England Expects....

I felt very English today. Flying due south from Jerez, I coasted out at a place called locally 'Los Canos de Meca', which you can find on this Google Map. However what the Spanish don't mention is that the spit of land one mile to the West is Cabo de Trafalgar, or Cape Trafalgar.

A few minutes later, to my right, (in the aircraft and on your page) North Africa came into view. I flew at 6500 feet so as to be able to glide back if the engine stopped. 1000ft of altitude = 1.5 nautical miles of glide range, so the higher the better. I was around 8 miles from the coast at the furthest point.

And just a few minutes later on the other side of the aircraft, Gibraltar:

Due to the, shall we say, lack of entente between Spain and the UK over this place, there is a no-fly zone to the West, North and East of Gibraltar. So to fly over (or indeed land there: you can see the runway just to the right of the rock) you have to head out towards Morocco, fly along the strait, and then turn north but staying 5 to 10 miles or so offshore.



I flew up the coast towards Malaga until I was clear of the no-fly zone, and then back to Jerez via a northerly route over the mountains (elevation 5000 ft) so I stayed at 6500 most of the way home.