Flight Diary: VFR Lelystad, 04/20
By: Boris Samoylenko
Tags: Flying, Авиа, Lelystad, Aviation, Pilot

VFR Hilversum (EHHV) —Lelystad (EHLE) — Hilversum (EHHV)

Final approach to Lelystad Airport, runway 05

Some Motivation

Due to corona-induced difficulties with my other flying-related activities planned for this year, like learning new types of airplanes, validating license with FAA or researching my possibilities to study as a commercial pilot in other countries if I ever decide to do so (can’t do in Europe due to one strict medical requirement I can’t meet: hopefully, will write a separate story about it), I completely devoted myself to maintaining currency and hour building. No matter what will be my next step in aviation, skills and hours are everything.

And skills often come out more solid when built in diverse and fun ways :) This way, in order to practice procedures in more different environments, in 2020 I will attempt making at least one full-stop landing at all Dutch airfields and airports where a civil SEP is permitted to land.

When I get an IR rating will I have to repeat this for all IFR fields?..

Destination: Lelystad Airport

Lelystad (EHLE) Control Tower

So, today’s destination is Lelystad (EHLE)— home-base for great many flying clubs in the Netherlands and, apparently soon (unless corona), relief airport for passenger flights to / from Amsterdam Schiphol (EHAM).

Can’t say that I’ve never been to EHLE before, though: during my PPL training we often flew there with instructors to perform touch-and-go’s when those weren’t possible at my home-base in Hilversum (often, due to too wet grass after a series of rains). But those were not full-stop landings, neither I ever did them solo, nor it was after Lelystad became a controlled air-field and extended the runway in the autumn of 2019.

And now it’s time for a full-stop landing. Not only just for beautiful statistics or practicing in a CTR, but also for better familiarity with an airport likely to be planned as an alternate most often when flying in/to Hilversum. Apart from Amsterdam Schiphol, Lelystad is the nearest airfield to Hilversum.

Schiphol, being a major European airport, is rarely chosen as an alternate by general aviation pilots due to high traffic intensity and hefty somewhat €100 take-off + landing fees (excluding mandatory handling). For comparison: landing fees at other Dutch airfields mostly range from €10 to €25, and you usually don’t need any handling at all.

Planning

Flight planning to Lelystad is vastly the same as to any other controlled aerodrome: flight plan, NOTAMs, frequencies, charts, etc.

But it has some peculiarities I will mention.

CTR was established there recently with a view to upcoming commercial traffic. Fresh procedures, however, created some chaos in its first weeks. Lots of general aviation pilots, instructors and students operating flights to / from EHLE had to change to a “controlled air-space” paradigm all at once. There was too busy: there were few air proximity incidents, pilots claimed to have been forced to wait for up to an hour to receive start-up clearances and in general didn’t feel safe. I’m aware of at least one flying school which even halted the operation for some time due to safety considerations. To be frank, remembering how busy and hectic it was all the times we visited EHLE for touch-and-go’s, I am not at all surprised, why switching to CTR didn’t quite work out immediately.

Lelystad LARSA application for reserving runway slots

In response to this, procedures were changed to not having two-way arrival / departure VFR routes for now (this way you can only enter the CTR for landing at one route — MIKE, and depart through another — BRAVO), using slightly abbreviated radio-telephony phraseology and making it necessary to reserve runway for your departure, arrival or touch-and-go via a Lelystad LARSA application (just a flight plan is not enough). These are things, which I have taken into account for my flight preparation.

Despite a few hick-ups, I think that LVNL (the Dutch air traffic control agency) has done a great job to raise pilot awareness of new procedures introduced in Lelystad: it’s the only airport I’ve met so far, for which I am able to watch through all arrival / departure routes with ATC communication as playable videos. And it’s not somewhere on YouTube, but on the official LVNL web-page.

Fragment of official web-page with VFR procedures in Lelystad Airport published on https://www.lvnl.nl/lelystad/vfr-routes

In addition, all the information on this LVNL page is a great addition to AIP and should definitely be looked at during flight planning to / from Lelystad if you’re doing so for the first time after a while.

The Flights

Both flights between EHHV and EHLE and back were rather short. There is just 21 nm straight-line distance between the fields, after-all.

Largely these flights were a great practice of radio communication in CTR and, looking at my radio calls throughout the day, there is a solid reason to do this more often ;)

Partial log of flight EHHV-EHLE, generated by SkyDemon

I routinely departed EHHV from runway 07, went in direction of PAM VOR and then followed the coast-line of Markermeer to MIKE arrival of Lelystad airport listening to ATIS in a meanwhile.

After ̶s̶c̶r̶e̶w̶e̶d̶ ̶u̶p̶ initial contact call to Lelystad Tower I followed the MIKE arrival route to runway 05, surprisingly, almost by the book and from the first time!

Aforementioned videos published by LVNL contributed greatly to this positive experience as I spent noticeably less time consulting with the charts while maneuvering and felt more relaxed, like if I had followed a familiar route. This isn’t usually the case at new airfields/routes to them.

After reporting myself on final approach having confirmed landing clearance earlier on downwind I was cleared to land for the second time, what reminded me that reporting was not necessary in this case. Slight awkward moments :)

After quite a smooth landing, received clearance to taxi to apron D, which is located in the area of the control tower. It was completely empty there, so I parked in front the tower without any problems — almost by the line ;)

Tecnam Sierra P2002JF, PH-VHA at Lelystad Airport / EHLE

Finding a parking place in an unfamiliar airfield is sort of small funny anxiety which I have sometimes: What if I misread the surface chart? What if there will be no place for the plane? What if I mishear the instructions of ATC and go wrong way? To excuse myself: an airplane can’t reverse, so if you don’t have room to turn around ahead of you, you have to shut the engine down, exit the plane and tow it back yourself or aside and/or call for assistance while other planes are possibly waiting for your burning fuel. Not completely unlikely situation if you mistakenly take the wrong row between parked airplanes having earlier assumed there was enough space between them ;) Of course, such kind of situations may occur and it’s nothing dangerous in it, but it’s just kind of irrational thing :)

And here’s some video:

Lelystad VFR Mike Arrival | Timelapse

After paying my landing fee of €16.15 and spending some time in the lounge area of the terminal, I headed back to airplane.

For the last bit of awkward moments of the day: on my initial start-up request to Lelystad Delivery I accidentally called them by wrong name (“Rotterdam Delivery”). Don’t ever try this with your life-partner :)

I was corrected: not a big deal. But it’s funny and remarkable how sometimes habits trick you even in such small things. Habit was due to all of my not-so-numerous start-up requests in CTRs so far were done in Rotterdam-The Hague (EHRD) during few hours of my Night Rating training. It’s important learning to be conscious and cautious enough to recognize, act and/or reflect on such moments, because the next time another habit might show itself on a much less innocent occasion. Avoid human factor tricking you!

After proceeding to the holding point before runway 05, me and few other airplanes were awaited by an unexpected delay: another aircraft experienced engine problems and could not move anymore. I’m not aware if that happened on the runway or at the holding point where I first spotted him, however, the pilot needed some time to leave the plane and tow it himself aside before assistance arrived.

Goes without saying, that whatever the problem was, it’s good and relieving, that it happened on the ground and no-one was injured. Delays are the least concern here.

That day turned out to be quite saturated for local general aviation. During my turn-around at Lelystad, two airplanes at my base in Hilversum came dangerously close in the circuit due to one cutting another after mistakenly confusing the course, luckily, with no consequences. Later the same day another airplane departed from Hilversum, experienced in-flight engine failure and executed forced landing in the field, extremely luckily without any damage or injuries. And these are only things I accidentally became aware of :)

After leaving Lelystad CTR via Bravo departure I headed back to Hilversum practicing some normal, standard and steep turns on my way. Landed on runway 07 successfully with an overland landing fee of €19.

These flights, as always, have left me with some lessons and, as very often, nice feeling of satisfaction :)