Come to Sweden!

A French pilot retires to Sweden, where he enjoys great weather, blissful flights and barbecues – and invites British flyers visit this GA-friendly country

- Alain Mathon

When you live and fly in the southwest of France, at the foothills of the beautiful Pyrénées, it seems to be quite a strange idea to move to Sweden, this country of long, cold winters and of billions of mosquitoes in the summer. But as we had made several trips to Scandinavian countries, we had had the opportunity to discover, as they say, the Magic of the North.

Norway, Sweden, Finland and, to a lesser degree, Denmark are flooded with a fantastic light which illuminates peaks, fjords, forests and lakes. Unspoilt nature provides lots of opportunities for cross-country skiing and hiking, and there are numerous ski resorts in the Scandinavian Alps. And obviously, the possibility of great flying in uncrowded airspace was really appealing, as was the kindness of all the people we had met and the total absence of bureaucracy we had encountered during our trips.

That is why we came to our decision: after retirement from my job as a schoolteacher, we would move to Sweden. We had bought a house in a village of central Sweden and had made sure that our Jodel could be hangared at the nearby airfield.

A credit card, a dog, and a half tank...

All our furniture, books, clothes, motorbike and our vintage Renault 4 had been taken away by a removal lorry. All that was left with us was our beloved Jodel, an old Citroën Saxo−and Bichette. The problem of the car was easy to solve: not really suitable for the Swedish winter, it would be left at the airfield to be used as a courtesy car.