Back to Portugal
My Thai flight was
due to depart at 00:15 in the morning, but I received an email to
report that this flight was cancelled and that I should see the
check-in at Suvarnabhumi Airport instead. I decided to call the
airline on the phone instead... Why travel that far if I didn't
have to.
On the phone I was able to be booked on the Eva Air flight in the
afternoon instead.
Eva Air Boeing 777
I arrived at London
Heathrow and took the transfer bus, £5, to the Thistle Hotel
(Terminal 5) where I had booked a night for £45, went to the bar
and had a cider.
You need exact change for the bus and so I went to the terminal,
and changed a £20 note into fives.
Early the next morning I took the bus again back to Terminal 2 to
catch my TAP flight to Lisbon.
Porridge and a pot of tea was £9.45p at the Ca'puccino Cafe, it
was good porridge, but not as good as it was the last two times I
caught this flight.
TAP called on the Tannoy to say they were ready to board...
People stood up to queue, and they stood for quite a while before
the aircraft began to load... Meanwhile I wandered over to Leon
and had a yoghurt... Breakfast completed.
Unfortunately the window
was misted up beside my seat in the A320, I took an IMC style
picture as the aeroplane lined up on the runway.
Airborne the slipstream blew the moisture off to reveal a
gorgeous sunny day over England, and I was leaving it behind!
Enroute it was easy to spot other airline traffic criscrossing
the European skies.
The air was unstable over Portugal and so we went through the
usual bumpy approach over the city to land at Lisbon.
There was mention of the African DC9 that had landed at Cascais
Cascais - Estoril
Daniel met me off
the plane and took me to the Cascais Airport via a birthday lunch
for one of the girls from the flight school.
The school was interested in hiring me as an instructor, but they
estimated it being 15,000 Euros or so to obtain the EASA
Instructor Rating. My thousands of hours, and years in this
business are not valued in Europe where they invented flight
training.
The objective of
this trip was to take delivery of the Cessna 172 R CS-DIH which
we agreed to buy back in July...
Back then I had intended to do a deal for a C172S, CS-EAN,
advertised for sale, and in a reasonable condition, but the club
changed its mind and decided to sell their unloved but
serviceable C172R instead.
Perhaps the only reason CS-EAN is in as good a condition as it is
is because it spent two years held hostage by a maintenance
company. The aero club complained to me that it was a "non
profit" organisation (disorganisation), and expected some
sympathy from me... No way.
Non profit is easy, aim to make a profit, and if you do, use the
money to improve the aeroplanes and thereby turn a 'profit' into
[non profit]! There is no excuse for a club to go broke leaving
its members without aircraft due to it being under funded.
Meanwhile CS-DIH soldiered on as the club four seater, but it was
unloved, obviously abused by the club members, the interior is in
tatters, the windscreen scratched, and generally the aeroplane
looks dishevilled.
But it was serviceable, and in Bangkok they needed something to
show, quickly. So a ferry company was enlisted, deposit paid,
Turtle ferry tank bought and installed, and the aeroplane was
(not) ready to be flown to Thailand.
There's the question of needing an Export CxA, and ANAC
(Portuguese CAA) was unwilling to issue this aeroplane one.
Delay delay... Month upon month. If I'd known I would never have
bought this aircraft.
The price came down, and down, as the trouble in Portugal carried
on.
ANAC wanted to cancel the Registration in order to issue the
Export CxA. If this was done, there's no ferry flying the
aircraft unregistered across different countries!
Anywhere else an Export CxA is issued, and you can fly the
aeroplane to the new country and then deregister it. I do not
understand why ANAC wants to do it this way?
This is the third
trip I had to make to complete the deal. This time to oversee the
packing of the aeroplane in a container for shipping to Thailand
instead. It's deregistered so there is no ferry flying option.
I was unwilling to make this trip, it's an additional expense on
top of the purchase, but now I am glad I did.
Once again I
booked five nights in the Lido Hotel in Estoril, £150 for five
nights... I missed out on ordering breakfast, and this is another
10 Euros. I paid 41 Euros per night for two additional nights for
the room with breakfast included.
You have to pay 1 Euro (one) per night hotel tax.
Ensure you get the breakfast as it is very good, but only
available after 07:30.
I enjoyed my evening walks down to the seafront, and along to the
town
Bad cold number six since
the beginning of December was in full force just before I left
for Portugal, and was on its way out when I was there. I helped
it on its way by taking long evening walks in the fresh sea air.
The bad cold knocked me out during my first full day at Cascais
Airport. I could not eat lunch, just drink hot water. I
brightened up a bit while giving a briefing on Cubans to a local
student, but returned to near death in my hotel room.
One evening I stopped for very rich hot chocolate. There are
bakeries serving lots of naughty but nice cakes.
I sat with my hot chocolate and heard the girls next to me
speaking English... They told me they were from Singapore, but
then it turned out the girl next to me was Thai, and her coworker
was from mainland China.
I went to this bakery a second time for their rich hot chocolate,
and had space for a cake. I have brought a jar of their
'marmalade' back to Thailand as well.
The last night here I went to the Irish Pub in the centre of the
picture above for a pint and a half of Kilkenny beer
My journey was lonely, but at least there was some hospitality in
the tourism businesses in Estoril.
Sintra
The Moorish Castle above Sintra
Vasco is a friend of a
friend; Barry, who once said to me "The eyes of the CAA are
upon you Michael". He was a CAA inspector and I was just
about to do a display in the WAR Focke Wulf FW190 G WULF at
Fairford.
With a few hours to spare Vasco picked me up for a trip to the
Airforce Museum at Sintra.
There was this picture of a DC2 and another of a DC3 in Lufthansa
markings with swastikas on their tails
It was interesting to see
the Lisbon Airport booking in and out, logsheet, which showed
BOAC aircraft flown by English and Dutch pilots, an American Army
B40 (Fortress), a Lockheed Hudson exRAF being flown by a
Portuguese, and two entries of Lufthansa DC2s in the middle of
World War II.
If you click below the image I have loaded a larger image.
Click here for a larger more
legible image
An aviation enthusiast
Noratlas with Bristol Hercules engines
The museum is excellent,
clean, light, and airy. The aeroplanes are well displayed, and I
did take plenty of pictures, but how much can I post on here, and
which aeroplanes should I chose?
I posted a lot on Facebook.
Auster D5-160
After our museum tour we
drove into the quaint historic town of Sintra where in the Paris
Cafe I saw they had raisin scones and tea... I went for it!
What I received was some sort of cake with individual plastic
butter and jam containers. What a terrible disappointment, but
solice was found in one of the two local speciality pies Vasco
ordered.
Our afternoon was soon over as Vasco dropped me off to go to his
sister's birthday... Late!
I like this aeroplane, and even suggested swapping the DA42 for
two of these.
The school in Canada had four Katanas with Rotax 912 engines so I
think this would have been a smart move.
The idea was to rest the
leading edges on tyres, and strap the wings vertically to the
sidewalls. No bloody way, this idea made me feel very unhappy.
I had my way; we went out and bought a load of sponge foam. We
obtained six pallets, and snugly, safely packed the wings
horizontally.
Snug and secure
The left undercarriage had to be removed, and they welded up a
structure with a caster wheel on the bottom to support the port
side.
Packing and bracing and the left 'wheel' is on tyres for some
suspension. The sponge between the fuselage and wings is not
necessary.
The boss wanted me to see the container onto the ship so I sent him a picture of the closed container with a chair on top... I wanted some comfort riding the lorry to the train, and the train to the port...
05:10 in the morning I was
picked up by the van from Seven Aviation and taken to Lisbon
Airport.
I had tried to book a flight with TAP but the website would not
accept the credit card, so I booked British Airways through
Expedia and there was no problem with my credit card.
British Airways Flight Attendants wear classical 'stewardess'
uniforms with hats... They looked good, and very professional.
I did not like having to pay for my tea and a Kitkat with the
credit card during the flight... Airlines diminish themselves
with this cheapo nonsense, and paid for checked baggage.
Snapshot on approach to Heathrow
Thursday's appointments
were all made... First tea with sausage, mash and peas drowned in
gravy at the West London Aero Club, and then over to visit
Walter, followed by driving down to Guildford and on to the
Bricklayers Arms to meet friends from the Condor Club days with
yet more good English food.
I rented a car from Alamo for 66.63 Euros for four days. I drove
it 365 miles, and used 35 litres of petrol (7.6 Imp gals) which
cost £47.39p.
I stayed at Paul's house in
Guildford.
Friday morning I took a drive up to Blackbushe Airport... Sitting
in the cafe there was David and his wife. They used to operate
the G AWFP Condor group at White Waltham.
This Condor was all but condemned by an engineer during its first
fifty hour check following its CxA renewal, the estimated repair
cost £14,500!
I was annoyed, don't get me annoyed... We took trailers down to
Lasham where they had disassembled the aeroplane (unnecessarily),
drove back to Walters' workshop where I supervised the repair and
return to service of this aeroplane. I know Condors very well,
and the bill was something like £4,500 when we had finished,
with a new wooden belly, and a few other wood repairs.
On Friday night we went to the Bell Inn at Outwood near Redhill Aerodrome to meet Bernie, and Brendan. I have not seen Brendan for about thirty years... We're all getting old and it's a bit of a shock to the system.
Paul in front of the fire at the Bell Inn
Leicester
LMS 4-6-2 at Leicester North Station
Early Saturday morning I
set off for Leicester, there was a Charity Fly-In scheduled for
Saturday, but 'retimed' to Sunday when better weather was
forecast.
I went to look for my Grandfather's 4-4-0 Midland 1000 steam
locomotive which he scaled as 3 1/4 inch gauge, and which could
pull nine adults under steam. My uncle donated it to a museum in
Leicester, but I did not find it this trip.
The term "retimed" has been developed
at Chiang Mai Airport to save face, it really means: delayed!
Trains are the passion of many an Englishman
I am known on the Flyer Magazine Forum and so I met a few familiar names at the Leicester Aero Club in the evening.
The Regency Hotel
I booked a room with a huge English breakfast here for £45 for
one night
Breakfast
Leicester Airport is a
great place; operated by the Aero Club it is very welcoming with
a positive attitude towards flying.
On Sunday morning I turned up not able to eat another breakfast,
and the early lunch (dinner) I managed was very good too.
Inside the hangar at Leicester
Mick and Barry flew down from Lincolnshire to buy me dinner.
They were selling home made
cakes in favour of Motor Neuron Disease. On Saturday evening I
paid £5 for a piece of cheesecake, and on Sunday I bought four
large 'cupcakes' for £10.
I was very careful with my box of cupcakes, and they ended up
being consumed in the office here in Bangkok! It took a lot of
careful handling, me carrying cupcakes around the World.
15:00 Sunday afternoon I
departed Leicester Airport driving cross country past where I
lived when I began this life, to get onto the M1, drive south to
the M25, and around to the M4. Stop to fill the tank, and drive
two miles further to drop the car off.
Met up with Mike and Mam who coincidentally were on the Eva Air
flight scheduled to depart 25 minutes before my Thai flight, all
of us travelling to Bangkok.
Beer in the London Pride bar in Terminal 2.
The old Boeing 777 awaits its passengers. Mike and Mam's Eva Air
Boeing 777 was parked next to it.
Mike and Mam's flight was delayed, and so for whatever reason they still allowed Eva to leave before Thai, and so Eva's delay became our delay.
Somewhere over Afghanistan
Back at Bangkok
Suvarnabhumi I met Mike and Mam and we took a minibus to the
Thong Ta Resort hotel where they were staying.
I took a taxi back to Don Mueang after a couple of beers with the
cakes sitting happily undamaged by their journey, on the back
seat.
Alas the cakes were not to last long, as soon as their box was
opened in front of ravishing Thai girls in the office.