April 14th 2006: Flying to Benghazi
We got up at 7 AM and wanted to leave the hotel at 8. Alex phoned from the airport that they had some problems to get fuel and we should wait. So we waited in the hotel lobby until 09:30 when the OK from the airport came that our planes where refuelled and we could come.
While waiting we where discussing the possible routes to Benghazi. We where told that we couldn’t get fuel in Sirte and we had to plan a direct flight to our destination. Some pilots where concerned about the distance of over 800 km and the fuel consumption of the planes. It also looked like that we would have some head winds.
We had no problems to get to our planes where we received the flight plans. The routing was along the coast to Sirte and then over the sea directly to Benghazi. After the meteo we even had a little bit of tail wind.
Take off was sort of chaotic. Pierre and Bernard took off first and took a direct heading over the sea towards Benghazi where they landed after two hours.
We had to wait a long time for the take off clearance. After take off we followed the coast towards Leptis Magna at 1500 ft. We then flew a long the coast line to Sirte and for a short time over the sea. After 3.5 hours we arrived in Benghazi where we landed on the runway 33R. The controller told us to watch out for a plane beside the runway. It was Claude that had a flat tire.
We refuelled all the planes, had something to eat in a fast food place and a short visit in the city before checking into our hotel.
Image gallery:
Visiting Benghazi
Benghazi is not a very nice place. The streets are really dirty and there is not much to see.
Image gallery:
