RVs in Switzerland

[newt]

Couple of months ago, I posted on VAF to say I was visiting Z?rich on a work trip: Are there any RV people in Switzerland?

Near immediate contact from lots of people - Far more than I imagined, given my impression of EASA territory was that it was near-prohibitively expensive and bureaucratic for E/AB aviation. But no, it's positively thriving.

Marcel (mzund on VAF) is building an RV-4 near Geneva. As luck would have it, he was visiting Sydney, and I caught up with him at Wedderburn. He had pics on his phone showing spectacular mountain scenery, and landing a cub on skis on glaciers near Mont Blanc. I locked in a visit to his field.

L'a?rodrome de la C?te is near Nyon train station, where Marcel picked me up last Saturday. It's a private field with a busy-looking aero club, and some lovely old European aircraft (including a beautifully restored AN-2).

Marcel's RV is nearing completion in one of the hangars: Engine hung, most of the instrumentation and electrical system installed. Waiting for the prop to come back from the prop shop, expecting first engine start very soon and first flight later this season. So neat, so tidy. I bet he can't wait to have the firewall-forward area covered in a thin patina of oil and dead bugs :-)

We took a Cessna 172 with an O-360 into the mountains: Departing over Michael Schumacher's house, turning towards Chamonix, past Mont Blanc, down some glacier valleys, up to 15,500' for The Matterhorn (li'l Cessna still getting 300fpm, creditable effort!), then a long slow descent across mountain passes and through valleys to The Eiger and some orbits over Jungfraujoch, before descending in to Thun for lunch.

Places I'd only ever seen in James Bond movies, but nobody tried to shoot me with poison darts, so my observation is that Switzerland is safe :-)





It was here that I committed a mortal sin: I'd been using credit cards all week, had zero Swiss Francs, and the airport restaurant only took cash. Horrible break from tradition, Marcel actually had to buy the lunch. I'll make it up to him somehow.

Back to Nyon via a more direct route, significantly below the mountain tops, looking out the left window and wondering how a C172 had enough puff to get that high. Just incredible.

(next: swisseagle)

[newt]

The next day:

Dominik (swisseagle on VAF) invited me to join him at Flugplatz Birrfeld near Lupfig, and I was happy to oblige.

He introduced me to Dan and Bernie. Bernie was a bit busy applying software updates to the glass panel in his RV-7A (never had to do that to my steam gauges) so I didn't get much of a chance to talk to him at the beginning of the day, but I was able to spend time with the other two.

Dan has already built aircraft. Today was going to be his first RV ride, his RV-Grin installation sortie, if you will.

Dominik finished his RV-7A about a year ago.

The first thing that drew my eyes when he pushed it out of the hangar was the fit between the front corners of the tip-up canopy skirt and the fuselage: I'm almost certain it's waterproof, because I couldn't see any gaps big enough to admit an H2O molecule.

Then, casting my eyes wider, I saw that that attention to detail permeated the entire aircraft: It's the most immaculately perfect RV I've ever seen. Everything fits. Everything is flush. Everything is clean and shiny. Little custom touches which make it visually and functionally better (the custom canopy latch; the LCD autopilot panel). The culmination of a 12 year build, and every detail is beautiful.

After waiting for an AN-2 to get out of the way of the fuel bowser, Dominik and I departed to the South in company with Bernie and Dan. Down towards Interlaken and The Eiger, a foray into the mountains for some air-to-air photo-ops. Smooth, clear air at 12,000'. Majestic views.


We landed at Neuch?tel, on an approach from the West that follows descending terrain less than 100' from houses. Probably good for neighbor relations to stay on idle power Rolled-out with skydivers touching down on the grass next to the runway on our left.

Dan's RV-grin was successfully attached. I think he might have ordered a tail kit on his phone before we landed.



Lunch at a French restaurant by the lake, accompanied by some more E/AB people who showed up (a Rutan VeriEze). Our mountain detours also meant that we were beaten to lunch by one of the guys we were joking with about speed.

I bought the food this time :-)

Once again, our trip back was via the direct route (Bernie was running out of brownie points with his wife). We followed a ridge line for 100km or so, full of gliders and paragliders which showed up on Dominik's moving map thanks to his FLARM collision avoidance system, which seems very common and popular in this part of the world.

This is a jaw-droppingly beautiful part of the world, and there are more friendly and generous RV people here than I had time to meet. If you're in Europe, where traveling distances are short and national borders are close together, you won't regret a visit to Switzerland.

[Naigool]

Hey Mark,
I'm happy that you emjoyed your trip to my country! D'ont be surprise to fly 15500 ft in a Cessna, I'm flying this altitude with a Piper J3 most of the time...
You are lucky enough to meet those guys and I really hope I can catch them up once before I'm done with my RV7 project!
Cheers Mate
Nicolas

[flyvans.com]

hey mark,

thanks for the great writeup and pics!

i am happy to report that my brownie point bottom line is doing great ;-)
we flew out to the canary islands (tenerife) for a week the next day (via airline) and had to finish packing things for ourselves and our 2-month old ;-)
i'm happy to have managed to squeeze in a great day of flying, though ;-)
and hoping to visit sydney at some point.

regards,
bernie

[falcon900guy]

i love switzerland. it is so beautiful and wish i could fly my rv over there.

[dave4754]

Great write up and the pics look great.

I went to Arizona last month and same thing asked for any events or hookups so that i could talk to a few RV owners. Nada! nutting. spent the whole two weeks there not meeting anyone.

Oh well. Maybe next time.

Glad you had such a great visit to Sweden.

[berthoud]

Sweden? Check again.

[mzund]

Tks Mark for the nice report and tks again for the great time I spent with all the nice people at Wedderburn.
Marcel

[Vlad]

Wow Mark! You are really getting around. Thanks for the report!

[swisseagle]

Hello Mark

Thank you for the compliments and nice write up! I'm precision mecanic ... and cannot wash it away . I thought to build a airplane maybe helps as therapy ... but it did not helped to bring the plane quick into the air. But I enjoy every second around/in my plane ... sometimes I realize what I have built here ... Its just great to be a member of the big RV-Family and to own a magic carpet!

It was a wunderful day and you brought a big portion luck with you! The week before and the week after, the weather was often not flyable at all, snow and rainstorms. But on those two days you where meeting Swiss RV folks, the sun was with us

I was happy to fly with you on board, showing you our nice country and our mountains. Its hard for us to realize that the mountains at your home are only up to 6000ft

I'm still looking at your formation picture you sent me, great job and good challenge to sharpen the skills. Will look around what is possible here, to get a good trainer/instructor.

All the best and have a good trip back!