Yesterday I wrote about flying from London to Stockholm in an Extra 400. Today we're going to look at the flight from Stockholm to Amsterdam in part two of our European adventure.

Extra 400
We continued our journey in the Extra 400. Photo: Tom Boon - Simple Flying

Following our late landing in Stockholm, I had a short lie in our hotel before heading into the city. I found a cosy coffee shop and got some admin out of the way. In the afternoon I visited the city's zoo before taking the ferry to dinner. Afterwards, I headed to our new hotel for the night, The Best Western Stockholm Broma.

The Best Western Stockholm Broma

Now, if you're interested in aviation and ever find yourself staying in Stockholm, I'd highly recommend heading out of the city to the Best Western at Stockholm Broma airport. Why? It's full of little aviation easter eggs. These range from windows with aviation pictures:

Best Western Stockholm Broma
Photo: Tom Boon - Simple Flying

To a tiny model airport hiding above a rotating door:

Best Western Stockholm Broma
Photo: Tom Boon - Simple Flying

And even a lift that is decorated as a cockpit:

Best Western Stockholm Broma
Photo: Tom Boon - Simple Flying

After spending a night in the aviation-themed hotel, we got up early and took an uber to Stockholm's Vasteras airport. Upon arrival, we filed our flight plan from Stockholm heading to Lelystad, just outside of Amsterdam.

Empty skies

We departed from Vasteras at 1025CET. We departed as a VFR flight and picked up our IFR flight plan in the air upon contacting the area controllers. It took us about 25 minutes to climb to our cruising altitude of FL200. This meant we averaged a climb of around 800 feet per minute.

Stockhom to Amsterdam
The empty skies provided magnificent views. Photo: Tom Boon - Simple Flying

While we were climbing, we initially flew in a fairly southerly direction. However, upon reaching the top of our climb, we were instructed to proceed directly to EEL, a waypoint just inside Dutch airspace. As such, we punched EEL into the flight's navigation system and set the autopilot to NAV mode. This meant we were able to sit back and relax.

Stockholm to Amsterdam
We flew almost directly most of the way. Photo: FlightRadar24.com

Indeed for the remainder of the flight, all that was required was to keep checking in with each new controller we encountered.

Descent into Lelystad

Around half an hour before we landed, we contacted the Dutch controller handling us. We requested to begin our descent which was soon approved, however, with restrictions. Rather than just saying that descent is approved, the approval is usually given in steps. In our case, this meant we had to level off at FL090, and briefly at 4,000ft.

We stopped twice during our descent. Photo: FlightRadar24.com

We then dropped down to an altitude of around 2,000ft. As the airport offers an instrument approach, we had been expecting this being on an IFR flight plan, however, before we were handed off, we were advised to cancel our flight plan. We then made a visual approach to Lelystad. We touched down, at around 1330CET, giving a flight time of around three hours.

Upon arrival at the airport, we checked in and requested a taxi to the station. It was then a case of taking two trains for around 40 minutes into Amsterdam. We opted for Lelystad, as Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport has incredibly high landing fees which we would've been subject to.

Stay tuned for the final part of the journey on Monday!