Day Trip to Lelystad Netherlands
Initially we had planned to do a weekend layover in Amsterdam, but due to people’s availability, it ended up being a day trip. In order to see Amsterdam, I think you definitely need to stay the night, otherwise it’s rather rushed. Lelystad isn’t necessarily the best airport to go to for Amsterdam. Checking the train timetable, Rotterdam might be a better bet!
So we convened on the morning of Saturday 13th August at Elstree. I had got there at 8am, to check out the plane and make sure all was well. Some of the administrative things to bear in mind when flying to the Netherlands, is that they have introduced a ‘General Declaration’ form which is similar to the UK GAR system. If you are arriving from the UK, you must give the Dutch authorities 4 hours prior notice. You can submit the General Declaration online using the website www.gendec.nl or using such apps as Rocket Route. Other than that all the other admin things are similar to say flying to Le Touquet for lunch.
Once everyone had arrived at Elstree, we decided that we would depart around 9.30am local time. Scott ensured everyone had the correct plates and interception procedures!
In G-GZDO, we had Scott and Tom and in G-BFDK, there was me and Andrew. We decided a couple days before that Andrew would fly the outbound leg and I would fly the inbound leg, due to the fact that I have a current night rating and if there were delays I would be legal to fly at night. Only a day before the flight I discovered that the navigation lights on DK did not work. It is a legal requirement to have navigation lights at night. Funnily enough a landing light is not a legal requirement for night flying!
Once we were fuelled up, Andrew did all his checks and we took off from R26. Our routing was:-
Elstree-LAM
LAM-DVR
DVR-Calais
Calais- COA(Costa VOR)
COA – South of Egmond aan ZEE
South of Egmond aan Zee – Lelystad
Once we were clear of Elstree, Andrew switched to Farnborough North to activate our flight plan. The cloud base at this point was around 2100ft. After the LAM VOR we tuned in to Southend Approach and received a basic service from them. A few minutes later the Southend controller was kind enough to remind us that the southwest portion of the Southend CTA drops down to 1500 and cleared us through controlled airspace at 2000ft. Watch out for this as it’s easy to miss on the chart – the Southend controller advised that if we want to absolutely avoid controlled airspace we should route further south over Rochester. Once we had cleared that hurdle we carried on towards Dover. We could see Dover from 40 miles away so the visibility on the day was pretty good. When we got towards Faversham, Andrew decided to climb to 5000ft and we switched to London Information for a basic service.
Dover Harbour
We coasted out at Dover and headed towards Calais. At mid-channel Andrew switched over to Lille Information for a basic service. They reminded us to avoid the nuclear power station at Gravelines. The prohibited zone starts from the surface to 3300ft. We were well above at 5000 ft.
Our next hurdle came when we wanted to enter the Ostend TMA. Ostend approach said it was mandatory for aircraft entering a Belgian TMA to have a Mode C Transponder. DK only has a Mode A transponder. After a nervous wait they eventually granted us permission to cross and then told us to contact Dutch Mil when crossing into the Netherlands. Once in the Netherlands Andrew decided to descend to 1100ft to comply with the Dutch rules that require you to have Mode S above 1200ft (though in practice they seem more relaxed about this). Although the Netherlands is a flat country, there are so many wind farms and wind turbines that a 1100ft, you need to keep your wits about you, to ensure you avoid those structures. The cloud base did drop to around 1100ft so Andrew flew most of the leg in the Netherlands at 1000ft. Flying over Rotterdam port was really interesting, seeing the massive port from such a low level. The port is apparently the biggest port in Europe. And then flying past The Hague, all you can see are these massive greenhouses where I believe they grow tulips!
Rotterdam Port
Looks like Greenhouses in The Hague/Rotterdam
We continued flying along the coast and on the radio we heard Scott ask Dutch Mil, whether he should contact any other frequency as they were not providing any information whatsoever. At this point Scott was abeam Rotterdam and Dutch Mil instructed Scott to contact Amsterdam Information. When we heard this we contacted Amsterdam Information as we were slightly ahead of DO.
Amsterdam Information were very helpful and instructed us to stay below 1200ft. We turned right just south of Egmond aan Zee. The Amsterdam CTR at this stage began at 1200ft and since we were not mode C equipped, TCAS warnings went off on Jets above us. Amsterdam Info told us to turn left immediately. I looked above and saw a Jet about 1000ft above us! Amsterdam Info then told us when we could turn right and make our approach into Lelystad. When approaching Lelystad, we had to report at the BRAVO reporting point to join downwind for R23. The circuit for Lelystad is very tight and we followed a local aircraft in the circuit. Andrew had to extend the downwind as we were pretty close to the aircraft in front. On final there was a bit of a crosswind which Andrew handled fine and we landed after 2hours and 40minutes.
Once we had landed we taxied to the fuel pumps to refuel. The pumps accept credit card payments. While we were refuelling we saw DO land and taxi to the fuel pumps as well. Once we were fuelled up we taxied to the parking area and went inside showed our passports to customs and paid our landing fee which turned out to be 21Euros.
Skydemon track of Elstree-Lelystad
I flew the return journey and I realised that Lelystad ATC is not an ATC but an Air/Ground service. I requested taxi clearance and they would not say anything. Andrew reminded me that they are Air/Ground Radio and I had to declare my intentions. I have to say that Lelystad has the best Air/Ground Tower that I have ever seen!
DO took off 5 minutes before we did. We had to wait due to a number of aircraft on final. Once the runway was clear I took off from R23 and set course pretty much straightaway. My routing was:
Lelystad-Dordrecht
Dordrecht – COA (Costa VOR)
COA – Calais
Calais – DVR
DVR – LAM
LAM – Elstree
So the return journey had a significant inland routing. It was quite nice to do some low level navigation for a change and get a different perspective from the window. I got Lelystad to activate my flight plan and then contacted Amsterdam Information for a Flight Information Service. They provided traffic information and were generally pretty good. I flew at 1100ft for nearly the entire routing over the Netherlands and kept my ground speed at around 85knots.
Just before the Belgian border I climbed to 2500ft and then proceeded to COA and past Ostend. We got a really nice view of the runway at Ostend and also the City of Brugges on our left.
City of Brugges
As we approached Ostend, I was a little nervous about whether they would grant us permission to go through their TMA. However the controller seemed quite friendly and did not question why the plane was not equipped with a mode C transponder. Once past Ostend we contacted Lille Info who again warned us about the nuclear power station at Gravelines.
When we were coasting out over Calais, we realised that we had overtaken DO. I believe this was due to the fact that whilst we were flying into a headwind, I had remained low while DO had climbed. Since I had stayed low for most of the flight over the Netherlands the headwind was weaker at lower levels than at say 3000ft. When we got back to Elstree I found out that DO’s groundspeed was around 75knots, while ours was 85knots, even though we were both flying at 100knots.
The rest of the flight was pretty straightforward, we contacted London Info who then handed us over to Southend. We decided to get a zone clearance to be safe and then we routed around Stapleford to arrive back at Elstree after a flight duration of a little over 3 hours. We asked for a straight in from the Golf Course which was denied and did an Overhead join to land on R26.
Skydemon track of Lelystad-Elstree