Rembrance Day Weekend Somme flight.

[LesterBoffo]

I thought since we're probably all getting a little tired of flying around the Vosges and Rhine Valley, that we could go have a fighter aircraft themed Somme/Flanders flight.

I have a rough flight plan that involves several historic aerodromes in a roughly clockwise route starting at Calais. From Calais I think we'll head East a ways into occupied Belgium and then South to the the edge of the Marne front and Rheims, Soissons, and Compienge, and then North to Amiens and St. Omer and back to Calais.

Who's in?

P.S. Edited to update time and locations;

Time will be Saturday 11/12/16 at 17:00 UTC.

Planes would be any fighter aircraft from the great war that can be comfortably cruised at 85 knots.

[IAHM-COL]

I'll reserve 11/19/2016 for the USA tour ... if you don't mind.

[LesterBoffo]

No problem I am bit worried we'll have WWI plane overload by January if this keeps up.

[IAHM-COL]

January?

[LesterBoffo]

Well my poor brain is fizzing with several historical themed WWI events by the middle of January. My wife brought home a lot of Halloween goodies from work, I'm on a bit of a sugar buzz.

[LesterBoffo]

I've roughed out our itinerary with 7 maps. The flight plan is to visit old airfields either still extant, or that were significant to the Somme Offensive and it's closing days. The reason the Somme Offensive was important to aviation history was that a lot of drastic evolution in aircraft design and weaponry were forged in the crucible of that bloodbath. Make no mistake, it was among the worst battle for loss of life and waste of material for gain of the whole war. But aircraft designs which entered the war as rickety, and flimsy kites with engines that were very unreliable, gave way to designs and technology of drastic improvement. It was not just the plane's tech that changed for the better, but the introduction of operations and squad tactics that focused on the inherent strengths of numbers and co-operation with ground forces through radio technology and improvement in offensive and defensive tactics that gave an edge to the Allied air forces after the shock of the Fokker Scourge.

First off we should chose fighter planes that can a comfortable cruise at over 80~85 knots, this will be a rather longish trip but we'll have few stops.

We start at Calais LFAC. I'll let the maps show the route.



The route follow the North Sea coast which had a number of airfields both Entente and German, the area of no-man's land abruptly started at about Neiuwpoort and ended at Westende-Bad. Oestende was a submarine port for Germany and was a target of the Entente forces, it also had a couple of elite German fighter squads stationed nearby at Mariakerke and Ghistel. At Oestende we tun more South easterly and then turn at Brugges to the South-SouthEast and arrive at Ghent were the giant Zeppelins, their enormous hangars and two observation and bombing squads were stationed.



From Ghent we head WSW to Roselaare, which was home to another elite fighter squadron and the first airfield of the Schlasta two-seater fighter-light bombers like the Roland C.II. From Roselaare to Lille, home of the Eindekker KEK which Max Immelmann and Oswald Boelke both flew from before being re-stationed to the Verdun area.



From Lille it's now South through the heart of the Somme valley and the most heavily fought over sections of the front to Douai, Bapaume, Perrone and Ham, both of the later two changed hands a couple times over the entire length of the war.



From Ham the flight heads SE to Fismes, another German fighter squadron airfield, and then we take a break at Reims to refuel and rest, which has a really large present day airfield, and was used extensively during the pre-WWI pioneering era and as a staging depot for pilots and planes being flown to Alsace, Lorraine, Verdun, the Marne, Somme and Nord Pas de Calais.

To be continued..

[LesterBoffo]

Picking up from our NorthWesterly flight from Reims, we make our ways obliquely to the Somme valley as wends it's was towards Amiens Where there was a concentration of elite fighter squadrons stationed in aerodromes like Chacy, Bertangles, Villers-Bretonneux, Doullens, Cappy and Bellevie. A large mix of both French and British squads based about 15 miles West from the front lines. Squadrons that took the brunt of most of the offensive and defensive flights of the Somme battle. We make our turn north at Amiens.




And we follow the rail-line paralleling the route from Amiens to St. Omer. and all the old aerodromes that once were part of the landscape. From Doullens we head to Auchel and then N-NW to St. Omer, which was the first stop of any British RFC and RNAS aircraft or personnel headed to the front, it was a major air material depot and operation dispersal center, it was a favorite target of German bomber squads during the later part of the conflict.



And from St. Omer we make our wayward way back to Calais, visiting some front-line French and Belgium squadron airfields at Poperinghe and Honschoote, then to the NW and Calais where we land, get some screen-shots to finish our tour up.

[LesterBoffo]

Started out with AVA028 and Keith and picked up a couple more as the route progressed..

pilot 737 joined us at Gontrode. and then Mattila At Roselare and charter-one near our end of the flight at Reims. We ended up cutting it short and only flew to Reims, with a lowering ceiling and bad visibility. The weather was getting pretty crappy at the start, spotty rain along the North Sea Coast and then solid overcast and lower ceilings unto we were flying in patchy low clouds and heavy fog few miles past the Somme. We also got hindered by a steady 13 knot headwind that really messed with the Albatros's fuel range.

It was a good flight otherwise, any time you can fly in VFR with some view of the ground.

[jwocky]

Gaaaah, I so wish, I had more time ...

[IAHM-COL]

Gaaaah, I so wish, I had more time ...

+1