1st German Meeting - Schonhagen
August 2009
by Robert Rombouts, Belgium
Again as for the other Ercoupe Meetings, I drove in by car instead to fly, as it should be.
More than 70 days grounded by an endless Medical Control, I find it more and more stupidly ridiculous.Hartmut Beil organizes the first German Ercoupe Meeting at Schönhagen; EDAZ is situated south-west of Berlin. A wonderful airfield with an asphalt runway 07-25 of 1200mtr, surrounded with pine trees, very good restaurant, and very helpful and kind pilot atmosphere. Free landing fees for vintage aircrafts as the Ercoupe, a very magnificent-healthy-busy airfield with gliders, aircrafts and helicopters, also the home base of Hartmut.
When I was eating on the upper terrace, Hartmut went with his shiny polished 1946 Ercoupe N-3330H to the fuel station, in the afternoon he had to fly with his examinator his Biannual Flight Revue. When you see, his Coupe so perfectly maintained and technically, in perfect condition a beauty, you have to know that Hartmut is a technical adviser on the USA Yahoo Tech website. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ercoupe-tech/
We had together a good coffee, and Hartmut had a very nice commemorating pin for every Ercouper who attend the meeting.
Then we saw a yellow and black D-EHIR taxiing, Ernst Viehweger, coming from Merseburg EDAM. I was happy to meet him personally for the first time. He attended the 2007 Schaffen-Diest as in 2008 then with his Ercoupe, but I flew back to Ostend and missed him already twice. In addition, Rainer, Hartmut’s brother who just sold his Ercoupe, who I got to know during the Antwerp Fly-In in 2008.
It was a very nice meeting, friendly with only pilot’s talk. The main subject was “What must be done to have an Ercoupe meeting with a broader attendance”. To organize a meeting is a lot of work, waiting the all day without knowing who is coming is frustrating, why is it so difficult to answer “Yes” I am coming or “No” ?
Offering a good spot and an excuse to fly to, is all the organizers can offer, the rest is just making a nice route planning and fly with the wonderful Ercoupe, if the weather and your license is valid.Next years meeting in German will hopefully draw mare attendance, we all hope, CONGRATULATION and all our THANKS to Hartmut who had de courage to organize this meeting.
Regards, Robert
