That's weird and not a fair fine for a mega star! Reykjavík, Iceland

Reykjavík, Iceland Day 25. 16/July/2014 That’s weird and not a fair fine for a mega star! Day score 9. Today I had to cycle back to see Thurket again at the Icelandic Air Accident Investigation Branch, drop of the aircraft docs I had forgot and get my coat back which I had also forgot. I’m doing a lot of forgetting things recently? It must be due to my exhaustion. When I arrived there he wasn’t in and one of his colleagues said he was away on leave due to an illness. I told this colleague that I had seen him yesterday and agreed to meet at 10 this morning. This was seemingly news to him. Thurket duly arrived just after 10. I had a report to write and sign that Thurket brought from home being a special English version. I showed him the documents and also the data logger file. He loaded it up on his computer and I showed him how you could view it live on Google Earth, I couldn’t on my slow old laptop but he had a super duper machine with two huge screens. As I started the simulation I could show, that this is where I descended, this is where I entered cloud, this is when I climbed back out and so on. I had put this flight out of my mind and the computer screen depiction was real enough to bring it all flooding back. Heck, I had been lucky, I didn’t know quite how close I was to the cliffs when I finally turned away because I couldn’t see them in cloud. He was fascinated by my tiny little logger and said everyone should have one… Everything was ok, but now he mentioned that there was a thought from a friend of his down town at the actual CAA offices that my plane needed a special permission to fly in Iceland, because it only has a permit to fly not a full Certificate of Airworthiness issued by our Civil Aviation Authority. He asked since I was on my bike if I would ride down into town where the Icelandic CAA were, to sort this out. When leaving I discussed his colleagues view that he was ill and would not be here today. He had damaged his arm while skiing I believe and he was off to see the German Grand prix now. We talked about the F1 cars and the drivers and had similar views. I cycled down to the CAA offices. Indeed they showed me their web site which confirmed I needed their special permit permission doc. They were concerned that I hadn’t got one as they issue quite a few and wondered why I had not applied? I could get it there and it wouldn’t cost much. The thing was, I had never read this in their AIP. All countries issue their Air Information Publication, which includes all information and requirements about flying around in their countries airspace. I asked them for a copy and to find where it mentions this permit. It wasn’t in there. Arha! There was no request or direction to their CAA web site from the Icelandic AIP. I stood with a smug smile on my face until after 15 minutes, one of the three people looking through their AIP eventually found a little paragraph in a sub section explaining about the special permit. What happened seemingly was that most people get an expensive ‘Airspace Clearing Agency’ to sort out all the required permissions and clearance and they know about this permit. I had done it myself, found the words in their AIP where it said “There are no special permissions required” and stopped reading and went on to the next country. Had I continued reading through their AIP, I might have found the little paragraph about the necessity for the permit, but I doubt it… This highlighted a problem to them and had everyone confused. Yet again there was a problem for me and they agreed that it didn’t make sense the way it was explained in their AIP and they would have it changed. Possibly I had highlighted a loop hole in their system that they needed to change. This took hours by the way, before I had paid and left. It cost 19,960 Krona. Hang on, that’s £100. What for? The aircraft was no different to any other, they had not come and inspected Itzy? It was just like fine for the hell of it… Argh!!! It wasn’t really fair! I cycled back through the old town which was nice. Back at the field I was welcomed as some type of mega star??? The interview had been out on the internet news last night and someone found it on the web and displayed it on the large weather screen for all to watch. Apparently it was well received. I had my Charlatans hoody on and they played Charlatans as back ground music. It mentioned Geirfugl and everyone was smiling as it was translated for me. So… Hurkur phoned me to say he had my tank and new bank car and would drive them over. I needed to pay him for the extra tax on the freight of the reserve fuel tank and for the new fuel cap for his POS car, so he offered me a drive to the bank to get some money and to show me more of the city. The bank card worked and I also used it to buy ice-cream for him and his 3 year old daughter, who accompanied us. The ice cream came from a popular ice cream parlour down by the dock side. I waved a very fond goodbye back at the field and went back to the flying club to take my mountain bike apart and box it and plan the around Iceland trip. This took till 4am though. I’m shattered and tired and torn. Having a great time but also really saddened by the weather… It’s raining again now… Thought for the day: Another problem for the journey. It wasn’t really my fault about this permit, but again it doesn’t look good on my behalf. Oh well!

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