At the end of September, I had a business trip to Dusseldorf, Germany, for a global partners’ meeting at Schloss Krickenbeck, a 13th-century country house/castle and grounds that has been turned into a conference center. Trying to save the company a little bit of money, I did a pair of overnight red-eye flights from Hartford to Dublin and Dublin to Dusseldorf. While it was convenient going out of Hartford, it’s still a tough haul of a red-eye flight! When I got to the castle late Sunday morning, I really just wanted to grab some lunch and take a nap, but I’d already made some other plans!
As soon as I knew I was heading to Germany, I’d started doing some research about opportunities to fly while there. I found that the castle was situated very close to the Netherlands border and that literally on the Dutch side of the border is a glider field with a club just east of the town of Venlo. On the German side of things, I found the Verkehrslandeplatz Grefrath-Niershorst airport about a 10 minute taxi drive east of the castle, with a flight school. I made contact with the respective entities and made some plans for my visit.
The chef at the castle was super kind and she made me a picnic lunch of a couple of sandwiches, granola bars, bananas and some water, so I was able to munch while walking about 30 minutes west on some beautiful paved nature trails and walking across the border into the Netherlands. As I approached the field, I started to see (but not really hear) some sailplanes overhead and occasionally, I was hearing a weird high pitched whining sound that I couldn’t quite make out. As I got to the western end of the field though, I could see large tractors parked and figured out the sound—they were high speed tow winches that tugged (yanked) the gliders across the field and launched them into the air. When they reached altitude, the tow lines were released and little parachutes opened up as the cable fell to the ground to be wound into the tow machine. The odd sounds was the combination of the high pitched whine of the machines as well as the whistle of the tow line slicing through the air.
Side note: The history of the Dutch airfield is quite interesting, having been a Dutch airfield as early as 1913 and then being taken over by the Germans in 1940, when it was converted into a major Luftwaffe air base flying Heinkel He111H bombers (a fast twin-engine medium bomber) and even an operational unit of the Luftwaffe’s rocket powered interceptor aircraft, the Me163 Komet. The Allies bombed the field incessantly and finally took it out of action in September 1944 and it was taken over by the Americans who repaired one of the three runways and flew P-47 Thunderbolts and B-26 Marauders (twin engine medium bombers). (Apparently I didn’t do enough exploring of the area, as some of the old infrastructure and bomb craters can still be seen.) (www.forgottenairfields.com/airfield-venlo-478.html)
I walked along the path at the southern end of the field towards the eastern end, and climbed up stepladder over the barbed wire fence and met my contact Frits by the control van parked nearby. He explained that there wasn’t much going on in the way of thermals for the today, so most gliders were going up, making a circuit of the pattern and then landing. He introduced me to Roland, who is one of the club’s instructor pilots.
After chatting airplanes for a few minutes (most everyone hanging out at the field spoke proficient English), Roland brought me over to a Shleicher ASK-21 glider, PH-714 (also marked with YY on the tail). We put our parachutes on and I strapped into the front seat of the glider while showed me the controls (pretty simple!) And then strapped himself in behind me. Wing walkers connected the tow cable to the nose of the glider and then held the wing level, signaling the tow tractor across the field to slowly take up the slack on the line. Then it was time to go.
In a very minute way, I quickly got just a sense of what a catapult launch from the deck of an aircraft carrier must feel like! I was thrust back in my seat and we were airborne in about 25 feet, climbing like a bat out of hell at something like a 45-degree upwards angle! Within seconds we were at pattern altitude of about 1,000 feet and the cable was released. Ahead of us, I could see Schloss Krickenbeck and the grounds around it. Roland gave me the controls to get a feel for how very sensitive the control surfaces are. (Like the Spitfire and the Mustang, you fly the glider just with fingertips.). Then he guided me through some gentle turns and hitting the right pitch for the glide and I worked us around the right-hand pattern thru to short final, where he took over and made the landing.
After we clambered out, an actual farm tractor pulled up and towed the plane in while we walked along holding the wings up to ensure they didn’t drag on the ground. A few minutes later, Roland came by again and said that, as a club member, he also gets a currency ride and asked if I wanted to go up again! So we chuted up again, this time in a different, more high-performance trainer glider, a Schempp-Hirth Duo Discus T, PH-1322 (marked MCT on the tail).
We had another exciting tow launch to pattern altitude and then I let the tow rope go. With the better performance on this sailplane, we had a little extra time in the air and Roland had me do a lazy 360-degree turn to left before rejoining the pattern. As we turned onto downwind, we had another glider fly right over us only about 50-feet above, seeking out the weak early afternoon thermals. I made the turns to base and then final and Roland took over at the last second for the actual touchdown.
After walking the sailplane back in, I hung out near the control van (a sort of canteen van where the entire side opened as a giant window, with a bench so that the operations folks could keep an eye on the launching area and radio down to the high speed winch tractors. I chatted with a couple of club members as they sat around munching on plums and apples brought from someone’s garden and engaging in hangar talk.
After watching some additional launches and landings, I gave my profuse thanks to Frits and Roland (and the Venlo-Eindhoven Zweefvliegclub)(www.vezc.aero) for a terrific afternoon of international flying camaraderie and enjoyed the beautiful walk back into Germany for a well deserved quick nap at the Schloss before the start of the conference.
On Thursday, after the conference concluded, I met up with Stefan, the CEO and chief flight instructor of a local German flight school, Follow Me (www.flugschule-followme.com), who graciously picked me up at the castle for the quick drive to Flugplatz Grefrath-Nierhorst, a little southeast of Krickenbeck on Route 509. There was a low overcast of clouds at about 1400 feet, but we planned to do about an hour’s sortie to fly in the area.
I had booked a Cessna 172 with Stefan, a purple and white aircraft (PH-YSF), so when we got out to the airport, we headed over to the hangar, pre-flighted and pulled her outside. However, after taxing out to the grass runway, during our run-up, we found that the left mag was dropping about 300-400rpm (it’s only supposed to drop about 75rpm), so we taxied back in and switched to another plane.
This was a Remos G-X, a German high-wing, two seat single engine light sport aircraft (in Europe, it falls into the ultralight category). It’s got a very simple glass panel with three screens, and all of the other instrumentation is very simple/clean on the panel. It’s operated via a control column and the throttle is between the pilot and co-pilot. The partially reclining bucket seats were pretty comfortable as I strapped into the four point harness system.
After an easy start, Stefan taxied us out to the grass strip and let me do the takeoff. Despite the small 4-cylinder Rotax engine, we were pretty quickly in the air and climbing to altitude. It only takes a very light touch on the control column to maneuver and I quickly had the plane trimmed up. We first headed to Krickenbeck to fly over the castle and I got some good pictures, as well as doing a quick turn over the courtyard to see a few colleagues shooting basketball hoops below. Then we meandered south for about 20 minutes over the lush green fields below, passing over beautiful tiny towns with gorgeous churches and winding streets before quickly popping over farms and greenhouses and fields of flowers and produce. Windmills were omnipresent, so I paid close attention, since we were limited to 1,000 feet to stay clear of clouds.
Stefan put on some “American music” which as some old bluegrass stuff and we chatted about what it’s like to fly in Europe. As he had to pick up his child at school at 4pm, we eventually had to turn around and head back to the airport. Joining the pattern, I managed the throttle and the controls and ended up making a squeaker of a landing on the grass strip—so nice that Stefan even complimented me on it! (Not bad for only my 3rd or 4th landing on a grass strip and in a completely new model of airplane!)
We taxied in and tucked away the Remos in a hangar with a couple other airplanes, including what looked to be a Yak-52 (?) and a Piper Cub. Stefan snapped a couple photos of me (I stand taller than the airplane does!) before he headed to pick up his child. I wandered over to the “control tower” and he graciously called a cab for me to get back to the hotel. While we waited, we had a friendly chat. He’s a retired Dutch electrical engineer who worked on major infrastructure projects and now volunteers in the tower to help with the flying club operations. The squat tower actually doesn’t provide traffic control services, but rather advisory of aircraft in the area and weather. It seems to also serve as the location to file your flight plans although I didn’t get the full gist of what he was describing.
But it was a fun trip to the Netherlands and Germany, getting a chance to get airborne and see a little bit of it from a different perspective!!