Castellon de la Plana   LECN

Date of Visit = July 1998

Pilot: = Chris Belton

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

Field Report = We arrived from the west, over the mountains, which is quite unnecessary. Most sane people go down the coast, especially with a fully loaded C150. This is how we got there: The Bottlang Area Chart of Madrid saw us safely past Quatro Vientos and Getafe airports and into the arid plains of Castilla-la-Mancha. I had intended to file an airborne flightplan rather than battle with the payphone, but the frequency was too busy, and we got no answer from the other one we were given. By now, all transmissions were breaking up because of the hills, so we never did file the flightplan, which wasn’t very clever in view of the desolate terrain. In God and in the Continental engine... We climbed steadily to pass south of some 6,500 foot mountains. The only diversion field was Sotos, a god-forsaken fire-fighting and emergency strip in the mountains just north of Cuenca, and definitely not for the faint-hearted. We struggled up to 5,000 feet, in temperatures 25 degrees above ISA, barely clearing the 4000+ foot mountain range. Poor little Cessna. Fortunately there were no strong winds, and the weather was good VFR. With no CHT gauge, it was difficult to know how much to lean the mixture.

Photo: John Hardy

After what seemed like an age, we began descending, and eventually picked out the two tall chimneys next to Castellón airport, which is separated from the beach only by a road. As we descended, a strange smell filled the air, like a boiling kettle. We landed and stepped out into the steamy humidity of our first Costa!

Photo: John Hardy

We were forgiven the failed flightplan, and Enrique and Herminia made us most welcome, at a price even we could afford, at the Golf course hotel (there is no camping on the airfield). They are both pilots, and the airport office has the details and will telephone and book you in. We had no proper bathing clothes, and dared not go for a dip in this choice resort in our scruffy jeans and tee-shirts - or indeed without them. Pity, because the hotel is two minutes from the beach. Instead we sat and drank a bottle of wine, which simply made us hotter and sweatier.

There is fuel at the airfield, though at present this is not mentioned in the Bottlang Airfield Manual.

Photo: John Hardy