After packing my stuff and having a copious breakfast, I headed to León airport, to start this World Tour adventure.
There it was my Beechcraft Baron 58, ready to be inspected. It has taken me already through UK, Denmark, France, Germany and Austria, but this time it will be different... I'll head to the south, trying to reach quickly the north African coast.
Few days before I configured the REP so the aircraft starts in an old state. I calibrated all the instrumentation, changed the tires, the oil... we'll see how it behaves.
It's 7:00 am. There are 5 passengers willing to go to Madrid - Cuatrovientos, so I take advantage of this to cross half of the country in one single leg. I fly a lot in Spain, so I want to arrive as soon as possible to Gibraltar.
The weather seems nice. Winds of 6 kt and clear skies. Visual rules then (VFR). The startup sounds great. Just one traffic in front of me.
Departure from runway 23, traffic pattern to the left and I leave the CTR by SE (Santas Martas). My intention was to follow the AP-6, a highway that leads to Madrid, for which a south exit would have been better, but many things were happening at the same time.
I finally catch the AP-6 and I follow it quite easy. I know the region. León to Benavente, then Tordesillas, Medina del Campo... all of them of historical importance, especially during the Medieval Ages.
I flew between 5500 ft. and 7500 ft. My intention was to keep this altitude until the final descent, but I couldn't avoid a ceiling of clouds, forcing me to lower the altitude more and more. When flying next to Arévalo and Adanero, the ceiling was too low to keep on VFR, so I pulled up and enter inside the clouds.
Quickly I checked the charts, finding a VOR near Navas del Rey that would position me right at the west of the destination airfield. The decision was obvios. To overpass safely the hills near El Escorial I had to rise my altitude and trust the VOR navigation.
So did I. Once I passed the hills, the clouds were gone and I had clear skies in front of me. I just reached the VOR, head to 090 and approached the runway 10 of LEVS. But I was too fast. I tried to reduce speed on the approach. 130 KIAS on final... I had to abort and go around.
After a left traffic pattern in which I stabilized the plane and configured it properly for the landing, I finally managed to take it to ground.
Soft landing. My passengers were as happy to be alive as my wallet, after charging them $4k and noticing I didn't have to make any repair.
------
Technical details:
LELN - LEVS/LECU
S-1 S AP6 BENAVENTE TORDESILLAS MEDINA-DEL-CAMPO AREVALO SAN-LORENZO-DEL-ESCORIAL BOADILLA-DEL-MONTE N
Distance: 170 nm
Average GS: 200 kt
Average alt.: 5500 ft.
METAR:
LELN 122000Z AUTO 21006KT CAVOK 13/10 Q1010
LEVS 122100Z AUTO 13003KT CAVOK 15/06 Q1011
No comments:
Post a Comment