Day 6

Wednesday May 7th, 2008
Leg 10: Tan Tan (GMAT) – Laayoune (GMML)
PIC: Marco
Flying time: 1h48
Landing fee: EUR

This day the delay started at a road block of the police. We had to wait about 15 minutes before the police was ready with checking our passports. After we had reached the airbase everything went very smoothly. We took off and headed directly to the coast line. Upon reaching the coast line, we turned south towards the Western Sahara. The flight went very smoothly. When we were abeam the Layoune airfield, we turned in land. It was a bumpy ride to the airfield. The TAF predicted some wind on the nose but this time the tower reported correctly a significant cross wind. Marco had asked for the wind, well before reaching the field. On final Marco had to struggle with to cross wind, but the landing went very smoothly. The turn around went very quickly; 1 hour between touch down and start up (military efficiency). The only delay we had was caused by the customs office.

The PH-VZV at Tan Tan airbase

Enroute to Laayoune

Marco

Final runway 04 (right runway). Nose towards the wind

Placing a sticker on the door of the ATS reporting office.

Leg 11: Laayoune (GMML) - Dakhla (GMMH)
PIC: Etienne
Flying time: 2h24

The turnaround at Laayoune was one our quickest. Within 70minutes after touchdown we were airborne again. We had too, in order to reach Dakhla before the end of day period. In the last moments before reaching Laayoune we reached a ground speed of 110 kts due to favorable wind direction. So quick calculation taught us that we would have 45-60 minutes left after landing at Dakhla. One thing you do know, with the end of daylight approaching and being at least 2 hours from the nearest alternate airfield there is not much choice where to put down an aircraft.
Etienne took care of refuelling and Marco took on the soldiers:). This made the quick turnover possible, also because the military is very helpful and friendly.
Laayoune is a sort of military field just inside the Western Sahara. It was a bit weird to see Antonov aircrafts with UN markings at Laayoune though.
After taking off from runway 04 we turned left to fly along the coast heading south to Dakhla at an altitude of around 1500ft for sightseeing reasons.

The Western Sahara

And the Ocean under the other wing

And once to look at a stranded ship we went down to 700ft. It is funny to see that some stranded ships are even marked on the TPC maps which are 10-20 years old!



The wind was really helping us with a tailwind of around 20kts and sometimes we reached ground speeds of up to 124 kts. From take off to landing and 265 miles took us 2h24, over 1 hour left to end of day light. We made the daylight period by a huge margin :)

A lonely plane in the desert....

Dakhla is a very nicely situated airfield on a peninsula. When we approached it, we could see some kite-surfing in a bay and of course a lot of beaches since everything around is sand. Though it is a small town (40.000 inhabitants) it is clear that the Moroccans put a lot of effort in it to make it a comforting and nice place to go to. The base commander and airport commander where again very helpful and friendly and spoke good English and German. We told them we needed clearance to fly to Mauretania and Senegal but that we haven’t heard anything from these authorities yet. They did there best to get it for us for the next day. The hotel was right next to the airport (like the whole town in fact), which saved us at least 30-45min of travelling back and forth like in the other cities.
Everyone is very relaxed and friendly in this town when we were walking around.