"ZULU-PAPA DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO DECLARE?"

 "No, we are only going to KUMLINGE AIRPORT for lunch"!

Yes, that´s how simple it was to take care of the formalities for a very nice trip in the air to a little different place. Not far from Bromma/Stockholm. Flying time 50 minutes. Lunch ordered at Länsmans Värdshus before take off. After we touched ground we called Lasse Åkerblom at the Inn, and he just came and picked us up for a little tour to the interesting church before lunch.

Around a year ago I read a broschure about Åland where it said the island of Kumlinge has an airstrip. I asked several qualified pilots whether it was easy to get there. I even called SPAF for more detailed information about rules and regulations. What I found out wasn´t particurlarly attractive. You couldn´t fly straight to Kumlinge! They were totally convinced about that. "First you´ve got to go down in Mariehamn to declare and even pay a landing fee. Then you´ll have the same procedure on your way back."  Expensive and complicated I thought. So I didn´t go. You trust those experienced guys, even if I had been to Kärdla/Dagö - all on my own. But then Per showed up and he thought Kumlinge sounded very interesting. He booked SE-KZP and called in a route plan. On Thursday Oct 5 at 12.55 we took off. My GPS Lowrance 300 showed direction 057 and distance 101 nm. In OK weather and with a weak tail wind ZP hummed at 110 knots and everything was perfect. Mariehamn wanted radial and distance off and on, so it didn´t seem they saw us on the radar. But that was easy to deliver to them since ZP has DME. The we just had to aim for the right island, and there are many of them in the archipelago of Åland. The GPS was exact and the strip showed up nice. A strip of asphalt surrounded by green grass, and ended by the water. Then we just had to touch ground in the beginning of RW 15 because it´s not particurlarly long, just 600 m.