Glad you guys liked it once again! 
highflyer wrote:
You need some courage to get from A to B that not everyone has. That was an important step towards your instrument rating.Absolutely. For me, this flight was quite a “leap of faith” into my decision making. And after seeing this footage back during the editing process, I still think that I made the right decision to go. In case the weather was not the same as briefed, I had numerous alternates on my route to choose from. Furthermore, flying VFR on-top feels a lot safer for me, than trying to find some ‘way’ below the clouds. Especially if you need to fly trough unknown mountainous terrain, plus if you need to identify Cb’s. ATC did a great job on navigating me trough their international airspace, even when it took some improvisation on my radio skills.
Very nice video, thanks for that
Thank you for posting another nice report
You had some proper wx there…
One more nice video, many thanks again. We have never seen so many airplanes on the apron of LZTT. After this flight you know how easy it can be to fly even in weather which is not CAVOK. You need some courage to get from A to B that not everyone has. That was an important step towards your instrument rating.
Finally, our final episode made it through the editing process, which concludes our trip to Slovakia. We had a blast for several days in the High Tatras, but the weather forecast changed surprisingly to much worse weather as expected. We decided to fly back one day before our planned departure.
After we woke up and had breakfast, several severe rain showers, including some thunderstorms, passed over Poprad. The aeroclub was so nice to sell us their Mogas, so we could prepare everything for immediate departure. Our flight plan was originally submitted for 11:20 LT, but we had to move it twice for one hour, before we find a usable ‘gap’. As seen in the video, we had to leave quite in a hurry, since it could have been our latest chance to get away VFR for the upcoming days.
We flew completely inside controlled airspace during our entire flight trough airspace Delta and mainly Charlie. Because of this, ATC handled us just like any other IFR-traffic. We became shortcuts to ATS-waypoints and at the end, ATC offered us an (simulated) ILS-approach into Wrocław-Strachowice (EPWR). I had to do a lot of improvisation regarding the radios, which was actually quite straightforward after all.
See for yourself how this last leg out of Slovakia went out in detail…
After we fueled our Super Dimona, I had to file a flight plan again for leaving Wrocław. This time, I was sent by the handler to the C-office, where I became a form in Polish language only. At least I remembered the numbers of the flight plan, so I could just fill in the stuff as I normally do online. The lady from the C-office asked me politely to fill in also my planned cruising altitude, and not using “VFR”. After looking on the weather forecast, I went with “F080”. Back at the ramp, I paid 25 euros landing fee to the handler and we had to wait for another hour, before we could leave towards Leipzig/Halle.
Our ‘IFR’-adventure continued with our startup and clearance-request. Unfortunately, our cameras were out of battery, otherwise, this would be one of the most interesting RT I ever experienced: ATC cleared us a SID ‘VFR’, with the permission to climb directly to FL80. Thanks to Skydemon, we could load the procedure quite fast, we did our run-up and taxied towards the runway. After take-off, we had to contact Poznań Approach directly by ourselves, where they gave us a direct to ULGIL. After reaching our cruising altitude ATC gave us a direct to NAROX. As soon as we left the TMA class C, ATC handed us over to FIS (Poznań Information). They already had our details, so there was no more special RT work to do, and we could continue our way uneventfully towards Germany. After reaching the German border, Langen Information didn’t had our details ofcourse. After flying a week trough the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland, we were used to the fact that all ATC and FIS units had our flight plan details. However, back in Germany, ATC doesn’t have any details from VFR-flight plans. So the classical RT work started over again. Back to the roots…
After doing our first simulated ILS-approach into EPWR, we thought that it would be fun to do one again at Leipzig/Halle (EDDP), so I requested Langen for another practice ILS. After our request was approved, Munich Radar provided us with vectors towards runway 26R. In addition to Poland, German ATC warned us to stay always in VMC. Parallel on our 26R approach, two airliners landed on 26L. Hopefully, we didn’t block the approach to long for our eternal ILS… After landing in EDDP, a marshaller took us with his follow-me car to the C-office, where he said: “That will be 240 euros for the landing and handling fees”. After getting a shock, he continued: “No, just joking, it will be 24 euros for the landing including one-night parking.” The way from the GAT to the S-Bahn-Station is quite far, but doable. Unfortunately, only one train per hour leaves for the city center, where we stayed for the night with friends.
And there we have it… our Slovakia adventure comes to an end! Hope you liked the videos and the additional story. Next flight report is already planned: A quick trip to southern France. Stay tuned!
Thank you all for the feedback so far! It was indeed a bit different world.
@highflyer: Regarding the audio recordings: They were terrible during this trip to Slovakia. I’ve invested many hours in improving the quality, which worked out quite well, but it is still far from good, unfortunately. For this reason, I put the radio calls also into the subtitles. On our upcoming trip reports, the quality will improve step by step.
The aeroclub was indeed very helpful and they did a fantastic job on hosting us for a few days. We slept directly in their guestrooms, inside the airport facilities, and parked our Dimona also in the Hangar overnight. They even sold their Mogas to us.
@Peter: Too bad that your trip to Slovakia has been canceled. If you like countries with mountains, good food and a lot of castles and traditions, then Slovakia is definitely something for you. Many Czech visit their eastern neighbor during the winter and summer.
@Jujupilote: It depends. Some of the non-flying friends are completely fascinated from the beginning until the end, others find the cockpit stuff with ATC a bit boring if it takes too long. This video with some more variety did it great in both groups so far. But nonetheless, most people watching this content are pilots and/or aviation enthusiasts, and that of course, is also the main target group.
Very nice video, keep them coming !
Are your non flying friends interested when they watch this ?
Nice video – many thanks for producing it.
Great to see such young people doing great trips
Despite having been born “next door” I’ve never been to Slovakia. One trip via Kosice (Hania – Odessa – Kosice – Prague – Shoreham) was planned but cancelled due to airspace closure.
It looks like there is some skiing there too
A very good video with the exception of the poorly understandable radio calls, many thanks! We have been there several times and can confirm your impressions.
It`s still a different world somehow. I would like to point out that the high parking fees on the apron of LZTT can be avoided by parking at the aeroclub as you did.
You can even park in the hangar for much less money. And a hangar is particularly important in the winter season, even preheating is easily possible.
At a certain stage, I almost lost my belief, that I would ever finish this fourth episode of our trip to Slovakia. The footage was hard to edit, but I didn’t want to rush it, so it was put on hold, since I was traveling almost non-stop in the last months. Now, Covid-19 forced me to stay at home for a longer period and I finally encouraged myself to finish this episode, so I can continue with other amazing trip reports (e.g. Alps, Norway, Croatia).
The video should express the beauty of the High Tatras. For this reason, we decided to show not only the flight itself, but also the main touristic destinations within this unique mountain range, which is the smallest high mountain range in the world, defined by the length of its main ridge (not by the height of its peaks). Although these mountains are quite popular in Central-Europe, it is a completely unknown destination for many other Europeans. Most of us never heard about it, but it has some very pretty sightseeing spots, like Morskie Oko and Štrbské Pleso.
So enjoy this relaxed flight including some footage from the ground. It was quite hot in the cockpit though, so during the descent, it was not so relaxing for me anymore… Back at the airport, we escaped the heat in our airconditioned rental car and searched for the nearest ropeway. A nice chairlift in Štrbské Pleso took us up into the mountains, where we enjoyed the rest of the day.
To be concluded.
