La Gomera’s former aerodrome El Revolcadero was closed so far for more than 25 years. The visit of this place has been on my bucket for more than 7 years, and now I finally decided to move on and make it happen. Just wanted to travel back in time and see how it looked liked there some 30 years ago.
The aerodrome was officially opened on the 24th of April 1959 and the first plane landed on the aerodrome was a Piper PA23-160 Apache (EC-ALQ), which landed at El Revolcadero on the 15th of July 1959.
El Revolcadero aerodrome, La Gomera
The runway was 500m long and at both ends it counts with up-sloping “stopways” helping the planes to slow down after the landing and most probably to help to gain speed during the initial take off run as well.
El Revolcadero aerodrome, La Gomera
The runway designation was 27/09, same as the new airport which can be seen on the next cliff behind the old aerodrome.
El Revolcadero aerodrome, La Gomera
The aerodrome (still) counts with a small hangar, tower and a small power plant building.
The old tower at El Revolcadero aerodrome, La GomeraThe old tower at El Revolcadero aerodrome, La GomeraViews from the old tower at El Revolcadero aerodrome, La GomeraThreshold Runway 27 at El Revolcadero aerodrome
It’s just a fascinating piece of history, you just need to imagine that people were passing during years through the airport.
Hangar at El Revolcadero airfield, La GomeraInside the hangar at El Revolcadero airfield, La Gomera
During the last years I flew a lot of times by, and need to admit that I’d love to land at the aerodrome or to see again some signs of “life” there.
The place, where the time stands still… Quiet… Visited by some curious tourists now and then, and by the goats.
Goats seem to be the only passengers…
Unfortunately, there is not much information to be found about this aerodrome on internet, nor images of the planes at the aerodrome, nor the date when it was closed. But definitely at least some 25 years ago, as the new airport started their operations back in 1999.
So enjoy some more images and the video of this experience, and for those who’d like to know how to get to El Revolcadero, you can find it here.
El Revolcadero aerodrome, La GomeraAerial view at the hangar at El RevolcaderoEl Revolcadero aerodrome, La GomeraEl Revolcadero aerodrome, La GomeraDebris on the runwayEl Revolcadero aerodrome, La GomeraEl Revolcadero aerodrome, La GomeraRunway at El Revolcadero aerodrome, La GomeraThreshold Runway 27 at El Revolcadero aerodromeLooking at the tower from the power stationThe old tower at El Revolcadero aerodrome, La GomeraThe old tower at El Revolcadero aerodrome, La GomeraThe old tower at El Revolcadero aerodrome, La GomeraThe old tower at El Revolcadero aerodrome, La GomeraHangar at El Revolcadero airfield, La GomeraInside the hangar at El Revolcadero airfield, La GomeraEl Revolcadero, La GomeraHangar at El Revolcadero airfield, La GomeraThreshold RWY 09 at El Revolcadero airfieldWalking down to El Revolcadero airfield at La GomeraEl Revolcadero aerodrome, La GomeraThis is what left from the access road to El Revolcadero aerodrome
It’s been a while since my last post… In the coming weeks I’ll post some updates about the news from the last months… 🙂
If you ever wondered what the expression “Death Grip” means, here is the visual answer for this :-). When I took this image, this expression just came through my mind, so here it comes!
However, in aviation this means that the pilot is squeezing the yoke very hard while flying the airplane. This happens to a lots of pilots, especially when you fly a plane for the first time, or you don’t feel very comfortable.
First, what is actually calima. Calima is (mostly) hot, dust and sand laden wind blowing from Sahara from easterly direction. This wind causes a lot of respiratory problems, brings dust, the visibility drops and sometimes this causes problems in the aviation (like in the year 2020, when the airports around the islands had to be closed during several days).
I was flying today (again) around Tenerife and as we wanted to stay above this calima layer and get some better visibility, we have climbed up to 6.500 feet where we broke out of the sand and were flying above it in the nice, clean air…
More than 1.050 shares in 4 days on Facebook, and still sharing… 😀 The strange thing is even when you don’t expect the image is going to be liked, and the audience loves it!
I didn’t get any richer with this, but it’s simply nice that the image had such a huge success 😀
So, I think this would be the best shot ever taken by myself, at least it’s what the audience thinks 😉
The most of us are flying to enjoy the 100$ hamburgers. In Spain we could speak about something similar, as for example “100$ paella”.
My last flight went to La Palma, together with my friend Daldo and his wife Virginia as passenger.
Today’s crew
I was flying the inbound leg and we were cruising at 8,500-9,000 feet. Pretty nice views over the Atlantic Ocean, the sea was very calm, but we were having some headwinds of 20 kts which made this flight a bit longer and of course a bit more expensive ;-), that is why I speak about 200€ paella ;-).
Some different views of Tenerife
Actually I enjoy flying high(er), as there is normaly less turbulence and you can enjoy better views. Also, in the case of an engine failure, the range of possibities of gliding or trying to restart it, are better, as you gain time. And also, you feel like you are flying a real arliner ;-). So there are only a advantages of flying at higher altitudes.
Cruising at 8,600 feet (Sorry for the bad quality)
The icing was forecasted for this day at 9,000 feetm the OAT was around 2 degrees, but no ice was forming on the wings. We were cheching it constantly, for just in case, however we were not flying in the clouds and the day was pretty sunny as well.
Passing La Gomera island
Cruising over the Atlantic ocean at 9,500″
Reaching La Palma island we have maintained 9,000 feet and made some cloudsurfing. The weather forecast for today was some rain and also a front was comming from NW. We have decided to do this flight anyway, as the visibility was ok, no clouds were in sight, and in the case the weather would starting to change, we would return back to our base airport.
Flying over the clouds, reaching La Palma island
Cloudsurfing over La Palma and the rainbow
After this short cloudsurfing, we have started our descent to the visual point Sierra, in the south of the island. Being so high took as a while to descent and make some nice manouvers between the clouds.
Descending through the clouds
Finaly after 1,30 hour long flight we have landed at the La Palma’s “El Mazo Airport”. This airport is considered one of the world’s most complicated approaches, however with its 2,2 km long runway it is nothing special for our Piper ;-).
Seconds before landing at La Palma
Our Piper was parked as it should on a nice place, where even an Airbus 330/340 could be parked. A realy big honor for this plane ;-).
Just a quick selfie to prove that the Piper was parked on the A330 stand and that I was there as well 😉
We knew, that we had not much time, as the storm was comming sooner or later, so we have decided to go quickly to the restaurant Casa Goyo, situated under the extended centerline of the runway, just between the extended centerline´s lights. They have a lot of specialities, good quality-price relationship and also very good seafood. This restaurant is situated in a walking distance from the airport, some 10 minutes.
Restaurante Casa Goyo La Palma
It consists of small wooden houses, where you can sit, or small rooms, where you can enjoy some privacy as well. We had some paella, which was already ready and we didn’t had to wait, as we had to be pretty quick. So to come over to La Palma to eat this small plate of paella costs around 200€ ;-); not to shabby 😉
Inside the restuarant (bad qualiry foto, grrr)
This one is better 😉 Waiting for the paella.
After the lunch we took a taxi (6€) and we hurried up back to the airport to pay the taxes (18€), made our new flight plane and departed direction Tenerife. There were pretty much clouds than earlier this day, so Daldo had to climb up to 10,000 feet and fly around the clouds to avoid them. The views were even more spectacular.
Cruising at 9,700″ Pretty awesome, isn’t it?
Flying between the clouds
Flying over clouds at 9,700″
The north coast of Tenerife can be seen through the clouds
Anaga
On final RWY 30 at Tenerife North Airport
Only a couple of minutes later after our landing, when the plane was parked outside the hangar, it started to rain and the visibility dropped down significantly. This was a perfect planning, in the other case we would have had diverted to the alternative Tenerife south airport.
The Piper is parked outside the hangar and the rain is comming
A short video of the descent, cloudsurfing, approach and landing at the La Palma Airport. The Gopro has been mounted on tail of the plane.
Just a quick post over my landing at El Berriel aerodrome in Gran Canarias a couple of weeks ago… It has been a time ago that I have landed at this aerodrome, and it is famous for windshear, so my first attempt for landing was not succesfull and I had to made a go around for the second attempt.
On this day the gopro was mounted on the belly of the plane, so it offers a nice views of what is happening under us… On the following picture, you can see the views over the El Berriel aerodrome.
View over El Berriel aerodrome
During the second attempt I stayed sligtly to the right from the centerline, had to make some corrections, and finaly was a little faster than I should have been. As the field has only 800 mtrs., I didn’t wanted to spend more time flaring the plane and wanted to come down faster; so the result was a bounced landing: 3 landings at price of 1 ;-). As the gopro was mounted on the belly, you can count the number of landings by yourself 🙂
Beeing a privat pilot gives you the wings to move free in the sky and see the earth and its beauties from a bird’s eye view… Here are some images taken during my flights in the Canaries…
Pico del Teide, Tenerife
Smudge of the underwater vulcano @El Hierro, november 2011
El Revolcadero, former La Gomera’s Airport
Lighthouse Punta Teno, Tenerife
Lighthouse “Faro de Punta Orchilla”, El Hierro
Volcano, North Fuerteventura
Lighthouse “Faro de Anaga”, Tenerife
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Isla de Lobos, Fuerteventura, Corralejo
Of course there are much more pictures I could publish and also there are still a lot of new places to see…
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