosphere, mostly old people live over there - really, I don't like it over there and the hot weather (even in october!) is nothing for me!!

Wispy clouds...

And the cars in the meantime?
Seems I'm not very lucky with these as the just lowered 200SX, nicely parked in its alloted parking space was rather 'brutally' rammed by a reversing local tractor... When I found my car like this, pulled out of its parking spot, I was really pissed off for a few seconds :/

Luckily the tractor-driver had left me a note under the wiper of the shattered windscreen, so after an accident report transmitted to the insurer and a rather stressfull visit of an expert as the car is now slightly modified, I quickly got the cheque to start the repairs... The total amount is an excellent surprise thankfully knowing we should be able to repair the car my our own means making it less costly, so it will finance a new (and bigger) turbo without problems now :)

August = holidays!

2009-08-29T17:43:22+02:00

Well 'forced holidays' as we could say...
My employer stops the scheduled airline in August due to low seating figures each year (passenger profile being business-people, themselves on holiday at this particular period in France) so keep yourself occupied during a mere three weeks - anyways, seen the holidays-program we kept ourselves busy, you we'll see!
After struggling the last weeks of July through some active CB-clouds as pictured below...

I also got the chance to fly the last day out from Marseille to Basel-Mulhouse, giving another view of the overflown landscapes we're normally used to on our Metz-Marseille route:

And enjoy the neat alignment of the Patrouille de France at Mulhouse, probably prepping for an airshow that upcoming weekend...

Right hand base for rwy 32R at Marseille, that's how we like it :)

Anyhow, our budgies had to go with me to Belgium as no one could care for them in Metz...
Vacuum-cleaning proved necessary afterwards, as the birdseed due to the forced in-car ventilation was blown everywhere!

I was invited first week (just like last year) at Duinbergen, on the Belgian coastline, cycling off the whole backcountry as weather was really enjoyable.
The white storks were also very approachable at het Zwin...

Local attraction of the day: a heli lands nearby the life-guards on the beach...

After this, we're bound to Châteauroux for a little week of relaxed flying...
Thanks again to all people who invited me over there, I really appreciated seeing back all of you!

German gliding planes at Amboise-Dierre...

Following the ultralight Vega for a little day at the beach, call that lazy-mode as like this I don't have to really care about navigation ;)

Destination "La tranche sur mer" aka LF8522...
A small enjoyable boat-return-trip to Saint Martin de Ré was a success!

As KG flies away Friday 14 Aug, so am I the day after bound to Combloux by car, as I have the key of the rented chalet and have to arrive before the homefront does, arriving from Belgium with the dog...

That is still a nice view, at dusk...

Glacier that can be seen at the Nid d'Aigle...

Local wildlife, a pair of ibex...

See u next!

Summer is up!

2009-06-29T19:46:28+02:00

Yes! Well, some grumpy people would say winter never leaves the Lorraine-region - well, I'll prove by building up this monthly photo-update chronologically to show this is quite untrue.
So let's start off with some frisky sticky ice on the leading edges while in the clouds...
Time to crack up those de-icing boots!

Embraer 145 ERJ at dawn, morning-preflights are not done by night anymore...
Days are getting longer, remember?

The mechanics are prepping the aircraft for a maintenance-check 'in situ'...

Call it a prop-cone-autoportrait ;)

Strange field cutouts between Vichy and Moulins, during the return-flight from Toulouse.

Should be Lyon-Bron, LFLY, nice clouds...

Mont-Blanc aerial postcard-edition... A bit blurry nevertheless...

Magical ILS-session for RWY 22 at Metz between cloud-covers at dusk, love it!

Checking how the top roof looks like, now you know...

The well known Airbus transport aircrafts, the 'Belugas'... at Toulouse of course

Nice weather also means the appearance of CB-clouds, here one with the typical anvil dome

On the ground this can give dramatic backgrounds, here my three other colleagues have a giggle together whilst waiting for the passengers to board - we left right on time that day!

And most of the time we shorten up the constraining IFR-arrivals by finishing VFR, when conditions permit of course...
Disconnecting the auto-pilot and gliding yourself into a short final, always fun to do, remember those good old flying-club sessions!

No snow anymore at Super-Besse, a small ski-resort just after Clermont-Ferrand...

Metz airport is busy with the charter-season, here a 737 from Europe Airpost, whose crew came to pay us a visit!

The red car is out of the bodyshop and has new second-hand rims with tires, my ex-tires were much too old, and didn't grip at all - one was busted in the crash by the way so... just needs a bit of lowering now, but at least you get the idea!

We now have a EU 200SX front Silvia conversion, it could be named Sileighty, but originally we don't share the same engine from Japan along with some other bits and pieces I won't really detail here.
Just put as Google-searchterms 'Sil80' or 'Sileighty' and you'll see what I mean!

ah well... just an update...

2009-05-16T12:27:53+02:00

Halo-effect of the Beech-1900 silhouette during the approach at Metz...

Another very nice cloudcover in dusky conditions...

On the way back to Metz from Marseille, we now fly very close to Lyon Saint-Exupéry...

Military transfer-flights are getting very common out of Metz...

Red car bodywork nearly complete... finally we're getting there :)
In the background, my new daily car, Nissan Sunny GTI - needed a change ;)
Full photoshoots of the two cars 'should' be available in the next blog-episode

In the meantime, the budgies discover other flying stuff...