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A little outing from Shoreham EGKA to Mali Losinj LDLO, as soon as GA restrictions made it possible

Nice wx on departure

Actually nice everywhere, there and back 2 days later


Outbound route

Fuel flowmeter forecasting 28 USG upon landing, and some nice tailwing

FL170, to stay above some cloud over the Alps, to achieve the required FL160 minimum cruise level on this route, and to get even more tailwind

The Alps coming up

Tablet running a topo map, in case of an engine failure above an overcast above the Alps (shows the canyons)


Venice island, from around FL160 and doing a continuous descent for the next 150 miles or so

Croatia and the distinctive Adriatic with all the little islands

Unije and its grass airfield

Mali Losinj airport

The follow-me scooter. Tower is empty so no radio comms

The terminal building

Everything works here. Got avgas while parked up.

The cafe – closed for refurbishment but they did drinks

The town

and a late lunch

A walk along the sea path to Veli Losinj. Almost nothing was open there…


A nice photo, thanks to the almost calm water

Nice evening light

Next morning, more walkabout

Restocking on lavender and geranium oils for home

One for the girls A statue from the communist era…

On day of departure, really windy. I’d say 30kt+ but straight down the runway


The airport, looking back

Heading back to the Alps again, slightly more west this time. Fuel forecast is 24 USG this time, due to almost no head or tailwind.

Lake Garda

The end of the Alps

With a bit of fuel in hand, about 20 USG landing figure, I asked London Control to coordinate a low pass over Gatwick. With the airport almost closed, lots of people are doing this




Return route

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Superb trip. One which I would love to do One day. Thanks for sharing.
Perhaps maybe this time next year.

United Kingdom

Amazing Peter! Many thanks for taking us along with this post.

always learning
LO__, Austria

Looks a bit lonely at LDLO and in town. How many stores & restaurants were open? Hotels? Any pb finding accomodation that was open or do you always go to the same place? Must have been a bit strange compared to the usual bustle. Nice trip, and must have been great to be able to really travel again.

LSZK, Switzerland

In the main spot where I was staying (Mare Mare hotel; normally fully booked but plenty of rooms now) there were quite a few people. As far as I could tell all speaking Croatian, which is not surprising given the difficulty of getting to Losinj even in normal times (a big part of its attraction for GA). Booking.com showed 123 places. I tend to find, in the summer, that it is far fewer and usually end up staying in 1 or 2 others, with Petra 23 coming up quite often.

A few restaurants and plenty of coffee bars were open. Losinj has 9k inhabitants so… The famous Barracuda which sold everyone a €100 meal on the 2014 EuroGA meet-up is closed until June.

Around the other side of the island was a big “campsite”


which looked at most a few % occupied. Those self catering “huts” looked very nice and were reportedly €90/night.

Lots of property renovation going on everywhere.

Yes it was wonderful to get out again. Funnily enough, due to the #2 cylinder repair (sticky exhaust valve) in October, this was the first real trip since returning from Tivat last year. Loads of ~1hr trips in between but not over the Alps.

I was expecting to get picked up by the police upon returning – in fact I was expecting them to try to stop me departing, since they had the GAR form before I went – because they mostly don’t understand the regs versus the guidance. I had a position ready, based on how much time was spent in UK airspace and the UK regs not applying extraterritorially. I also had the latest DfT guidance printed out which clearly states leisure flying is permitted without limits on distance.

After 8th June flying abroad won’t be possible because the 14 day quarantine starts here; another reason to go places right now. But I would not waste our 2 months of careful countryside isolation by going somewhere infected. That leaves very few options; basically just small islands but here everything is shut (the Scilly Islands, Alderney, etc). Croatia is one of the very few open places.

I have a movie of the whole trip (video + sound + GPS) but the 256GB SD card in the camera filled up just before the Gatwick low pass! Not much I could have done; the only way to empty it would have been to bring my laptop, ideally with an external 512GB SSD. Or I could have set it to a lower quality; presently I shoot HD at 50mbits/sec.

I brought my tent etc in case there was some last-minute policy change and hotels got shut. It stayed in the back of the plane

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I was thinking about doing the same this weekend, however the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs still has a negative travel advice for Croatia, stating that only necessary travel is allowed.

This might impact insurance coverage, so I’m not taking the risk.

Instead we will do Texel… The wx looks great for coming weekend

@Peter as usual, redefining the term A little for the average GA flyer LOL!
Nice hop !

LGMG Megara, Greece
ENVY
Antonio
LESB, Spain

Nice trip Peter, the ideal weather & time window for that long shot, almost 6h without blinking !

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

lenthamen wrote:

was thinking about doing the same this weekend, however the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs still has a negative travel advice for Croatia, stating that only necessary travel is allowed.

Strange, probably politically related (some bilateral agreements) because Croatia has one of the best epidemiological situations in Europe. E.g. Losinj had zero Covid-19 cases. The only island that had infected people is Brac due to mistake done in Split hospital releasing the infected patient (admitted for some other reason) without testing. Total number are 2,245 infected, 2,059 recovered, 103 deaths with population of 4 million and no new cases for last few days.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia
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