For our ferry flight, the day started out by completing a thorough briefing. The usual items
we go through include routing, fuel requirements, weather, and any relevant NOTAMs.
Always make sure to pay particular attention to any adverse weather or trends, and NOTAMs which may affect your planned routing, as this may add extra time or complexity to your trip. It always pays to be prepared when flying long cross-country trips as anything can happen while enroute.
During our brief on this day, we noted that the weather at our first planned stop Valladolid was below our minima, showing low visibility with fog, however it was forecast to completely clear up by our arrival. Our mitigation for this potential threat was to properly brief and evaluate any alternate aerodromes, and to revise our fuel planning to ensure we had enough to carry out a diversion safely and legally if necessary.
Once we arrived at Juan Espadafor Aerodrome (LEJE), I loaded up the C172 I would be flying, refuelled, and carried out the pre-flight inspection.
We departed at 10.30am local time and headed on a direct routing towards Valladolid.
Our first task was to negotiate a crossing of the Granada CTR overhead the airport. Transits of controlled airspace areas in Spain and France are extremely easy and pain free, you usually contact the relevant ATC frequency, explain your routing and they will clear you through.
Once past Granada we continued our direct route. Even though the winter weather in Spain is perfect for VFR flying, we were monitoring the low fog that had blanketed Valladolid this morning. At about 50 miles from the airfield, the weather report was still showing poor visibility and low cloud, and we started gathering information and planning for a potential diversion to our alternate which was reporting perfect conditions. Fortunately, we were able to contact Valladolid approach and ask for a weather update, and as expected the fog had finally cleared and we continued. After a normal landing, we had the aircraft refuelled, grabbed something to eat and departed to Bordeaux Saucats Aerodrome (LFCS).
On our route into France the weather was perfect, which awarded us with some beautiful views of the Northern Spanish coastline. After a small diversion around an active restricted area, we spoke to the Military at Cazaux Approach who gave us a direct track through many restricted areas to our destination.
This highlights how easy zone crossings are in Europe. Many pilots may feel a sense of dread while looking at the VFR chart of the area around LFCS, however many of the restricted areas are inactive, only activated by NOTAM, so with proper planning and ATC coordination, you can fly through them with ease. After this we carried out an uneventful approach and landing into Bordeaux.
Overall, I really enjoyed this ferry trip, and it has provided me with even more experience that I can take forward with me into the future. For potential hour builders that are wanting to fly ambitious cross-country trips like this, I would like to highlight the importance of proper planning, it really does make the difference and puts you at ease, I found the flight to be very relaxing even though we had a few contingencies to deal with. Clifford’s expertise in these types of flights also came in very handy as he can offer great advice when planning, including potential routes and airfield stops.
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