What a miserable day. Fog, rain .... and overcast in 700 feet. Really not a day for flying? Well, not so fast. Beautiful sun expected us in 3500 ft after popping skywards out of the clouds and a wonderful flight to Mannheim for a meeting. In Mannheim was CAVOK, btw, and took Lolchen only 50 min to get there in 14,000 feet.
The way back in 9000 feet was also extremely nice - too bad I forgot my sunglasses - until the approach to Kassel airport. A solid "undercast" which looked like a snowy mountain ski piste, made me realize again how important a second engine is. What would you do now if you have a single engine airplane and the engine quits? Or even "only" the damn suction pump, the alternator or whatsoever. True the airplane would still fly without the suction pump, but how about your approach without the instruments? Or the alternator? Yep the battery provides juice for 20 min, which means you are running out of radios, gps, dme, and loc just at the moment you dive into the clouds and you badly need those. No way, it's an insurance. It costs 8Gph and it's worthit.
Here is a nice small Video from the flight (direction Mannheim):
