PIL024 to Locarno, Tessin

December 18, 2012

After we said last night good bye to Michèle Obama and her husband -who in turn was married to the embassador of the USA in Malta- to the German, French and Russian Ambassadors and their wives, to the wife of the Irish Ambassador, to the Austrian Ambassador and her daughter and to the recently married Dutch Ambassador and his bride. I may miss someone in this summary, if so sorry for this Hubert and Mariana. Believe you must be the top hosts in the Mediterranean countries.

We left Silvan’s Hotel Euroguest House for the airport.

before the departure at Malta

our flightplan via Trapani-Elba-Genova-Milano

Our departure was not a difficult one, on a runway nearly 4km just over sealevel. We cruised with a 35 knots headwind to Lugano in order to make the IGS Approach to runway 01, followed by a break-off, cancelling IFR continuing VFR to Locarno. Thanks to the iPads on board our IGS Approach could be loaded properly in the Primus Apex. The reader will remember that our pc, needed to load our Honneywell/Jeppesen updates, was stolen in Victoria Falls .. etc. We just came in time over the Lago Maggiore lake to land on runway 08, since the clouds came down very very quickly. It all looked like a piece of cake for Commander Urs, but it may have been different for someone without his skills resp. without his local knowledge of Tessin.

over Genova

over Milano

Approach to Lugano

Arrival in the snow at Locarno.

from sand to snow….

Today, 18 December, the next day after our arrival, we unloaded, checked and cleaned the a/c. No drugs, no contrabande, no diamonds (sorry Sophie) were found anywhere.

Tomorrow, 19 December, we will fly to the Pilatus Factory in Buochs to entrust the a/c to Fabian for the replacements of our locks and downloading the ACMF. We hope to depart again in the afternoon for EHBD [Budel, The Netherlands]. We are hoping for a good Finale.

Will be continued, one more time only.