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September 2019 fly-in: Montenegro, Tivat / Kotor LYTV 7/8 September

Departing LYTV 16:00 UTC.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Here we go… some photos from the trip. It was a really great one, with amazing scenery, mostly great wx, easy airports, great food…

Nice wx at Shoreham

Most of the leg to the Alps was flown at FL110 or so, above the cloud

20 USG forecast for LDSB – the fuel (and overnight) stop

Cliffs at Dover

Approaching the Alps and climbing FL160. Some headwind now

Did a bit of IMC crossing the front. I didn’t turn on TKS, to see how it works with some ice already accumulated. It worked well but took a while to remove all the ice, so this is not really a good way to use it

Quite a bit was between layers




Normally I find the DWD image to be almost meaningless; in this case the icing was certainly “moderate” as per the patches on the chart

The Alps themselves were VMC






The top of the Adriatic

LDSB closes at 1400 UTC! This is always a factor with this flight; one has to depart Shoreham 0700 UTC to be sure





Right base. There is nobody in the tower so you cancel IFR with Split (a late descent from 6000ft due to loads of Easyjets) and do blind calls

Brac LDSB is one of the best airports anywhere, in every way



Landing FOB was 12.6 USG (13.5 according to their bowser fill) which is as low as I like to go, but Split was just up the road.

They have some airliner flights nowadays, from curious places like Deauville

Overnight stay in Bol, down the hill from the airport. A super scenic place






Departing for Tivat the next morning


Dubrovnik from 9000ft



Tivat would not allow the IAP and wanted a descent to 1000ft and fly via some VRPs. It turned out I could have refused (others did) but I was not bothered either way, and saving the IAP would save some fuel which would be potentially relevant for the next leg, which was Montpellier LFMT, and Tivat has no avgas



The VFR approach is close over the top of a hill



The “10 max” parking at Tivat is a joke, of course. It is a purely “no can do” attitude. They could park 50 easily, without taking up any space used by bizjets and such.

The staff turned up right away. Lots of security but on the whole everything worked quite fast

Taxi to Kotor was about €30; you can do it for €20 if you haggle

You can walk up to the top of this “mountain”. I started but there was a big queue for the tickets…

A very scenic old town















Great boat trips; we did a couple. This one was to Perant

















Kotor gets a bit crowded at times, largely due to these cruise ships dumping a few k tourists each day, but no problem really since they all have to be back before dinner


Departure back to Mali Losinj LDLO. I cancelled the French option due to bad wx over a vast piece of S. France. I also cancelled the LGIO option due to a lack of others going there. The wx was quite variable which makes one want to get back home at the earliest chance



Beautiful scenery along the Adriatic, as always, and this time with a lot less haze. I have no video for this leg because something happened with the camera (after a year, it finally crashed and I had to extract it from the waterproof housing to restart it by removing the battery)










Brac LDSB

Split LDSP





Zadar airport, with the “Bora wind runway”

The closed ex military runway; totally wasted





Right base for 02. Again, no tower so make blind calls




An old ex-USSR helicopter collecting two stretchers from an ambulance

A quick refuel. Sadly the great cafe was closed for about 20 mins but the office gave us some water and coffee. LDLO is another “best airport ever”

The grass strip at Unije

Approaching the Alps and climbing FL160. Headwind on most of this leg…

The bay of Venice, with the Lido

No IMC over the Alps this time, which is always nice (in case of TKS failure). Very warm air: -6C at FL160





The last bit of the Alps

I had no printout for this flight due to the replanning; just had the waypoint list on the phone (and the tablet). The tablet is running the 2013 Jepp VFR charts, for emergency use, and runs a topo map for the Alps

It’s always great to see the UK appear on the GPS; travelling is nice but there is no place like home

IMC near Shoreham, with some turbulence in it. London Control did something unusual this time: kept us at FL100 until about 40nm to go, and with airliners passing underneath I was wondering what their plan was. It worked out fine of course; I get a “cleared to descend out of CAS” and the man said he will be watching me on radar due to the various holds with airliners in them. Very helpful!

Back home!

Flight EGKA-LDSB

Flight LDLO-EGKA

The two legs to and from LYTV were not logged on the Autorouter tracking, for an unknown reason. They were simple:

Costs:
Brac €40
Tivat €91
Losinj €38

Four aircraft turned up.

It is a pity that several people could not be bothered to advise their details when the airport required them. Ensuring parking at fly-ins is often an issue. Emir did a lot of work getting the 10 spaces at Tivat, so a number of these were wasted because we had people on the list who were in retrospect not coming. And I know a number dropped out due to the parking uncertainty – lots of people always drop out when there is any “hassle” like this. At the same time some people were not in a position to go anyway due to various reasons. So to make this fair to all we will have to have a different process next time. One could get a deposit (e.g. the Cirrus fly-ins do €220, which is really steep, but for sure keeps cancellations down, but you need a clear refund policy because most people simply won’t pay that much) but a deposit raises various difficult issues even if quite small e.g. €50 – unless it is simply non refundable. I think maybe one way will be to take people off the list if they have not responded with flight details within say 24hrs. If someone has not monitored the Telegram group for 24hrs they are most likely not going.

The wx was a problem for some, with non VFR conditions in southern Germany on Thursday/Friday.

Anyway – a great trip to a great location, and we had a nice group arrive and everyone had a great time

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter the menu you posted, was that priced in Euros? Where was that? Which town/country?

KHTO, LHTL

The menu was in euros and it was in Kotor, Montenegro.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

Flight EGKA-LDSB

Wow Peter that is quite one leg! 5+ hrs? True testament to the range of a TB20

EGSX

It was 6hrs, with 15kt headwind much of the way, and 40kt over the Alps… This was about as far as the TB20 would go, in these conditions, and was possible only with Split being just up the road, loads of alternates before that, and obviously completely crazy to do it without a fuel totaliser.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Thanks

I cant believe Montenegro locals pony up 50 Euros for a bottle of wine. Unless of course the standard of living is higher than in Germany. Either that or its focused on the tourist trade. I believe the latter is the answer.

KHTO, LHTL

Peter wrote:

They have some airliner flights nowadays, from curious places like Deauville

Funny, I did come across two TUI airliners at Deauville on the way to Brac Island and Dubrovnik on Saturday 7th
I was told they operate Saturdays in summer, the one for Brac departed at 1030Z probably

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

That was a high-end restaurant The food there was generally a lot cheaper.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

C210_Flyer wrote:

I cant believe Montenegro locals pony up 50 Euros for a bottle of wine.

High end local wines (really good quality) in normal restaurants are below 20€. These 50€ bottles (talking about Croatia wines on the list) cost in shops in Croatia 15-20€, restaurants get it for lower price. So it’s just fleecing.

Last Edited by Emir at 20 Sep 07:07
LDZA LDVA, Croatia
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