Past aficionado’s of this illustrious publication will remember the previous tales of epic adventures of that misguided bunch of inveterate AYA aviators, the Grumpies. Just in case you haven’t, and to act as a gentle reminder to those similarly endowed with as many memory cells as your scribe, these flying trips consisted of the:

GUST – 1999 – Grand Unplanned Scandinavian Tour – when we subdued the ATC natives of Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

GUST-RAC – 2001 – Grand Unplanned Southern Tour – Round Alps Clockwise – when we successfully re-trained the ATC tribes in France, Germany (again! – will they never learn?), Italy and Slovenia.

The year 2002 presented us with a problem – We were running out of people and places to re-train! This concern lasted for all of 20 seconds until someone who had attended their geography classes (or should I say, attended and listened to their geography lectures!), remembered that there were still a number of untamed areas within Europe who hadn’t yet had the Grumpy treatment!

How about Spain & Portugal they suggested – perhaps even take in Gibraltar and Morocco. “What a good cunning plan”, said the rest of the geographically challenged people. And so it was that GUST-RIP – the “Grand Unplanned Southern Tour – Round Iberian Peninsular” was conceived.

The brave souls who decided to attempt the trip:

Paul Vickrage & Ni Thomas in N31RB GrumpyOne/Grumpy Two

André Everaert in OO-GAZ Grumpy Three

Johannes Wimberg & Danny DeBrandt in OO-MAR Grumpy Four/Grumpy Red

Tim and Chris Comber & David and Pauline Barrett in G-BIPV Grumpy Moses

Peter Romeikat & Ed Manning in D-ENFL Grumpy Ee-Zee

Sir Brian Hogan & Yogi Beck in G-MALC Grumpy Tie/Grumpy Star

Paul Newton & Alan Simmons in N5644L Grumpy Mad Cow

We had rough ideas on where we wanted to go – basically anticlockwise round the whole Iberian peninsular, but no great desires other than to enlighten people as to the joys of Grumman flying and having a good time.
As per normal operating practice on these trips, planning was left to the whims and fancies of the participants – Now don’t get the impression that we were a load of unfaithful, feckless inebriates – we were very careful to ensure that we did have a map …. somewhere!!