Delivery !!!

The 6th of November, a three hour flight took "my" Aquila from the factory in Schönhagen (Berlin) to her new home, KLM Aeroclub in Lelystad!

 

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to witness the "homecoming" myself, because I was abroad at the time. Hence the delay in writing this repport. Many of you will probably have seen the pictures in other media already, but that does not hold me from writing a piece on this milestone myself, of course :)

Aquila day is coming ...

Today, the 22nd of October, was the originally planned delivery date of the Aquila. For a bit, it looked like delivery could take place even weeks before, but some red tape prevented that quite efficiently. But now, it's all set: the airplane has her Dutch registration finalised as PH-KLQ, she's paid for (largely), and the last stand-by instruments have been assembled into the cockpit. All that is needed now is two days of good weather (VMC, Visual Meteorological Conditions; required for Visual Flight Rules (VFR) based flight) at days that fit the schedule of the ferry crew. The crew (representatives of corporation Vuelo, and KLM Aeroclub) will fly to Schönhagen, fly an acceptance flight with the new plane, place the decisive signature, and ferry the plane back to her new home base, Lelystad Airport.
Last Friday and Saturday was the first try already, but the weather forecast over the weekend looked bad. 7000m sight is marginal, but ceilings ranging from 2000 to 700 ftAMSL (above mean sea level) are too marginal, up to outright illegal for VFR flight. The chance that the men would not be able to appear at work on Monday was just too big, so this attempt was cancelled. I just can't wait for the next occasion where weather meets calendars ...

Ready for delivery...
foto (c) and courtesy of: Stu Carr

Almost there

Saturday the 25th, was the day that the maiden flight of our new plane would take place. Unfortunately, the weather was not good enough to fly, so that flight was postponed. And of course, that also meant the the weather was too bad for us to fly to the factory as well :(

Weatheralert Saturday morning 0900 (exactly the planned departure time)

Orbifly map: Light Green = VMC, Dark Green = Marginal VMC, orange = IMC, rood = intensive IMC, Dark Red very intensive IMC (like just belowr Berlijn...)

Aquila is being built!

In anticipation of our pending visit, the Aquila importer sent us some pictures of the current state of "our" aircraft as it is being built. Or actually it is the state of two weeks ago, as I just returned from a holiday.

  

I can't wait for these two weeks to be over!

We'll depart Lelystad as early as possible on the 25th, with two airplanes, totalling 6 people. The 7th, Peter Eier, will stick some days in Berlin to this factory visist, so he will travel by commercial airliner.  Way to go Peter!

We'll probably do a stopover in Porta Westfalica, or Hildesheim (or one on the trip towards Schönhagen, the other on the return trip). That way, we reduce the flight time per leg from 3 to about 1 1/2 hour, we get to change seats, and possibly put the 2 non-licenced people in the left seat (read: take a flying lesson), each for one leg ...
We are still mailing back and forth to finalise everything, but all but one managed to book a room at the Park Inn hotel at Alexanderplatz, so that promises a nice night in Berlin as well :)

We'll fly back to Lelystad on the 26th, and then I can start organising my pictures. I expect to take more than 10 ... ;) So don't go expecting a full report on the 27th, but do expect one in due time.

Factory visit (1)

This is it, the date is set!
Satuday, August 25th, 7 of us set course to the Aquila factory in Schönhagen. Tim Drubbel reserved a DA-40, and Rik Douwes (Air Waterland, Aquila importer) reserved a Piper Archer. Now, we are all heavily mailing back and forth to come to a distribution of people over the planes, and making hotel reservations.  Peter Eier is making a week out of it, to see Berlin. He has already booked a flight and hotel, so now the rest is trying to book into the same hotel, so that we get to hang out for the entire Saturday. Maybe a good deal of the Sunday as well. In any case, this way, we don't need to make a three hour international flight after a doubtlessly very tyring Saturday. And it will make us enjoy the journey itself all the more :)
Now let's hope the summer weather kicks in finally ...

The plane is ordered!

Somewhere mid-June, the Aquila has been ordered from the factory in Schönhagen (EDAZ, just South of Berlin)!
Link to the site of the factory
Expected delivery dat is the 22nd of October. Slightly more that the 3 months delivery time that was given before, due to closure of the factory during the summer holidays.
That's not so much of a problem for me, since I will need even more time to fill my savings reservoir to a level that will allow me to continue taking lessons on a regular basis. I expect that to take at least until fall next year, maybe even later...

F-HARN, Aquila A210 demonstrator for during the wait for the delivery