Welcome to EuroGA, Oscar 
I have never flown to Bosnia but done other bits of former Yugoslavia many times. It’s a beautiful destination, and Croatia and Slovenia are heaven for GA, with well organised airports and great scenery. I have some trip reports here.
I would not expect that to change for at least a year or two.
Could be. It could also be no issue anymore much sooner.
I seem to recall hearing that a Cirrus landed there fine.
Yep, that would be mine. (Although I think at least one more landed there).
And yes, the club has at least officially moved to Zeljava (and they call it Aeroclub Zeljava, not Aeroclub Una anymore). Practically speaking though, I think Zeljava is not yet in any way approved as a civil airfield.
Very little GA in BIH indeed, and mostly some old gliders, tugs and a few ultralights. Airfield density is low (as in Croatia, after all).
OAVALLE wrote:
My work takes me all over the world and I am now being tempted to move to Bosnia Herzegovina.
Hello Oscar,
fellow M20C driver here.
I hope that you are aware that currently there is almost no possibility to move anywhere in the said area due to Covid19 and I would not expect that to change for at least a year or two. Unfortunately, the Covid situation is really totally out of control in most of Europe, therefore I would not start planning anything like this for the forseeable future.
Bosnia and Croatia are generally very nice places to visit, once this madness is over (if it ever will be) visiting is certainly a nice thing to do. But not now.
Buckerfan wrote:
Sounds like a great destination for a fly in, in the interests of international amity.
Sounds great but it’s complicated trust me
Sounds like a great destination for a fly in, in the interests of international amity.
I have never visited Bihac LQBI, but they were at AERO in Friedrichshafen one year and I got onto their mailing list. They send out an email several times a year with an update on what is happening, and are trying very hard to get visitors. They made arrangements for international arrivals/departures from mid-June to mid-Sept.
Their current base is a grass airfield, so you would probably need to take a close look if you want to land with a Mooney. But they say it is 1100m and prepared for up to 5700kg. I seem to recall hearing that a Cirrus landed there fine.
They also appear to have wrangled approval to clean up and use a closed military strip nearby which is of course then hard surface. It sounds like they are a fairly small group of active enthusiasts who are try to promote the area from a tourist perspective and attract pilots from around Europe.
I would be interested to hear any comments from anyone on the forum who has actually visited. It sounds like a worthwhile destination and is close to Zadar LDZD (50nm) and Losinj LDLO (65nm).
I’m originally from Bosnia and I know that situation with GA is not so great. The level of activity is pretty low mainly due to pretty grim financial situation. I’m based in Croatia and I occasionally fly to Bosnia to international airports. I can say that GA is practically non-existing (except rare visitors) on four main airports (Sarajevo LQSA, Tuzla LQTZ, Mostar LQMO and Banja Luka LQBK) and on none of them Avgas is available. However, there are some activities on smaller airfields and few aero clubs exist but it’s very far from what it used to be before the war. AFAIK the most active is Livno LQLV but it’s mainly focused to glider activities because the area is one of the beast gliding areas in Europe. I can check via some old connections what’s going on in Sarajevo area (Visoko LQVI airfield) but I’m not much optimistic.
Oaville, of you subscribe to a European flight planning app such as Rocketroute or Skydemon you will be able to access the AIPs for each airport, which will give you info on opening hours, restrictions, fuel availability etc, so you can start thinking about flights. Foreflight might give you this too, but I dont know. Flying in Europe is very different from the USA with cross border issues, opening hours (few airports are H24), fuel availability etc. But one soon learns to deal with this and the wealth of cultural and geographic pleasures that GA opens up here more than compensates for the hassles.
Well, I will be covering also Montenegro… so worse come to worse I will put some mileage on my car.
