Crossing Stansted and the Channel Part IV

This video is the fourth part of a long distance trip I made over the Easter weekend from Fricktal Schupfart (LSZI) near Basle in Switzerland to Wickenby (EGNW) near Lincoln in the United Kingdom to visit two friends. This was my first long distance cross country flight, my first international flight and my first flight across the English Channel.

For the trip I hired a Diamond DA40 HB-SDJ from the Motorfluggruppe Fricktal (MFGF).

This video shows the start of my return trip from Wickenby on the 19th of April. In this flight I fly from Wickenby (EGNW) to Calais (LFAC) doing a London Stansted (EGSS) overflight. Because of a cloud layer between 2000 and 3000 feet over most of England I was forced to remain low at around 1500 feet for most of the flight. This meant I had to make the Stansted crossing through the Stansted control zone requiring me to talk to both Essex Radar and Stansted Tower. At Dover the clouds disappeared allowing me to climb up to FL050 (roughly 5000 feet) for the Channel crossing.

At the start of the flight I accidentally lowered my flaps rather than raising them. I caught this mistake on downwind when I finally looked down at the flap indicator. The airspeed was still in the white band so there was no problem. Apart from that the flight went smoothly and my radio calls were much improved over my first flights on the trip.

The other parts of this series can be found here:

   • Flying Trip from Switzerland to England  

or individually

Part I Crossing the Channel
   • Flight from Switzerland to England Pa...  

Part II Crossing England
   • Flight from Switzerland to England Pa...  

Part III Crossing Lincoln
   • Sightseeing Flight over Lincolnshire ...  

Part IV Crossing Stansted and the Channel
   • Crossing Stansted and the Channel: Wi...  

Part V Crossing Calais
   • Departure from Calais (LFAC) in a Dia...