Planned my monthly trip to Munich EDMA from Budapest LHTL yesterday. In planning for the flight I looked at 4 different weather providers, Weather Channel, Accuweather, Weather Underground, and Wetteronline. Started to study it 6 days prior to the flight. I made notes to see which would be the most accurate. They were all pretty much saying the same thing all the way to the day of Take Off. Surprising as hell. The night before the flight looked at the official TAFs which were no help. Looked at the Gramet which concurred with the forecasts that there might be thunderstorms in the afternoon around EDMA. So I decided to land in Augsburg by 1300L.
Since it was on the way I decided to make a refueling stop at LHFM. The gas is cheaper there by $1 a gallon than at LHTL and $2 a gallon at EDMA. The secret is that you have to be leaving Hungary to get the 630Ft rate. Almost every place can do this but they choose not to bother. THATS NOT A COMPLAINT!
The thing is that picking up an IFR clearance once you leave LHFM (VFR airport that has a published approach) requires that you fly VFR into Austria and that it has to be VMC to at least FL060 before you can be taken into the IFR system. So this tax dodge can only be used in good weather.
So getting back to the flight after leaving LHFM and while trying to pick up my IFR start point I could see that this area had building weather. I was taken into the system and was happy to get bounced around not to badly in CUs. Halfway to LNZ I came out the other side of the build ups to discover less turbulent air but with a wind shift and colder temps. So the area I went through I would classify as a very weak cold trough. The charts did not indicate that what it showed was a cold front further north from NE to SW.Perhaps it was that front that moved along my route. However if that was it it was extremely weak.
Had 15kt headwinds once past the trough. Cancelled IFR 30NM out of EDMA cause they dropped me down to FL050 which were below the base of SCT CUs. While VFR I was positioned for a straight in to RWY 25. I took that opportunity to do the ILS 25. The LOC and GS never moving more than 1/2 a dot from midline as I hand flew it down the slot to a perfect tire squealer.
All in all a perfect flight total Flt time was 2 hrs 45 mins. Shame I could share the experience with someone.
PS I want to redeem myself for not understanding European GA and questioning things.
