Yesterday we were in the Hessenpark – two years ago they had a nice children's program, today not, but it was still quite nice there. In the pedestrian zone of Mainz was also already largely everything on "normal" – the stores are open and outdoor catering also. So actually everything as always, except that one needs a daily updated Corona test for the outside gastronomy of course. In Rhineland-Palatinate this is solved quite well, there you can simply do a self-test in the presence of the waiter, who then also confirms it on such a form. That is then valid for 24 hours.
For today was then the question, where it further goes. The weather for the next few days is not so good forecast, it is supposed to thunderstorm from the day after tomorrow always from the morning and relatively large-scale. But we have to go home on Saturday at the latest, because next week is school again. A little bit with a heavy heart we decided to fly back to Augsburg and from there to make a little trip to Ulm by car.
In the early afternoon we picked up the GIGA, without ARC, because the inspector is on vacation. There I will fly next week to the examiner, to the 8.6. Is still valid. Then it went IFR to Augsburg. In Egelsbach there was a queue for departure, in front of us were five other aircraft. The air traffic controller apparently would have let us out before them, but unfortunately we were just behind the taxiway, where we could have turned to the runway and behind us were also other aircraft. At some point it was our turn and we took off to the east, the IFR pickup in Egelsbach is always quite fast and you can climb out of the thermals where it is quieter.
At Radar there was also a lot of traffic for the or. From Frankfurt airport. Shortly after our pickup an airliner reported a technical problem. It had just taken off, but wanted to turn back and burn fuel for at least 45 minutes beforehand. This was interesting in that the controller then reorganized all the traffic in his sector. Some approaching aircraft were immediately sent to the holding, others got another waypoint, we got a "stop climb. In the other sector we could then continue to climb. Soon we could fly directly in the direction of Walda.
Over Dinkelsbühl an ELT could be heard on the emergency frequency. After this was on for one or two minutes and therefore not a test, I told the controller, who immediately thanked me for the information. Strangely enough, the ELT "accompanied" us almost to Augsburg. Again and again sometimes good, sometimes less good to hear on the radio. Actually, this can not be, because the range can not be so large – unless the ELT also flies. If one has his second radio (if one has one) like it is appropriate on the 121. We had then listened to the ATIS for Augsburg. It should go to runway 25. We had already arranged an ILS approach to runway 25 with the controller when he contacted us at Donauwörth and said that runway 07 was now active. So then just the RNP approach. A bit confusing was then that there was a new ATIS with the same time and except for the active runway and identifier same data as the previous one. At least the time could still be changed.
After landing we went by car to Ulm, where the hotel is open for the first day again and the restaurants are also open. Here immediately also still with inside catering trade, which was completely good, because the city center was downright overcrowded with people, who wanted to go finally again out of the house to eat. And our confirmed self-test from the restaurant from last night in Mainz was also accepted.