Day 14

Thursday May 15th, 2008
Leg 17: Sevilla (LEZL) – Valencia (LEVC)
PIC: Etienne
Flying time: 3h30
Landing fee: EUR 14 (handling Servisair: EUR 25)

After being stuck at Sevilla and stuffing ourselves with tapas we decided the weather was looking good enough to leave. Unfortunately we couldn’t go through the middle of Spain towards Pamplona or Bilbao due to rain and thunderstorms in the mountains up north. So we decided to head for the coast, destination Valencia.
At takeoff we could enter the runway halfway, to be in front of a MD11. Since there was no wind at all, his wake turbulence would mean long waiting and we were ready to go.
We initially climbed to 3000ft heading west. Just after leaving the CTR and on our way to the TMA border we started to zigzagging around the clouds. After 45 minutes we climbed a bit more, changed course continuously left and right to avoid clouds and then decided to go to FL075, being "VFR on top".


At first the cloud cover quite dense but we could see the ground now and then. We marked the spot where we went through the “roof” :).


At the radar images we saw some clouds on our way, but none at the last few miles towards the coastline. And METAR’s and TAF’s said SCT at most.
At this altitude the winds were pretty good for us and we sometimes had airspeed of 120kts, with a power setting of only 65%.
About 20miles from the coastline we could descent to 3000ft and fly below the clouds again. We saw at the ocean that the weather was not that great. No clouds but a lot of smog, due to the lack of wind here (variable, 1kts). Visibility was therefore not excellent.

Valencia is a very busy airfield with strict entry routes. We had to hold at the last reporting point before joining downwind due to landing aircrafts.

First entry point is visible from far away, no idea why :-)

We were directed to the General Aviation on the South Apron, on the other side of the runway where the Flight Information Office is. Fortunately there was a handling agent picking up 2 pilots from a PH-registration Iberia plane and we could catch a ride.
On the way back to the plane we had to use Servisair (not compulsory) since walking would take you 45 minutes at least. Costs of a ride is EUR 25,=.