150 nautical miles: EBOS - EBLG - EBAW - EBOS

I was the lucky guy yesterday: splendid flying weather over Belgium while being planned for a flight... not just "a flight" but my biggest solo-adventure so far. According to OAC's training manual, a student needs to fly 3 "supervised solo" flights. Supervised means: pre flight briefing & preparations check by the instructor on duty as well as his approval signature in the student's logbook.

So, after instructor's approval and with his signature in my logbook, off I went. What makes this 3rd mission so special is that the student is allowed to pick 3 airports of free choice out of the following list: Kortrijk-Wevelgem, Deurne, Charleroi, Liège. Most of my colleagues fly EBAW & EBCI but... as we all fly to EBCI, EBKT & EBAW already during the preceding progress check and fixed airport solo nav's, the only "undiscovered field" is EBLG (Liège).

That would be slightly more than 150NM (almost 200NM on the counter) but... As one day there will be a flight where I will need to fly to an unfamiliar airport... I decided not to postpone this date and opt for Liège. I've never even visited Liège ... so, it was completely new to me. And I definitely wanted to end my day with that "yes-you-can"-feeling so... I went for it ;-).

Although and happily after all a good set of Jeppesen charts had made me mentally prepare for it ;-).

The Diamond 40 really surrounds its occupants with digital luxuary... including the moving map GPS on the MFD-panel, but this flight was intended to be a VFR-flight, so... except as a means of backup after checking my paper chart and outside reference points, I refuse to look at it. Sounds stupid perhaps... but what íf it fails and you have a lack of situationall awareness on a "V"FR-flight!

So, once past Torhout or outside Ostend TMA in other words, I headed for Mackel NDB on a pre-planned heading using the ADF as a reference, showing me that the expected drift was less than the actual drift, which urged me to correct a few degrees more to arrive overhead the beacon... Next: Tubize, passing a few miles west of Zottegem right on time (time tag 6' outbound Mackel) having a clear view on the railroad splitup, a checkpoint on my map. Still on track? Check! Overhead the railway station of Tubize time for a heading change to 081° inbound to the highway intersection between Wavre & Louvain-la-Neuve. All very close to Brussels CTR... so, I maintained a safe altitude of 1 200 feet in this area. With a clear view on the Waterloo statute, I asked Brussels Info for a frequency change to Beauvechain (EBBE) Approach since I had to cross their TMA but the operator told me the militaries would most probably already have left the field since it was close to 17h LT. Anyway, he asked me to give it a try and come back in case of no reply... which I had to. So I was cleared by Brussels Info to head for my next waypoint "Romeo", a few miles outside EBLG CTR. Once on track to Romeo, it was time for listening out the EBLG ATIS... 23R in use, QNH 1025, information Victor, wind 350, 10kts... owkey, crosswind landing. With everything noted I said goodbye to Brussels Info and hello to Liège Approach, confirming Victor & QNH and asking me to report when entering the CTR... which I did a few miles after Romeo, which is just outside the CTR. In the meantime I asked clearance to climb from my 1200ft to 1700ft as the field elevation of EBLG is 659ft and a circuit is flown at 1000ft AGL.

In fact entering the Liege CTR via this route is quite easy as it just requires flying along the right side of the higway. After my confirmation they asked me to enter righthand downwind of the 23R... which was piece of cake with the heading bug set on the runway heading and a clear visual on the field from my location at that time. As I would be joining righthand downwind in the middle, I did start my approach checklist already to be save the time to stay focussed on the field during the remaining downwind. On base I got clearance to land already. A crosswind landing indeed... but it went smooth (stick in the wind, opposite rudder correction). Next runway crossing clearance for 23L at intersection Charlie 2 and at Sierra 3 I was catched up by a tiny marshaller car with a huge "Follow Me"-LED display mounted on the roof. The guy drove that fast that I had to increase my taxi speed up to 22kts, which is 7kts over OAC taxi policy speed! But however, it was a friendly guy who even made some time to make the above picture ;-).

After completing my paperwork in Liège (logs, landing fee registration, ...) it was time to set course to EBAW via St-Truiden (with Brustem airfield as a great reference), then Aarschot & LIERA (compulsory near... Lier!) and finally via KONTI to lefthand downwind of runway 29. While Ostend-Liège took me about 1hr20' flight time, Antwerp soil was reached in only 43'! I won't bother you about how I got back to Ostend from Antwerp as I flew pretty much the same track as you can read about in my previous post.

So, I hope you enjoyed the story as much as I enjoyed this great flight for real. This was the last flight before a series of twin-engine trainings on the FNTP2 simulator are to take place. I guess the next stories will most probably be about those sim-sessions. See you!