I think I can safely say that none of the Marine Corp came to our aid during the trek here.

They have been delegated to be our fume breathers.

Little mermaid, to your question "Are you a pilot" I had to look back to my aviation carreer. A few pictures to illustrate it:

The Pilatus P3-05 an excellent plane. It is a military fighter training plane from the 50's. Heavy, very noisy and underpowered when flown with a passenger, but excellent for ballistic aerobatic flying. Gobbles a lot of oil and fuel, pretty expensive to fly. I logged around 20 hours flying time in this plane.



Yes this me


A ballistic corkscrew aerobatic figure.


Next the Piper Cherokee. An excellent plane for travelling. Logged 45 hours in this one. It has one of the best capacities in terms of passenger and load carrying. Flew from Switzerland to Italy, France, Corsica with it. The painting scheme is Breitling's as the company paid for the repaint as a sponsor.



The next one is the CAP 10C (Carbon wing version). I got my license in this one. Logged about 23 hours flying time in that one. Just for you to understand what it means, an aerobatic flying program where you chain figures lasts about 10 to 15 minutes were you can take a lot of positive and negative g's. My weight being 90 kilos getting 5g means that you have to carry a weight of 450 kilos. Better be in excellent cardiac health. The passenger you see is my elder kid. Passengers are right seat, and PIC left seat. He came out of curiosity but was not really enthralled by the experience. I did a mild program and ended with a 3 turn spin (at his request).



Then comes the PA18 equipped with skis. I did a lot of glacier flying during the last period of my activity. I logged 26 hours in that plane. Landed and took off from 11 different glaciers, and in total made 241 landings and take-offs.
I can say that it is probably the only flying activity that remains were you fly like at the beginnings of flight. No instruments, only the eye, the feeling and experience. It is probably the flying that has a share of real danger. You fly in hostile places but of wild beauty. Deep dark blue sky at over 12'000 feet. Freezing cold but a marvelous silence only broken by the cracking ice of the glacier.



This picture is to give you the feeling about how an insignificant speck we are with our plane compared to the nature that is behind us. This picture was taken by me as I was approaching a glacier from where a plane was taking off.



The Mont Blanc



This is the Diamond DA-40 diesel, running on jetA fuel (kerosene). I just put this picture because diesel motors in aviation was a novelty and our club did buy a few of them. In the US it has stirred a lot of debate but it did not take. In Europe avgas is so expensive that flying with jetfuel is a big reduction in flying costs. Maintenance is also less expensive and the engine being turbocompressed it maintains its rated power at a higher altitude. This plane is also completely in synthetic material (fiber). Very light easy to fly and an excellent panoramic view. But it has little load carrying capacity due to a relativeley low power engine.



In total I logged 363 hours when I stopped flying in June 2008. I have logged 989 landings and take-offs just short of the thousand. Qualified in 13 different planes.
I stopped for two main reasons.
The first is that my passion was very solitary as my wife is afraid about planes and flying, and my kids were not interested. They did fly with me a few times but I suppose just to make me happy and for the experience. My little one flew often with me but as he grew older was interested by other things.
So now I bought a boat big enough for the whole family (9mt cabin motor crusier) and guess what?
My two kids, my doughter and my wife, all passed their boat license and love it.

The second one is for professional reasons. I simply did not have enough time to spare. I started flying really a lot for business. Some years I logged as a passenger over 100 flights point-point. Those who saw the film with George Clooney "Up in the Air" might get the idea. I was not so extreme but I found in the film many things I could relate to. So when you are back at home for the week end the only thing I wanted to do is just stay with the family.

Before I close this post a last picture, back from a flight over the alps you have the lake of Geneva (lac Leman) at your feet.



P.S.
I plan to start flying again but with Ultralights. It will be in France, because ultralights are forbidden in Switzerland.

You just gotta love that scenery Hypernova.

Spent 2 years stationed in Northern Italy and made trips to Austria almost every weekend to visit my grandparents and family near Salzburg. They lived about 40 Kilometers East of Salzburg in Bad Ischel. Always loved the drive from Italy to their house through the Alps. I really do need to visit again soon.

Got three new servers in and before they go into production, a little test
Not even close to Hypernova numbers but loving it while it lasts


Date Total Run Time(y:d:h:m:s) Points Results
02/07/2012 0:054:04:49:14 144,435 134 <-half day!
02/06/2012 0:073:07:37:14 201,942 192
02/05/2012 0:079:00:58:59 214,002 202
02/04/2012 0:063:07:14:44 177,931 173
02/03/2012 0:060:20:32:08 166,906 201
02/02/2012 0:054:19:38:06 148,522 213
02/01/2012 0:048:14:11:28 133,565 254
01/31/2012 0:061:08:51:45 171,211 266
01/30/2012 0:053:11:51:32 140,827 143
01/29/2012 0:058:07:08:16 160,294 194
01/28/2012 0:039:18:57:04 107,263 136
01/27/2012 0:023:09:18:00 58,248 73
01/26/2012 0:017:23:42:44 29,735 40
01/25/2012 0:013:16:47:59 26,010 35

be nice if the new project started soon...