Bergen (Flesland)   ENBR

Date of Visit = July 1997

Pilot: = Chris Belton

e-mail = chris@yarboo.freeserve.co.uk

Field Report =

A friendly, civilised place with spectacular scenery, but the flying is tough.

We arrived in Norway in the the C150 from Thisted in Denmark, after a memorable flight over the 80 NM wide Skagerrak in that clear air which follows a cold front. We had reason later to curse the front as we set off direct across the mountains. That same wind which sped us on our way gaily tossed us about all over the sky.

The mountains were never more than 4,000 feet, and the tops were flat, as if someone had rubbed them flat with a giant piece of sandpaper, but the fissures which opened up between them were awe-inspiring, as was the resulting turbulence. We were in the usual catch-22 situation: we couldn't fly higher without permission, since there were TMA's and airways over much of the track, but we couldn't get the permission because, with the mountains in the way, we were too low to talk to anybody.

The mountains also interfered with the VOR tracking, as did the fact that Flesland (Bergen) VOR had changed frequency and I had the wrong one dialed in because I had not studied the Notams properly.

Eventually we managed to position ourselves south of the airfield at the first of several island reporting points shown on the VFR approach plate in the Bottlang Airfield Manual. This is a busy airport with lots of helicopter movements, so you have to get it right, but they were very helpful. The worst part was the landing. The approach plate warns of windshear on short finals in certain wind conditions: they must have been spot-on, because never in my life have I had such a scary landing.

The photo of the approach is the only one to show the ground horizontal! In a previous life I used to ride bucking broncos, which was good preparation, but I'm still not sure how I ever got it down in one piece.

I exchange e-mails with a girl who flies out of Stavanger, and I get the impression that these conditions are not uncommon in Norway!

I was visiting a friend who was working at the airport, so I stayed in a big expensive hotel just down the road. I don't think much is cheap in Norway though.

The cooked food was lousy - a big greasy mess of chopped up sausage and yesterday's cold veg all fried up together and served at breakfast every day. The best things were the bread, sausages, fish and cheese, especially the geitost, which tastes like goat-flavoured fudge. Except at breafast, the above are best washed down with Akevitt, which tastes of caraway seeds.

We never did find any decent Norwegian cooking. We had roast reindeer in Bergen, which was OK but well stewed, and in desperation allowed ourselves to be tempted by what was a parody of English fish and chips, i.e. a mini-portion of dried up fish buried in breadcrumbs, and chips out of the freezer. I think we'd have been better off at one of the proper fish restaurants around the docks, but they were expensive.

They give you free samples of smoked whale-meat on Bergen market, but you can't live on that.. Eventually we compromised and ate at a cheap but good pizza shop on the edge of town. What a let-down!

There is a splendid view and lovely woodland on the mountain behind Bergen, reached by the funicular. When we got back to the car, we found the carpark closed for the night and a notice saying you had to pay a fortune to get someone out to open it. It was the company car and we had to get it out, so we rang the number, and someone came and opened up - for free! I borrowed the car the next day to go and see some scenery, but there didn't seem to be any little roads leading off into the mountains - I think they'd have had to be vertical. We sailed off down this big fast road and got hopelessly lost, ending up almost in tears in the carpark of the mental hospital - wherever we went we seemed to come back to that point, having in our confusion also gone through a toll payment point - without paying of course. And, boo-hoo, of course I don't speak Norwegian (the Norwegians, unlike the Swedes, tend not to speak English) . All the roads seemed to be toll roads. When you did eventually get clear of Bergen the problems disappeared, and the scenery was spectacular.

Without the company to foot his hotel bill, my travelling companion looked likely to run up a hefty bill, but the Bergen Aero Klubb stepped in and let him stay in the clubroom, where he earned his keep by doing the washing up, and where we all spent many a happy hour drinking coffee and discussing aeroplanes. I noticed that their aircraft rental rates were cheaper than in the UK, perhaps partly because of the cheap fuel (about 0.5 GBP per litre) and the cheaper insurance (their insurance was with Hiscox, now HBSC, and I did manage to knock a couple of hundred pounds off the premium by moving our insurance over to them, but it was still dearer than in Norway for some reason).

On the way out we wanted to fly over the Folgefonni, the "Place of Eternal Snow", but we were in the wrong aircraft: we'd need to climb to 7,500 feet to be clear of the turbulence, and with full tanks I reckon that would have taken about an hour, so we tracked across the foothills near the coast until we reached 5,500 feet and could head direct for Kristiansand.

Bergen airport