At the invitation of Hermann Diebold (and son Christian) we headed back to Degerfeld on a warm, still, blue Wednesday evening. It's hard to overstate how beautiful this airfield is. You've probably seen many pictures or videos, but they don't do it justice. Nestled in the foothills of the Swabian Alps, close to many lovely traditional villages Degerfeld's runway runs roughly East/West and slopes downhill towards the West. On this evening, with no wind at all we could take off downhill, and land uphill. Perfect.
There are currently three Jungmann and one Jungmeister at Degerfeld. One Jungmann is Tigre powered and painted black, one rather famous Jungmann is painted in a Christen Eagle style scheme while D-EFMH, the aircraft we are to fly today is Lycoming powered and red.
Hermann's Jungmeister is spectacular. It's one of the aircraft built by Bitz and Carl Bücker in the 1960s as part of the project started by Jack Canary. It is in perfect condition and has a newly overhauled Siemens engine that runs quitely and smoothly.
There are a number of popular sights to see from the air. You can go south for 45 minutes to the Bodensee (aka Lake Constance) or in our case a few minutes WNW takes us over that castle, so picturesque that flying over it is compelling. You just have to do it. Berg Hohenzollern is a beautiful castle that while spectacular from the ground, is simply stunning from the air.
Last year at Degerfeld there was disappointingly little flying but during this trip it was the opposite. The flying was wonderful, spectacular, and memorable. Thank you so much to all the members of the Diebold family who made it so. Nearly four weeks later I still think of that flight almost every day.
