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Report:
We
had beautiful clear skies for our departure out
of Bergen, Norway which was a delightful change
considering our arrival a week prior was rather
overcast. We were number 2 in line for takeoff
behind an unmarked 737-300. The Bergen airport
is a quaint single runway field surrounded mostly
by cool waters. Had we planned our trek across
the Atlantic a little better, Bergen would have
been an excellent candidate for our flight out
of Rejkavijk as it lies further east of the Shetland
Islands; of course that would have delayed our
enjoyment of Skullsplitter and The Red MacGregor,
so perhaps we did make the right choice as it
seems the Norwegians are more into their vodka's
than their beers. Can't blame them with their
cold winters; beer just can't do the trick in
that climate in the middle of winter.
Today's
flight has us slicing the semi-southern region
of Norway in half, ideally I wanted to stop in
Oslo, but the lack of beers made that a tough
call. I'm sure when we plan our next flight around
the world where we forego beer and go straight
for the hard liquor, Oslo will be in the crosshairs;
but both of those are very far off, and something
tells me we should stick with the beer, especially
in Scandinavia where weather conditions aren't
always the greatest as you'll soon read....
There
was some nice scenery over the fjords, slightly
mountainous. I'm sure this is a beautiful VFR
area to explore from a low altitude. Alas, we
headed further east away from the sunset that
tickles the horizon for much longer periods of
time than these two pilots from the Tropic of
Cancer are used to.
Welcome
to Sweden. Had there been a sign in the sky to
welcome pilots, we would have passed it quite
quickly and almost without notice; which is exactly
how the absolute gelatinous pumpkin muck of a
sky suddenly appeared which seemed to envelope
us out of nowhere upon our decent for Stockholm.
It was a very grey/orange haze that offered zero
visibility and at times made the Hopper but a
shadow in external views. It started around 7,000
ft and stuck with us. In prior flights we had
had some bad visibility going through these altitudes
but it sometimes cleared up a lot once closer
to the ground.
Not
in Stockholm; the funk stayed with us as we descended
further, turned, you name it. Perhaps we'll break
out of it at like 1,000ft we though. Good thing
we'd done a few ILS approaches and practiced beforehand,
this scenario definitely called for it. Around
2,400 feet on approach we could see some water
and a little bit of coastline beneath us, but
we headed back into a thick patch closer to the
airport. At 390 feet we could faintly see the
RWY strobe lights and a building off to the right.
At 75ft above the threshold the Hopper didn't
want to touch down. It took awhile, but we did
land an immediately applied full brakes and stopped
just short of the end of the runway, knuckles
white and adrenaline pumping.
Next
up: Straight to Helsinki, Finland!
GB
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