Organised by Yogi Beck

Since I bought a half share of an AA1 six months ago, I have been looking forward to attending a proper fly-in. Four of those months have been spent waiting for maintenance to be completed on the engine. With only eleven hours in the beast and only six since the overhaul, I felt I was justifiably nervous about undertaking a 400 mile cross country. For you stateside cousins, it is important to realise that from Biggin Hill in the U.K., a 400-mile cross-country means that you have to cross four countries.

I bought the necessary charts and started clipping them together. The route looked OK from Biggin across northern France into Belgium, and… No, let’s try it backwards from Eisenach. The route looks OK from Eisenach in the former East Germany back across West Germany to Belgium, and… At this point I should explain that a sadistic cartographer with a penchant for crazy golf designed Belgian airspace.