Day 1: Kjeller to Rendsburg

Early rise, birds singing in the morning sun... Three beautiful Grasshoppers all ready for the L-Birds Back to Normandy event. Lead calls "Grasshopper Formation, check in".... "two!".... "three!" A quick backtrack at ENKJ runway 12 and the adventure has started!

First leg from Kjeller ENKJ to Fjallbacka was absolutely calm. Not a single turbulence - smooth as silk all the way. 1:20 airborne. Met by Lars at Fjallbacka, refuelled and ready for the crossing of Skagerak from Sweden to Denmark. On top over a low cloud cover. The feeling to fly 75 year old aircraft over ocean, without seeing land... you have to admire the Piper Aircraft factory engineers who could make this quality back then! Then, after about 40 mins over ocean, it was good to see the northern tip of Denmark, Skagen:

1:20 airborne and we reached Sindal EKSN. Weather was great - let's keep pushing to get as far as possible in one day!! Quick refuelling and we were on our way to Herning EKHG. One of the L-4's in our group has only standard main tank (no wing tanks) and with it's 454 liters, limited to just over 2 hours airborne - before EMPTY! This was a long leg with nearly 1:45, but overflying lots of alternative airfields. Arriving at Herning, there was an airshow! We were asked to perform a formation lowpass, but being "on fumes", we kindly declined and said we would do one pass after takeoff. Arriving an airshow in WW2 aircraft, dressed properly, we were treated with food and drink - no need to pay! So, at the departure, we had to put on a nice formation flyby (with an incoming F16 right at our tail!)

From Herning we proceeded to L-4 General Martin Olesen at Vamdrup, EKVD. Not easy to find open airports with fuel on a late Sunday afternoon. Martin solved or problem with Jerry cans of fuel - thanks Martin, hope to catch up in Normandie!!

At this point, with calm evening sun, we felt fit and well to take yeat another hop. Based on a good advice from Martin, we landed at Rendsburg, EDXR, north Germany. ATC lady not too happy for english speaking visitors, but friendly enough. Landed at 19:30 after a 1:30 in the air. That Rendsburg Pilsner was.... just right!

Very happy to have covered nearly 800 km in a day - more than half way to Normandie already first day!! A few issues: MAV has limited radio coverage and had an issue with tailwheel steering, which crewchief Sander fixed at Vamdrup. Let's see how this will continue tomorrow... there are quite a lot of wet weather inbound.