Airborne Over the Alps

Sion Runway

When we were here last July Steve looked up the American Bonanza Society roster and met Daniel online. Daniel is a part owner of a Bonanza, which is the type of plane that we have. All July they tried to get together. Daniel offered Steve a ride in his plane which is hangared in Sion a town with a towered  airport about 40 minutes east of Lausanne. Due to one thing and another,  it never happened. They were in touch again when we returned in March but Daniel's plane was in for servicing.

This time the adventure happened. Daniel still could not make it but he set us up with a friend of his.  Steve, Zoë & I drove to Sion and met Paolo, an ex Italian airforce flyer. We were just a tad nervous flying with a complete stranger, but his confident air, flying credentials, thorough checkout of the plane, his good looks, Italian charm and delightful accent won us over.

Zoe and the Robin

Paolo at the Controls

The plane was a four seat French made model called a Robin. It was optimized for mountain flying with a 200 horsepower engine to insure a high rate of climb. It had a glass canopy which made it perfect for sightseeing. It had a cute little Swiss flag painted on the tail. The Robin was outfiitted with instrumentls much like our plane and had a simple GPS. 













Sion Airport  is located on the valley floor of the Valais surrounded by the Alps. This includes Swiss, French and Italian  mountains. The air traffic controllers speak in English or in  whichever language the pilot speaks. The runway is long enough for the Swiss military to use it for practice runs. We saw several F16 taking off while we were getting ready. 

We flew for just under an hour and saw awesome scenery including the Matterhorn, Monte Rosa, and Mt. Blanc and several glaciers. I will let the photos tell the rest of the story. It was a special experience for all of us. Steve thinks he will wait a while before attempting to fly this terrain.

Landing at Sion