A daytrip with a RV-7 through Sweden, across some water and into Denmark

A couple of days ago, it was time to visit some friends in Denmark.

A high-pressure ridge had formed for a couple of days, making the weather suitable along the route, so off we went.

We wanted to fly over water as little as possible, so from our homebase Rygge in SE corner of Norway, we followed the SW coast of Sweden southwards.
Then, abeam Gothenborg, we turned SW, flew along the Danish island "Læsø" which have small airport, then onto the Danish mainland.
Then finally down to our destination "Varde" which is a small uncontrolled airport, it has two intersecting grass strips and it's situated slightly northwest of the city Billund.

Here's our route and how it would've been on a direct track:



The difference in flying time beetween those two tracks where only 5-10 minutes, so the choice of route wasn't difficult.

I estimate that it was only for about 10 minutes over the water east of Læsø we couldn't have glided on to land if we had a engine failure.

We flew down at FL 100 using my favorite powersetting which is 55% power.
With that setting, our FF is about 22-23 litres/hr (equals 5,8-6,1 gls/hr) and gives a KIAS of 120-130, depending on weight.
At that altitude, the TAS is good and we even had a little tailwind, making the GS even better.






Here we are cruising happily along at FL 100 towards Gothenburg:





Upon landing, after 1:50 flight time, we where met by a welcoming comittee and taken to their home.




We spent a nice day there, and I even flew a one hour local flight with a pilot from the local aeroclub.
We flew both sightseeing and aerobatics and then landed again.


In the early evening, it was time to go back home and we landed at Rygge about 30 minutes before the darkness, after 2:05 minute flight, having alittle headwind during the cruise home.


When we landed, we had about 30 litres in the tanks and that is about 1:20 minutes of flying.

Our RV never stops to amaze me:
We started out with full fueltanks; 160 litres, flew across most of southwest Scandinavia, flew a local sightseeing/acro-flight and then back home to Rygge again, and we never had to refuel....

Flying at 55% power, leaned to 50*LOP, these little machines sure have some range....
At the same time, you can have all the fun you want flying acro and using short grass strips too.

And all this you're doing in a small plane you've built in your garage...

I sure am glad I kept pounding them rivets a while back...

Thanks.

Beautiful country, Alf,

Thanks for the story,

Different ways of crossing.....

Hello Alf,

Nice pictures!

Why did you not cross to the little "willy" at the north, it looks shorter allong the water and will make your total flight time a tiny little shorter as well. Also you do not need to fly at a 90? angle across, you only want to keep the portion from "the point of no return" to the point where you can glide to the other side, as short as possible, thus at a 90? angle. In case of an engine failure, you immedialtaly turn towards closest land.

If you are looking for a "glide to safety" over the water, a higher cruising speed may give you just a little more momentum to keep your altitude a little bit longer before reaching best glide speed and start decending, thus glide a little bit further in case of an engine failure.

Anyway I like to cruise at 152 KTAS @ ca. 25 ltr/hr, around FL80-100. My 9 will do 162 KTAS at that altitude, but the few knots more just do not justify the 36 ltr/hr it will need at that speed. Maybe for a short period over the water, for safety reasons, it might though.

Stay safe, Regards, Tonny.

Hi Tonny.

Thanks for the inputs, and it's a good idea to fly faster when over water to have more "momentum" in case of engine failure. I'll do some testing with different speeds and check the energy-gain.

Regarding where to cross:
The distance beetween the northern tip (the willy) of Denmark and the West coast of Sweden is 33 NM and it's 24 NM beetween Læsø and Sweden, so it's abit shorter to cross by Læsø.

Also: the terrain around the willy is mostly sand and not well suited for an emergency landing.

Læsø, at the other hand, has this nice long runway and is much better for a landing.
Also, after getting "feet dry" West of Læsø, I'm flying close to the Danish airport Aalborg which also has a nice long runway.

Regarding the route itself:

When I'm flying into another country, I have to file an ICAO flightplan which shall include the route and entry and exit points for borders.
It's then easier to use published RNAV points and VOR's for waypoints rather than "endless" lat/long coordinates.

The route I made was based on the R-NAV points and the VOR's which where closest to the route I wanted to fly.

Also; the red lines I made on Google map in this post was just meant to be an illustration. It's probably not 100% the same as the route I flew, but pretty close.