Stu Savory in his PA28
Majesty of flight

Flying our 1969 Piper PA28-140 "Foxy Lady" D-EHFS to our favourite airfields around Europe.

(c) Stu Savory
Secret Island Idyll Secret Island Idyll We like to fly to small islands, like this one. I won't tell you where it is ;-) . The landing strip is a grass field right on the beach. So just park the plane and go swimming ;-) Or visit the stark beauty of WWW Symbol Fairisle, out in the North Sea. N.B: Another tip : if you are brave/foolhardy enough to jump without a parachute, make sure you are high enough above the clouds that your trusted partner has time to hand you one on the way down :-)
Bulldog-Beach Bulldog-Beach. One of the (other) islands to which we love to fly is Juist, where Wilma loves the seven miles of sandy beach. WWW Symbol Juist (EDWJ) just an hour's hop away. I have flown to rum places in Afrika, but the two hairiest airfields visited, really only for aficionados, were first,WWW Symbol Barra (57° 01.5' N, 07° 26.4'W) which is a sandbank in the Sea of the Hebrides and so only there at low tide and second, WWW Symbol Meribel (45° 24.4' N, 06°34.8 E) which is 5600 ft up in the french alps, only 400 yards long but with a crosswise slant up a steep slope with a blind approach & a vertical cliff at the end! Not something for a simple bush pilot ;)
Homeward bound Homeward bound This photo of me was taken by Gisela whilst I was formating on Anton's Bölkow 207 one day. Look closely, and you can see me waving! Did you ever wonder how the Mooney got its name? Take a look at the very first flying Mooney here!
Or listen to a Merlin engine on a fly-by of (not this Wing-Commander) Little Spitfire;-)
BTW: Hier ist ein Foto von ein paar Hoch- und Langstreckenflieger, Bekannte von MIR.

Foxy Lady down :(

Flying: For over 25 years I flew D-EHFS, a Piper 28-140, for several thousand hours. She served us reliably and well for that quarter century. On 25/6/1999, heavy-hearted, I sold her to a man who was to station her in southern Spain. Yesterday, In the accident report log for Germany, I read that "our" Foxy Lady had been crashed on 07/08/2000. The 2 line summary read: D-EHFS, a Piper PA-28-140 (s/n 28-26460), crashed after take-off from Portimao, Algarve, Portugal, and burst into flames. 4 injured (w/o). Goodbye Foxy Lady, you served us well. I can only guess what might have happened. If there were 4 people on board on a hot August day in southern Portugal, then she was probably overloaded. Although I had a hook on her (to tow sailplanes), she had a speed-prop mounted when I sold her, not the climb-prop. She had long-range tanks, which, if filled, reduced her to being - at most - a 3-seater. It was a good habit to check weight-and-balance before each flight, and, depending on the length and condition of the runway/field, calculate the starting run too, taking density altitude into consideration. Another pilot may not have done all that.

BTW: as a CFI (certified flying instructor) I always like to read about - and learn from - the stupid things other pilots do. The good news is that the registration number D-EHFS has now been 'recycled' and is proudly borne by a new Cessna Skyhawk at the DFS Flying Club in Egelsbach. I wish them as much pleasure with their incarnation of D-EHFS as we had with ours, all those long years.

Stu Savory in his PA28

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