Trip report: VFR EPKM-LHSM-LDLO-LYBE-LZTT-EPKM, 20.07 ... 22.07.2019

My first trip report on euroga.org follows. The trip was only possible thanks to recommendations and reports found here on this forum. Since our planning relied on them so heavily, I am afraid we do not bring in any new, useful or inspiring information. Photographs are few and poor. Still, I hope for some of you posters it will be nice to know that we made good use of the wisdom gathered here on this forum.

Pilots: Mateusz (EASA PPL(A), 267h total time, most of which on C172) and Lukasz (also EASA PPL(A), 150h total time plus some uncertified experience). In Polish we read “sz” like “sh” in “short”. Do not try to pronounce “z” directly after “s” at home, this is considered hard even here in Central Europe.

Aircraft: SP-FCL, Tecnam P2002JF. MTOM = 580 kg. Traditional VFR instruments plus Garmin GTX325 transponder, Garmin GNS430 COM/NAV and some basic iCom as a backup COM (don’t remember the model).

Aeroklub Slaski, to which we both belong, is a major ATO and scenic flights provider in southern Poland. This profile probably has its advantages: we have a relatively decent and well kept fleet (for a Polish Aeroklub) and we are able to maintain a GA airport in a very convenient location. However, one downside is inferior availability of our aircraft for longer undertakings. Our small, informal “foreign trip team” sometimes has to wait a long time for a favourable conjunction of planets: at least two aircraft of the same type in service (so that if we take one, people in basic training and flying one-hour trips around their favourite chimneys don’t complain), sufficient engine time remaining before next maintenance, VFR weather, good synchronization of our personal schedules etc.

EPKM, our club’s airfield (photo from the very last landing of the trip)

This time our luck was boosted by a 48 hour closure of airport due to the runway being used for a drag racing event. Sure many of you here would complain about such an occurence. For us, however, it meant that we can go fly someplace further even though only one P2002 and one C172 were serviceable, their twins undergoing some regular maintenance. Surprisingly, very stable weather was forecast for southeastern Europe and both me and Lukasz planned their summer holidays for later dates. The P2002 in service had more than twenty hours remaining before next check and we thought it was a great opportunity to boost our confidence in flying the smaller bird. Before this trip I did totally a mere 39 landings on the type and Lukasz clocked only a few more.

On the day of our departure from EPKM Muchowiec – Saturday early afternoon – a small crowd of bystander pilots sunbathing near the hangar wished us luck not without some irony. “Croatia? In THIS? And in THIS kind of weather? Come on, it does not even have proper ventilation…”. True that all our former trips abroad were in a Cessna 172. We ignored these guys and considered the only sincere, practical advice we got (from one of the senior club FIs): make sure you both have baseball caps, be serious about your takeoff weight and – if it comes to this – remember the thing files perfectly well with canopy wide open.

Clouds of Slovakia

Only the very first leg, over the mountains of Slovakia, generated some anxiety regarding the weather. For some half an hour we stayed at 5000-6000ft, just below maturing TCus, turbulence at any lower level being very unpleasant. If we took off an hour later, we would probably have to turn around at this stage and cancel the whole trip. Things however got much better soon after passing Previdza LZPE, now the main problem becoming avoiding gliders competing in the 20th FAI European Gliding Championship. Finally we left the Bratislava FIR to the custody of Győr-Pér LHPR AFIS and soon, following a brief exchange with Budapest Information, contacted LHSM Sármellék. Lukasz neatly joined left base for their runway 16 and landed after some two hours and forty minutes of flight.

Among the five airports we visited on this trip, only Sármellék was not new to me. The port was also distinctive in that it won our efficiency award: refuelling, clearing immigration, visiting the toilet, paying airport charges and a change of PIC took all less than half an hour.

Lukasz on final to LHSM

Our next stop was Maly Lošinj LDLO, the only airport on the Croatian coast boasting both enough parking space for sunny weekends and immigration available without prior notice. All other airports that we considered – LDPL, LDZD, LDRI, LDSP, LDDU – issued NOTAMs calling for PPR for parking and/or landing on Saturdays. We only e-mailed Pula, but got an immediate refusal. Anyway, readers of EuroGA.org need no special recommendations for LDLO. We should all wish the current airport management lots of health and a satisfactory pay. Whoever they are, may they stay in their positions forever.

I flew a very similar leg (to Zadar LDZD) in 2016. Like then, I filed a plan at A080 via KOPRY, PANON2 and VELEB1 but was quickly given a direct shortcut to TNJ and shortly afterwards DCT LDLO. We stayed at the island overnight, having booked a room in Pansion Ana on short notice just before our takeoff from EPKM. The stay was a pleasure – the hotel conveniently picked us up from the airport and we definitely did not regret eating in their restaurant. Since our whole trip actually started after noon, it was anyway too late to go touring the village and scouting for other dinneries. True, the mosquitos were a nuissance. I had packed a little headlamp, thinking that perhaps I would use it if we had to tie and unpack the aircraft after a late landing. This did not happen, but still, I was really happy I had the lamp, an invaluable accessory in my night fights against bloodthirsty beasts.

Our little bird in LDLO

Being able to begin considerably earlier than the day before, we split the Sunday flying between morning and evening, scheduling a real crew rest during the sunniest part of the day. In the morning Lukasz flew us again mostly at A080 over the beautiful Dalmatian islands, through TMA Zadar and TMA Split to LDSB Brač. Weather was CAVOK/NSC all the way. Tower was not operating on Sunday, nor Split Radar could provide us with a METAR. Looking at GS vs IAS, we thought approaching from the less dramatic direction (RWY 22) would be upwind, but in the end it turned out it was more like VRB02KT near the ground and we landed with slight tailwind. I was surprised we found at least six persons working at the airport on a day without any scheduled traffic!

The rest – in Bol – was successful. We ate sandwiches and drank coffee and 0.0% beer. Zlaty Roh, the “best beach in the town” heartily recommended by our taxi driver, looked grossly overcrowded from afar. But what I perceived as second best in the village was more than good enough for my short swim in the Adriatic (no sea, no big rivers and very few lakes where we live…). We briefed for the evening leg. Initially the plan was to spend the second night in Slovenia, but they consistently forecasted TS throughout whole country. Already the previous evening, studying euroga.org trip reports, we conceived another idea – why not go to Belgrad Nikola Tesla, LYBE, via Bosnia and Herzegovina? The AIP says PPR and we applied somewhat later than required, but still the coordinator replied to my request with an approval as soon as they started their morning shift.

Crew rest in Bol

We filed a flight plan for 2 hours and 20 minutes at 90kt GS, according to recommended transit routes published in AIP BiH. On this hot day, more or less at MTOM, it took us some 20 minutes to reach our cruising altitude of A080. Soon Split Radar handed us over to Banja Luka Informacja. Hardly any traffic over Bosnia and Herzegovina. “Dobry dan, Identified. Proceed to Blahbd” – “Say again waypoint name?” – “You may proceed direct your destination” and then perhaps an hour of silence that let us meditate upon the landscape. The cliffs of Dinaric Alps are – hope I use the right words – brutally beautiful. As predicted, weather was CAVOK with Ci high above us foreshadowing showers predicted PROB30 for the night and possibly early morning.

Belgrad Radar sending us to a low circuit

Belgrad Radar is a wholly different story. We had to focus. The last twenty minutes of our flight was indeed quite dynamic and a second pilot was a really useful cockpit resource. “Descent initially one thousand five hundred”; but how come the guy says ‘initially’, if Belgrad is at 336ft? We switched to Tower. “Identified, descent one thousand”. Of course we know low circuits, but is this a good idea at an unfamiliar airport? “Confirm able to make short approach” – only at this moment we noticed the runway, perpendicular to our flight path as it should be. “Affirm” – but in fact it was a bit too late and I slightly overshoot the final turn. “Clear to land runway 30”, fortunately the strip is 3 km long, so I decide the approach could still be salvaged and actually in the end manage to fly a short section of a proper, far-touchdown glide path. “Expedite vacating via Charlie, taxi Alfa Hotel Lima parking stand Alfa 14” – and as tech-saavy as we were with our two tablets in the cockpit, I really appreciated having printed a paper airport map beforehand…

Google says you need to drive some ten hours to get from Brač to Belgrad. In our Tecnam, along an almost direct route and with favourable winds, it was merely two hours of flight. And then – well, we here all know air transport is not only about flying – you need to add one hour waiting for Avgas. That took us by surprise. Nevertheless, we stayed patient, calling the fuel company only once to remind them we are still waiting.

Awaiting AVGAS at LYBE apron

Neither of us was in Serbia before. The people’s democracy stigma of Belgrad resembles our home town, though we do not have that nice night life, that big rivers, that kind of fortresses and that cheap Avgas. On another note, sometimes I do wonder if all Slavic languages sound identically to speakers of Germanic tongues. True we in Poland can relatively easily talk with the Czechs or Slovaks, but the farther you go, the more difficult it becomes. The word roots sound the same and might actually have the same origin, but like in other language families, over hundreds of years and hundreds of miles meanings tend to diverge significantly. “Hvala!” in Polish means “Glory!”, but in Serbian and Croatian it is a casual “Thank you!”. “Blagajna” means just “cash desk” in the South – but for us people of North it sounds like “a place of pleading”. For a lower bill, perhaps? Of course it works both ways, I am sure Serbs would also be surprised to discover that many Polish words mean something else than they would think. Also I could not fail to notice that in Serbia – or at least Belgrad – people can not quite decide if they want to express themselves in cyryllic or in latin script…

Streets of Belgrad at 10pm

On Monday our final destination was EPKM, home. Lukasz, in want to clock a two landing 300 NM flight, acted PIC all day long. The first part was a three hour flight to Poprad LZTT, letting us clear Schengen immigration without prior notice. So how did we cope with these longer legs in a small Tecnam? We concluded that three things are essential. One: obviously, fly as high as possible. Two: wear good headphones. Three: by all means, take a baseball cap! Eight thousand ft is probably my favourite altitude – still comfortable without oxygen, but also pleasantly cold and – hey! – in Poland at QNH1013 it is actually not an altitude, but a proper flight level! Also, I had never been a fan of baseball caps, but on this trip I became wholeheartedly converted.

After clearing Hungary, Slovakia – as usual – welcomed us with clouds. It started with innocent SCT at our altitude, but then things degraded into BKN and thus we were forced to descend. Still, the weather was mostly harmless. The really stressful aspect of this leg was fuel management, since with our payload weight we could only take a few liters extra above the VFR reserve. I am not sure if any of us ever flies again three hours with a passenger in a Tecnam. So much for gaining experience on the
type!

In-flight (re)planning

Long story short, we confirm all the good things said about Poprad LZTT. They are so close to our home airfield! We definitely should visit them more often. The last leg was supposed to take slightly more than one hour. Switching to Polish “Krakow Informacja” reminded us that our country is different than anywhere else we visited. So many overlapping transmissions! If you ever visit Poland at low altitudes, consider routing through TMAs rather than Class G… Finally we managed to send our position report somewhere between two training flights meticiously reporting their planned routes. In response we got a suggestion to descent 5500 feet. Fortunately Lukasz finds a better solution and instead stays at 6000, switching to much more peaceful Krakow Approach. The Krakow TMA actually lies on top of EPKM ATZ, so after a couple of minutes we just enter our very own airspace from above and allow ourselves some extra manouvering for descent, before finally touching down on RWY 23.

To sum up: within three days we spent slightly more than 11 hours in the air, visiting Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and Serbia and also – without landing – Bosnia and Herzegovina. Except for minor issues with the PIC Tx button, the aircraft performed flawlessly, being more comfortable to fly that we actually expected. For me, the right seat legs of this trip were a good opportunity to practice using the GNS430 that I was not familiar with before.

Route flown, more or less

Again I would like to thank people of euroga.org – especially Peter – for all the advice that was published here and for inspiration I would, sadly, never get from my fellow club members.