It sounded a perfectly good idea at the time, but as one of my colleagues pointed out, short skirts are on display in the south of France in April, while parkas are the only sensible clothes in the Baltic region until June. Why on earth did we decide on a tour of Denmark, Sweden and Poland in April? I still have no answer.Spring was just starting in southern England when I set out from Popham, UK (EGHP) on 30th March, destination North Weald where the Royal Aero Club, Record Racing and Rallying Association was holding an air racing school over 2 days. The weather was very bumpy, 40kts westerly, and I was in and out cloud as I circumnavigated around the north of London at 2,400ft staying under Heathrow’s TMA. The wind stayed over the Thursday and the Friday giving some interesting flying for new air racers! A very enjoyable Thursday night was spent with air racing friends at a hostelry in Old Harlow.

The idea was for 3 Grummans from the UK and Belgium to meet up in Kortrijk, Belgium, on the night of Friday, 31st March. Brian and Roger were flying Brian’s Traveler from Turweston and Nigel, The Grumpy Gang leader and American Yankee Association (AYA) European Director (gosh, doesn’t he sound important!) was flying his AA1 from Bournemouth. Nigel was leaving his AA1 at Kortrijk Wevelgem (EBKT), Belgium and flying with André in his Tiger.

I guess Nigel didn’t want to wear his ‘plane out! A 4th Grumman, a Tiger, based near Munich, Germany and piloted by Peter, planned to join us on the Saturday. His co-pilot was the perennial European visitor Ed, who had traveled from California for the tour and certainly gets the award for being the most traveled Grumpy!

I was flying my Tiger with Yogi as my co-pilot. Since Yogi lives to the north of Frankfurt, we had agreed I would pick him up in Bonn, so, after the air race school, I set off IFR for Bonn (Hangelar) (EDKB) airport. The stiff westerly was still blowing so I made the 283nm in a record time of 1.9hrs. Thunderstorms were rolling around, but I could see where they all were from my allocated FL80. Bonn Hangelar lies just to the south of Köln Bonn and they offered me a let down on their ILS, but conditions were VFR, so I declined. This was the last of the easy flights of the tour.

OO-GAZ André Everaert & Nigel Thomas

G-MALC Brian Hogan Roger & McIntyre-Brown

N136SA Phil Wadsworth & Yogi Beck

D-ENFL Peter Romeikat & Ed Manning

From Kalmar (Sweden) to Visbu Gotland (Sweden)

Today’s destination was Visby (ESSV), on the Swedish island of Gotland which lies to the south of Stockholm.

The conditions at Kalmar were VFR, but cloud was forecast for Visby. After Nigel’s nagging about VFR v IFR, Yogi and I elected to go VFR with the others. So, off to defrost the ‘planes then launch into the air and out over the Baltic, where there was still plenty of sea ice!

I would not have wanted to ditch in the that Baltic at this time of the year! We were at 4,000ft over the sea when the cloud over Gotland became visible and, being determined not to let Nigel and André get one over us, decided to descend below the cloud, which we did at 800ft above the ice! The VFR pilots stayed VFR above broken/scattered cloud and we landed in Visby in freezing conditions.

The increasingly important VFR versus IFR score was: – No difference!

Again, airport security helped us find a hotel, including negotiating discounts for us poor pilots. This time it was a very fine Best Western, with a sauna! A real bonus! Now I had brought a high visibility jacket and, because it was padded, I decided to wear it when exposed to the cold winds. Very sensible I thought! But the others were not happy walking about with this yellow peril! (all the nice blond maidens thought he was a police man and kept us at arms length!!… Ni) Any way, we rapidly found a warm cellar bar, enjoyed some lunch and explored the town. Again we visited the local church and Nigel was heard to mutter, “Not 2 churches in one day! I can’t take it!”

The tourist season had definitely not started in Visby, so it was difficult to find a restaurant open, especially one that came up to Peter’s high standard. Finally, we came across the inevitable Italian restaurant, enjoyed the wine, then back to our cellar bar for a nightcap (or two!)

Wednesday dawned, but the sun didn’t. Our intent had been to move on to Ronne (EKRN), Bornholm, a Danish island situated off the southern end of Sweden, but the weather had really closed in with low cloud, freezing winds and drifting snow! Definitely no go for VFR limited pilots! Nothing for it but to batten down the hatches, back to the cellar bar and Italian restaurant! Life is tough! Our Hotel not only said they could put us up for another night, but apologized for charging us too much and gave us a further discount! Top marks!

We really wanted to be in Gdansk the following day as a sea captain friend of Nigel’s, Captain Wojciech Sobkowiak, had invited us for lunch on board Poland’s largest ferry, In order to help expedite this aim, Nigel and I left the softer members of our party and braved the blizzard, returning to the airport to check the ‘planes and plan routes. After working out the Swedish instructions on the FAX, we managed to submit flight plans for a direct sea crossing to Gdansk for the following morning. That night, after we’d partaken of another night cap in the hotel bar, Wojciech telephoned Nigel from the bridge of his ship, to say he was, at that moment, passing Visby on route Gdansk and please don’t be late reaching Gdansk! We’d now got our orders and there was not going to be any nonsense, not in that mans Navy!

Next morning, as it was still snowing in Visby, but clearing in Gdansk, we persevered against desperate odds and started work de-icing our trusty steeds. I am not saying the snow was deep, but we had to use the prop wash to clear the runway of snow!

We faced a 2 hour flight of some 220 miles over the Baltic ocean Sea and Yogi and I pulled on our survival suites. Very uncomfortable, but it would have been more a quick demise uncomfortable in freezing waters without them! Again, we had filed IFR, with the others going VFR and for once (damn it!) the others had a following wind lower down while we were in neutral wind at 7,000ft! No problems entering Polish airspace and we were positioned right downwind for a radar vectored approach onto runway 29. While in this maneuver, we passed over Wojciech’s ship, the”Scandinavia”, as it was entering Gdansk harbor and also had a good view of the famous Gdansk shipyards.

We taxied into place beside OO-GAZ and D-ENFL about 20 minutes after they had arrived!

VFR v IFR. 20 minutes to VFR! (hee hee … Ni)

There was an icy wind blowing over the exposed Gdansk airport apron as we took out our still frozen covers, complete with Swedish ice, and put them on the ‘planes. A few minutes later, we were joined by G-MALC with Brian and Roger, who now rejoined the official tour, so, we were once again, 4 aircraft and 8 pilots! Brian and Roger had spent the blizzard day visiting Peenemunde, Germany, where the V2 rocket was developed (Werner von Braun started his rocket development there). Another place worth a visit. The fuel truck arrived and took 10 minutes refueling each ‘plane as we stood around freezing our backsides off! Roger, who spent the whole trip looking as if he had hyperthermia, had had enough and cadged a lift to the terminal building, ½ a mile away, in a security guards buggy. He did take some of our luggage, I am pleased to say!

To meet us on the apron was the redoubtable Rafal Bartusch who had done a remarkable job in organising our 3 day Gdansk visit, complete with buss, hotel, tour guides and a printed agenda. (Rafal is, we believe, the only Grumman AA1 owner in Poland! High distinction indeed) He’d been working very hard to ensure our visit was a success, to the extent that he had even worked out how much of the local currency we would each have to draw out from an ATM. Many thanks, Rafal! You really made our visit!

After clearing immigration, our Rafal organized bus arrived and we headed immediately to the port and the “Scandinavia” where Captain Wojciech Sobkowiak escorted us aboard. When inviting Nigel for lunch, he had said to bring a few friends as he could cater for 1,800! Now you begin to see just how large this ship is! Wojciech entertained us with a superb lunch and we listened to old sea dog stories as he and Nigel tried to out- do each other.