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Sweden winter trip

In a spacetime concept of winter, there is always winter somewhere on Earth – and Easter is our time for visiting winter. Before Covid it was very simple business. We used to look up a nice mountain cabin in the Alps, pack our touring skis into the car and take the 8 or 10 hour drive to central Austria. If one took care not to select a cabin closest to the highest mountain of Austria, of the province or of the county – but rather opt for the second or third on the list – it was a proven recipe for some quiet time in the nature and often a lot of fun skiing.


The 2020 New Year’s trip

Alas, the mountain huts in Austria are all closed – including our beloved self service Winter-rooms. The country admits only visitors with a negative Covid test – and sends them into quarantine anyway. Now I am not going to comment on that, even though everyone around is now an armchair epidemiologist and perhaps I should politely follow that trend. I think in time we will be able to tell which policies being implemented right now were very sane – and which of them would actually be better replaced with witchcraft… Meanwhile, here we are. We can still leave Poland for any reason, including leisure. So we thought why don’t we fly Sweden?

It seems winter occupies quite an area of spacetime up there in the North. I also remembered that Erik, whom I had been hosting in Poland almost eight years ago, had mentioned that Sweden even has some mountains. My old friend was very happy to hear from me and assured me that visiting Sweden now is a great idea. He in turn contacted his pilot friend and – combining mountaineering wisdom with aviation wisdom – they concluded the best they could recommend is flying to Hemavan ESUT. Since this is a commercial airport serving a ski resort, one can reasonably expect that the snow is duly cleared. On the other hand, as very often the case with ski resorts, if one goes just one valley further, it should be very easy to find tranquility and great views.

At first it sounded too good to be true. Looking at the village map, I realized this plan would let us completely eliminate the issue of ground transportation. I fell in love with the idea of leaving an airport in my ski boots. However, on closer inspection, it turned out there are some difficulties to be reckoned with. Hemavan ESUT is PPR and essentially open just for short windows related to their arrivals and departures from/to Stockholm. Which happen once a day. Otherwise an out-of-hours fee applies. Also, they only have JET A-1. Although my e-mails were professionally answered by the staff – which is much appreciated! – the responses were rather cold in their tone. With hangarage unavailable as usual, I realized there might be some contradictions in my planning. On one hand, we wanted to experience real, harsh, mountain winter – as the preliminary weather forecast was promising! On the other hand, we wanted to travel safely and VFR, in a 1961 Beech Bonanza not equipped with the slightest piece of deicing kit. The warning to expect turbulence when there is any wind from any direction – and the sheer amount of contour lines on the airport VAC chart also somewhat cooled my enthusiasm.

Thus, a couple of e-mails later, the plan was amended. Optand ESNM, near Östersund, initially planned as a 100LL fuel stop just before ESUT, now became the destination airport. And the leg to Hemavan was to be travelled in a rental car. Just before our departure, Johannes from Östersund flying club kindly suggested Vilhelmina ESNV – which would cut the driving time in half. However that had to be skipped, since I received neither an answer from the airport, nor from the only car rental business up there…


The amended General Flying Plan.

I guess I will not get away without saying a few words on the aircraft and on the pilot. I trained for and got my PPL in 2015 at Aeroklub in Katowice. Before this trip I accumulated some 335h in the air, of which 35h on type. My EASA license has also ELP level 5 and VFR Night on it and I also acquired a FAA 61.75 PPL almost a year ago and then a BFR and FAA’s HP and Complex logbook endorsements. I hold no IR rating of any kind; I am slowly moving in that direction, but as of now Covid and associated CAA exam schedules practically killed my ATPL theory project. With that well known, big change in the EASA ATPL theory syllabus, most probably I will have to start over.


After five years of renting Cessnas 172 and Tecnams P2002 from the Aeroklub, I am now operating a V-tail Bonanza N35, call sign N111SC. If you think you must have seen this particular Bonanza somewhere else, then you are right. However this superb plane has not changed hands and I am just happily taking care of it for the time being. MTOM is 1418 kg and at 150 … 160 KTAS, 8000’, its IO-470 burns some 50 litres per hour. Each wings holds 140 l. There is only basic engine/fuel instrumentation, so ample margins have to be taken into account. It is theoretically a four person aeroplane, but as often the case, in practice weight and balance limitations are quite constraining. In contrast to a Cessna 172, the problem is usually in balance rather than weight! You can throw in a lot of stuff – but only as long as the heavy items and heavy people are positioned close to the nose.

The Bonanza is equipped with two altimeters, a Narco mode C transponder, one Trig 8.33 radio, a KX155 25 kHz backup and KNS80 that receives VOR and ILS all OK – although I can’t quite get the DME to work. No autopilot. I usually run my navigation on a Samsung tablet, the application of my choice being “FLY is FUN”. It is quite obscure, but seemingly with its multitude of configuration options, it targets the more IT-minded aviators like me – who prepare their own EPSG3857 tiles out of scanned/scrapped maps etc. I also routinely use the absolutely fantastic “Bonanza Performance” app for performance calculations and weight/balance.

Now back to reporting on the trip. We departed Katowice/Muchowiec EPKM on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon, intending to cross the Baltic and then stay overnight somewhere in southern Sweden. I had very good memories from a short fuel stop in Västervik ESSW during an Aeroklub trip in 2018, which involved us three pilots in a Cessna 172 hanging out hastily around the Baltic sea. Back then it had been an extremely friendly experience. Also, Västervik is conveniently on the way between Katowice and Optand and at the same time at the limit of comfortable range of the Bonanza.

The Polish military went crazy with their airspace reservations, so I had to fill ADOXO – PENEX – GRU – VIZAN – PENOR – LATVI, hence diverting a bit to the east. When you depart from Katowice EPKM anywhere to the north, you quickly have to reckon with Katowice International EPKT. Which is, by the way, super-friendly and loves GA, but only as long as you stay above or on the runway. They will usually let you do your practice approaches without even filing a proper flight plan. But the fees for anything more than a touch and go are quite steep. An acquaintance of mine was serving at the tower; however we here are fortunate in that one can usually expect the same level of consideration from any ATCO in Poland. Maybe except when they are very busy – being the norm at EPWA Warsaw and EPKK Krakow.

- What is your intented crusing level?
- 80, NSC
- May I know if there is any particular reason why do you want to climb just 3000 now?
- Only because of area 6C…
- Ah. I don’t think there is any real flying taking place in there. Let me coordinate it, stand by.

And thus very shortly we were told to call Krakow Approach and climb FL80. The flight was very smooth and pleasant. FL80 is my favourite cruising level and we stayed there all the time. I know it is not a “proper” VFR level as per the semi-circular rule, but it is the lowest proper flight level available in Poland. On one hand, of course I prefer to be up high for good situation awareness, good gliding distance just in case, good TAS and a smooth ride. On the other hand, not having oxygen on board, I also prefer to stay as low as possible to reduce fatigue. Anyway, for various reasons, at least in Poland the “flight level” world gets very little traffic in uncontrolled airspace. Separation was never a concern on this trip.




With quite a few scratches on the windscreen we never expected to get superb photos. But with a high pressure system keeping all the dirt close to the ground, the shots turned out to be even worse than we had thought.
A layer of more and more pronounced high clouds appeared as we moved away from the Polish coast. Together with the high pressure haze, it made the Baltic crossing an interesting exercise in instrument flying. Technically it was solid VFR, but the sky and the sea were pretty much blended together. In case anyone wonders, we had “aviation grade” life vests and a non-certified raft on board, along with a simple survival kit including a handheld VHF radio.



We hugged Öland and flew near the impressive king’s summer residence… or at least we thought we did, until we learned later on that it was in fact just Borgholm Castle ruins. Like I mentioned, I had already flown in Sweden before, so I was not surprised they don’t have a proper FIS frequency. Being in class G airspace, you just talk to Area Control and it is no wonder at all. With Swedish average population density – resulting in corresponding general aviation density – there is hardly any traffic en route. I have no traffic reported is the catch phrase.

- Set squawk 2112. I have no traffic reported at flight level 80.
- For your information, we will start our descent shortly.
- Continue. I have no traffic reported below flight level 80.


We landed straight-in on RWY33, the whole flight taking 03:34. Ralph, whom I met back in 2018 and who is managing Västervik Flygsplats could not meet us personally. However we had been provided with detailed instructions on where to park the Bonanza, how to access the airside in the morning and what number to call for a taxi. After refuelling we discovered that we forgot to pack the textile cover. The trip preparations had involved a considerable amount of packing: we had to make sure we have all aviation gear (including the tie down and survival kit), all the “city tourist” mode gear, all the “outdoor tourist” mode gear, all the skiing gear. Also some ingenious, lightweight food to carry on our backs while hiking in the mountains … and also some small reserve of oats, pasta and pesto in case shops in Sweden are closed during the Easter. It was all too easy to forget something. The aircraft cover had been removed from the Bonanza during the recent oil change/50hr check/tidying up and must have been left lying on the hangar floor back home. Fortunately no scorching sun and no hail was to be expected during the next week.

Naturally, most of that equipment was left in the plane for the time being and we went to conquer the town. We were holding our fresh Covid antigen tests in our hands, as required by Swedish law – but no one bothered. Västervik is really lovely, although empty streets provoked a somewhat eeire feeling. Was it busy here before Covid? There are quite a few restaurants in the harbour area and I am wondering if they used to cater mainly for locals – or rather for summer tourists and leisure sailors. Renting a convenient self catering apartament, in these times I was easily able to postpone any financial commitment until the morning of our departure. After checking in, we went for quick shopping and for a short walk in the vincinity of the town’s museum – which was itself closed, but featured some interesting open air exhibits near the main building.




On the morning of Sheer Thursday – and at the same time April Fools’ Day – I filed ESSW – TABUT – BOR – ETOMI – ESNM at A035, budgeting 02:35 flight time. There was quite noticeable wind forecast from northerly directions and I was reasoning lower could perhaps be faster. After taking off from Västervik’s RWY 33, it soon dawned on us that away from the coast, Sweden consists of lakes, forests, gentle hills, lakes and also a few wind turbines. One hour later, blue skies above us, we noticed that most of the lakes are frozen. Which we thought a good sign, remembering our very first reason for coming to Scandinavia!






All the stuff…

In two thirds of the way, as we came closer to the mountains separating Norway and Sweden, turbulence started to set in. My onboard turbulence intensity sensor – Ola’s sensitive digestive tract – indicated that it is rather moderate. The V-tails are not supposed to rip off any longer, but would you want to be testing it? So I climbed a bit just to see if it changes anything – and noticing it did not, I kept to the prescribed turbulence penetration speed, which happens to be 130 KIAS. The ground speed read 115… In the end we arrived again approaching straight in on RWY36 of Optand ten minutes later than expected. A pronounced, gusty cross wind from the west made the approach a bit interesting.


On the ground we were enthusiastically met by Anders, an employee of Östersund Flygklubb. He helped us refuel, allocated us a cosy parking position and brought these ubiquitous concrete-filled tires with his snow clearing bulldozer. Again it was April the first and quite thick layer of snow was still present on the airfield’s grass. It indeed looked like at these latitudes you do need a full size bulldozer if you want to be serious about removing snow in winter…

We had a non-binding vehicle reservation at a well known rental franchise in Östersund. However after some casual conversation on our plans Anders offered that the club may actually rent us a car if we wanted. True it was maybe a bit aged, but we could have it cheap. Well, of course that was great in itself, but given the cost of Avgas to get to Sweden and return home, the more important argument was that it saved us I think three hours time in total. And also saved us a lot of hassle – in removing the need to call a taxi to get to the center and then, in a few days, calling the taxi company again to get from the city back to the airport. We could just throw our stuff out of the Bonanza, throw it into the club’s car and start driving north just like that. I definitely need to convince my home airfield management that we should be also providing a car for visitors!

The car turned out to be a 1989 Saab 900. I was actually happy it was a bit dirty on the outside, because it meant we did not have the slightest obligation to return it clean; again a time saving giving us either more sleep or more time in the mountains! And we planned quite a drive, possibly on wet roads… Funny thing was we came in a 1961 plane, got into the 1989 Saab and – not long after leaving the airfield – found ourselves at the rear bumper of a real vintage car. Of course we thought it surely must be a Cadillac, but both me and Ola are quite ignorant on cars manufactured before we were born, especially those manufactured west of the Berlin wall…


Driving in northern Sweden is lovely. No, wait a second. Even though it is almost 800 nautical miles between Katowice and Östersund/Optand, it seems that you might at most call it central Sweden! Looking at the map, of course you can easily see that – at least spanwise – the country is huge. But I always was thinking that must be Mr Mercator’s fault and these Scandinavians can not be really reaching that far out to the pole. Well, the fact is – aside of the distortion of proportions that the now omnipresent Mercator’s projection introduces – they are also reaching quite far!


The General Driving Plan

Anyway, driving in central Sweden is lovely. Most of the time you just accelerate to your crusing speed and maintain it. No traffic reported. Over the course of almost 500 km we encountered I think something like four traffic signals. We figured out that on the next day we really did not need to start early in order to safely reach our hut in the mountains. So we spent the night in Hotell Wilhelmina in Vilhelmina, which is roughly half way between Östersund and Hemavan. It looks like hotels in Sweden are functioning almost normally, being very different from Poland. The breakfast was served out of a Swedish table, but virtually everyone kept their distance. Which is also somewhat different from Poland, where some people still follow that tradition – dating back to the communist times – to take pride in doing the exact opposite of what your government tells you!


On the next day, we finally got to see some real mountains. Perhaps taking our skis to Sweden truly made sense. We left the car past noon, starting the ski hike towards Viterskalet cabin, carrying a lot of gear and food on our backs. Actually we were following a very short section of the 440 km long Kungsleden – The King’s Trail – reportedly created so that the public would better be able to marvel on and appreciate Lappland’s landscape. Anyway, by Alpine standards, it is a very flat route – our very short sample of it featured a 400 m altitude gain over the distance of 9 kilometers.


We were using Alpine touring skis – not because they were best for the purpose, but because that’s what we own and are comfortable using. Now, if you think about ski gear that lets you go uphill… then there is a very pronounced difference between the equipment typically used in the Alps and the one usual for Nordic countries. Whereas the Nordic “cross country” kit is essentially what you see in competitive cross country skiing, the Alpine variant is is in fact just a lightweight version of downhill skis and boots. The main functional difference is in that you can switch the binding into “walk mode”, which releases the heel and keeps the toe attached to the ski on a pivot freely rotating in the pitch axis, to use familiar terminology.


In my previous life I had already done some Nordic routes on Alpine touring skis. It had been exactly like now: we were the only ones around with this kind of gear. Every local person was wondering how can one endure dragging over 3 kg on each one’s feet all day long. And at the same time marvelling how easy, compared to their Nordic kit, are we able to go up and then down a steep slope. Anyway, no steep slopes on the way to Viterskalet, so we were at a disadvantage. Took us almost four hours to get there. During that time we encountered like close to 50 snowmobiles. So much for quiet and peace in the mountains! Seemingly it is perfectly legal – and very popular – to drive a snow scooter around in the area. Whole families were having a barbecue, sitting against a snow wall shovelled near their scooters. Parents were towing around their children, who rode on skis or in sledges to general excitement. Imagine that in Switzerland! Some of the scooters ventured as far as our hut – and even further…


Now regarding “our” hut: the Viterskalet cabin is a very cosy place run by the Swedish Tourist Association, situated in a pronouncely U-shaped valley (nothing like I have seen before!). Of course now they do have some Covid regulations in place – like a limit placed on the number of persons in the dining room – but it did not spoil the experience at all. Krister, a volunteer cabin host showed us around and introduced us into the house rules. All pretty much like Alpenverein’s self service winter lodging in Austria. No mobile phone coverage, own sleeping bag to be used, no shower, wood burning stove in the kitchen to keep the place warm, water to be obtained by melting snow – or in this exceptional case, fetched from a well buried under 2 meters of packed snow. The only difference being it was twice more expensive… and perhaps hence the need for someone to make sure you actually pay! Not that I hold anything against Krister. On the very contrary – he was in fact superb welcoming, turned out to be a former military helicopter pilot and told us a story about one particularly scary landing in Oksywie EPOK!



After being allocated our beds, noting it is still quite early, we went for a quick run up the nearest steep slope – just for the sake of it. I was wondering if someone of the snowmobile crowd would be staying overnight in the hut. But why endure hardships, if you can return to the village probably in close to 15 minutes’ time? So in the evening it became apparent there’s just us two – and two Swedish girls named Betty and Åsa. The number of people permitted in the common room was set at eight, so – as everyone in Sweden speaks English – we had a long and nice evening chat over a pasta and pesto supper.

That was about the last day of relatively good weather in the mountains that we got to see. All the next day, beginning from the very morning, I was happy I was not flying the Bonanza anywhere close and that it was not actually parked nearby. Initially the plan had been to go somewhere far up a steep slope. The mountain’s range highest peak, Norra Sytertoppen, was conveniently just around the corner and our skis were exactly the right kit to scale it. Alas! The forecast mentioned 15 – 20 m/s winds, carrying light snowfall and it definitely did look like it through the hut’s windows. The avalanche danger level was set at 3 (of 5) – which is rather high. Mountaineering is sometimes very similar to aviation. Although a lot can be accomplished with proper gear and skills, the weather can easily make it dangerous and unpleasant. So we moved on to plan B: an easy hike up the Viterskalet valley. I hoped the steep walls of the valley would offer us some protection from the westerly wind. Which was indeed the case – it was windy all the time, but pretty much bearable. The visibility was also better than expected: the low hanging clouds in front of us constantly gave an impression that in half an hour time we would surely be entering the mountaineering equivalent of IMC. But magically it was not happening and we were visual with the valley walls all the time.



After “skiing” up the valley for some 7 kilometers, time came to either return or climb the ridge. We were far from tired, so we tried the latter. However it soon became evident that our valley, with an approx. 40-50 km/h wind, must have been the only quiet retreat in these mountains. It was closer to 80-100 up on the lowest part of the ridge, and thus we gave up very soon. I could barely stand and we actually had to go in reverse gear first, before we were able to remove ski skins and switch the skis into proper descent mode!

The descent was slightly boring, if not onerous. Due to the flatness of the valley, we did not have to turn too much. Nevertheless, it was all very fun and enjoyable trip. There was real winter and beautiful scenery. And no one was around.

Apparently enjoying winter during the Easter is popular in Sweden – something that I can well understand. Betty left, but in the evening the cabin was re-populated by two families with children, a Swedish couple following the Kungsleden from Hemavan to Ammarnäs and a French couple walking the same section but in opposite direction. Krister directed the French to our, “international” bedroom. They told us it had been windy in the mountains for the past week and it almost ruined their holiday experience.

This time we all had to take turns to use the dining room. Also it was normal that in this kind of crowd and given the circumstances, the groups held together rather than mixed. One of the families played board games. Our room mates, exhausted, quickly went asleep. We ate our freeze-dried meals and a hot jelly dessert – and then turned to reading. The wind was blowing wildly outside and it was no fun at all going to the latrine before bedtime.

We woke up on the morning of Easter only to notice it was hard IMC all around. Our plan was to return to the car and drive as close to the Bonanza as possible, so that we could fly south at least one leg on Easter Monday. Fortunately navigating back the valley was not difficult – the King’s trail is well marked with poles ending with St. Andrew’s cross. True, we lost sight of them when we climbed the valley slope a bit, but of course we still had a GPS fix. The idea to climb was concieved to take advantage of our downhill capabilities. It is hard to tell if it made any difference… but it was fun! We broke cloud approximately at the tree line and thus were able to navigate with reference to visual cues in the forest. However the temperature has risen markedly above zero, which made the fresh snow damp, heavy and unpleasant to ski on. If it were not for the well packed snowmobile track, returning to the Saab would have been very frustrating; hardly nothing is more frustrating for an avid skier than the snow being so wet, that it is impossible to ski down on a nice slope!




On a positive note, at least we did not have to dig the Saab’s out (and digging out cars for hours happens sometimes in the Alps…). We had enough day remaining to drive all the way back to Östersund. I must admit that was a bit boring – more than six hours in total – but at least we rotated the driver. And when Ola was driving, I was looking into aviation weather and possible routings.


On the way we shopped for our supper and breakfast. Supermarkets were open almost normally on Easter Sunday. We booked a somewhat larger apartament in Östersund in order to be able to sort out all our stuff before packing it into the aeroplane. It turned out to be a flat in some kind of listed property, built in 1850. Also very stylish! After moving in our stuff and spreading it evenly on the floor, we went for a short walk. It was quite cold, windy, and then out of a sudden snow started falling. The first half of the night a wild gale was blowing down the chimney.



I was not surprised, it had all been in the forecasts… It was supposed to be relatively calm here on Monday morning – and then getting gusty towards the afternoon. South of us, some patches of snow and rain were to move easterly. And a violent cold front was sweeping across Poland, severe weather warnings issued for most of the country. We could perhaps reach southern Sweden, but that was it. No views of returning home, at least not today. I was hoping to say hello to Ralph in person, so I thought why don’t we try get to Västervik ESSW again. So I filed for F075, SVE – UMSAK – LEGPO – DEPEX – VSN, a route that diverted a bit to the west in hope of getting behind the forecasted precipitation. And then we drove to the Optand Airfield.


The Bonanza was covered with a thin layer of snow. It fell down wet in the evening and then froze during the cold night, so it was clinging to the wings. Fortunately the sun was shining, so a bit of scrubbing, a bit of brooming and a bit of towbar applied so that every piece of the aircraft faced the sun for a while did the job. Obviously my pre-flight involved inspecting all surfaces and hinges this time with double or triple the scrutiny…

Anders cordially bid us farewell and after loading all the cargo, we took off in a westerly crosswind from RWY18 at 10:40 local – just 10 minutes later than anticipated. We went as far as to Örebro without any issues. Just us in the sky – apart from some lovely, scattered clouds. We even got to witness a rare meteorological occurence: the tailwind! The only thing we might perhaps have been complaining about was temperature aloft. Indeed, as pointed out somewhere else, in many a light aeroplane, in winter you can’t rely merely on the cabin heating system to keep you warm…




After we were handed to Ostgota Approach, things started to go a bit south. I got a weather report for Linkoping, which was by then mere 50 NM ahead of us, and it said SCT054. But at the same time we were clearly looking at a wide and dense cloud extending far up in front of the windscreen. I gradually descended to have a look. It became apparent that we hit the rain band that was destined for Stockholm, but for some reason was late. The season being winter and us not being equipped with any sort of anti-icing or de-icing, we naturally wanted to stay away from any rain independently of the visibility – which was not appealing anyway. Thus we had to divert further to the west, over the Vättern lake, to circle the percipitation. The Ostgota controller insisted that we stayed on his frequency.

- NSC, Zone 22A is NOT active. Zone 22B is NOT active. For your information, the airports in the area west of you are closed. You are cleared to re-enter Ostgota TMA at any time, 2500’ or below.

Now that was a helpful attitude! After a few minutes, we were able to resume navigation directly to our destination. One small problem was now we had to endure noticeable chop. With less than 25 minutes remaining until Västervik, there was little point in climbing again to F075 among scattered clouds. After another 15 minutes the turbulence became even more pronounced and Ola ran out of hard candies that usually do miracles preventing motion sickness. This approach was definitely the most interesting, my partner’s face turning green on final while I was struggling to keep the wings level… Time in air for this leg amounted to 02:27.



On the ground we were met by Ralph and Gustav. I refuelled, deposited Ola horizontally on the club’s couch and went for some hangar talk. I overestimated the time she needed for a recovery; when I returned to the club building after 40 minutes, she was already regretting she hadn’t taken her book from the Bonanza…

For our last night in Sweden we booked exactly the same apartment we had spent the first night in. Having a lot of time until the evening this time, we resolved to test all the facilities provided: the oven (baking a pizza), the microwave (making some popcorn), the big flat TV (watching a movie) and the fireplace (in hope to create a romantic atmosphere). Only the fireplace was a total failure. Whatever the lever setting was, all the smoke would not go into the chimney but rather on us. Otherwise we only had minor issues. No HDMI cable was provided, so I was forced to learn a new skill, called “screencasting over WiFi”.

The weather for Tuesday was not supposed to involve any violent phenomena. Above Sweden it was all CAVOK, with some isolated clouds predicted over the Baltic sea. However after that cold front passage, a sizeable amount of cloud was forecasted above Poland. It appeared that we need to cross the coast line either at A020 or F070+ with no options in between. And I am not necessarily a fan of crossing 3°C seas at 2000’. So we were clearly looking into some flying over the top.

I filed for F080, routing via KAL – LARMA – APSIK – RAVAG – IDEXU – BESTO – ELGOX. It looked like in the afternoon we could also have to reckon with some intermittient percipitation and gusty winds, so we resolved to wake up early to be on the safe side. Again some snow appeared overnight on the Bonanza, but this time it did not hold to the surfaces at all and perhaps could be quickly blown away merely by starting up. But Ola meticulously broomed it just in case, reasoning that it is only proper that the captain can inspect every piece of his ship unobscured!

I am far from being casual about flying VFR above cloud. So, as soon when we were ready to board, instead of fastening the seat belt, I went back to the clubhouse. I checked and re-checked the forecasts, looked at METARs, webcams, radars, sat24.com and what else. Over EPKM overcast prevailed. But EPLS – very conveniently on the way – had blue skies. Other pictures from Poland were somewhere in between these extremes, confirming we should have sufficient options for a proper VFR descent. So I decided we go – and soon we started the engine and departed from RWY33, blue skies above us for the time being.




The tip of Öland

The clouds appeared, as predicted, on the Polish coast line. Gdansk Informacja gave us a dire warning about some low level clouds and percipitation reported in the general vincinity and offered to co-ordinate our descent into the nearby military airspace should we need it. That was all also expected – during the pre-flight briefing I had observed that patches of showers were forecasted – and detected – at the coastline, moving towards the east. But inland, until late afternoon, no rain or snow was expected. In any case, at our sunny FL80 we had “100 km” visibility and were above all the cloud we could see ahead – maybe except some isolated build ups far away. Any notion of descending into the nasty things the FIS mentioned sounded ridiculous…


Indeed just after passing the coastline, we did not get to see the ground too often. But soon the cloud cover became optimistically broken and the clouds were framing brighter pictures. I love the tranquility and the views over the top, but I was far from intending to fly all the way to EPKM and happily assuming it will be just 5 or 6/8 when we arrive there. Rather than that, I was thinking about a reasonable compromise between safety and comfort (… which also relates to safety, as it is easier to make good decisions on safety while being comfortable). Poznan Informacja offered that we can stay on their frequency and they will coordinate our transit via EPPO TMA and then EPPW MTMA. I thought that’s very good and nice of them – but as soon as we are OCAS, we should go down the largest break we can see around – and then continue low.

With not much other traffic reporting on the frequency, Ola fell asleep. She woke up when I requested QNH for descent. A pretty good teamwork then followed, me taking care of turning, orbiting to maintain distance from clouds and watching the airspeed, whereas Ola was calling out the descent rate for my better awareness. After a few minutes we no longer had to bother with oktas over our destination. However the comfort degraded a lot and again the aircraft had to be slowed down to said 130 KIAS…


By my standards, we were subjected to just ordinary and boring chop, but the depleted candy bag made it worse for Ola. Otherwise, the rest of the 03:21 flight was not remarkable and took place generally in the vincinity of A020. EPKT TWR gave us a convenient direct, letting us tour a part of their CTR that normally does not get a lot of visitors. We flew past the landmarks of Katowice, arrived overhead EPKM, joined downwind for RWY23 from the dead side, as customary here, and landed after an only slightly bumpy approach. With that, the winter adventure ended!






Well, almost ended. We still had to take a swab to avoid being stuck at home for two weeks…

I thank all the people that gave us their advice on planning and helped with our logistics on the way: Ralph (the Västervik airfield activist and manager), Johannes (a very responsive member of Östersund Flygklubb), Anders (the club’s cheerful and helpful employee) and last but not least Erik, my Swedish mountaineer friend.

EPKM, Poland

Mateusz wrote:

Of course we thought it surely must be a Cadillac, but both me and Ola are quite ignorant on cars manufactured before we were born, especially those manufactured west of the Berlin wall

I’m guessing ‘63 Ford Galaxie 500XL, a couple of
years newer than the Bonanza. I like the Bonanza better

Looks like a great flight.

@Mateusz thank you for the write up and good to see a forumite’s nice N35 being put to good use! With so many GPS jamming exercises occurring the venerable KNS80 is becoming fashionable again.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

Great writeup! The area east of Hemavan is fantastic. I’ve done lots of summer mountain hiking in the area — including up the valley to Norra Sytertoppen.

Unfortunate that ESUT didn’t work out for you. I’m a bit surprised. I’ve only flown there once, three years or so ago, but at that time the airport staff were very accomodating. I both arrived and departed outside hours but didn’t pay any surcharge as no staff were called in — the airport was empty. Maybe it was different because your trip was in winter with snow? As you say there’s no AVGAS on the field, but instead I refueled in Östersund (ESNZ rather than ESNM as I was IFR).

The terrain may look forbidding, but is no problem if the weather is reasonable.

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 19 Apr 07:08
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

What an amazing trip, Mateusz

This is a great example of using GA to get somewhere, especially in these difficult times.

Was it all “cross country” skiing, with no ski lifts? If so, you are both pretty tough

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Super nice trip with lovely faces & superbe aircraft !

Getting SAAB900 on landing is chic

I gather Polish & Swedish airspace are straightforward for VFR, I will surely give them a go one day

PS: I am sure fixing DME of KNS80 fall under “the next 50 years humanity challenges”, I been there and the old one was full of gremlins, I can’t tell the secret but the new KNS80 worked just fine

Last Edited by Ibra at 19 Apr 08:22
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Thanks for the feedback!

Peter wrote:

Was it all “cross country” skiing, with no ski lifts? If so, you are both pretty tough

No lifts. Going uphill on skis can be pretty exhausting, but as with other activities requiring physical fitness, you just make your body used to it gradually and then, after a year or two, it stops to be a “problem”. Unless at altitude and/or following too ambitious a plan… Of course being generally fit helps – but that’s almost always the case in life ;) Note that many people would say anyone that flies and lands a small aeroplane (with one engine! – imagine that!) must be tough … and reckless not to wear their parachute all the time! :).

Airborne_Again wrote:

Unfortunate that ESUT didn’t work out for you. I’m a bit surprised. I’ve only flown there once, three years or so ago, but at that time the airport staff were very accomodating.

Johannes of Östersund Flygklubb had very similar recollections and encouraged me to fly all the way to the north. The staff told me to keep to NOTAMed AFIS operating hours to avoid the surcharge, but perhaps they just couldn’t offer any other answer in writing. Anyway, I was ready to adjust to the scheduled traffic “windows” and the main factor in my decision not to fly there was the general weather trend prevailing at the time.

Before the trip I had seen your post on the four-day trek and having a lot of time to think driving up to Hemavan, I was pondering on general trip logistics… Sometimes you have a trip idea and then use your flexibility to find an opportunity to go there (I mean wait for the right weather and/or until you can afford taking a break from your work)… but sometimes you have a specific time span/opportunity – and then you need to use your flexibility to decide what to do with it, and how (I mean fly North, West, South … or maybe drive, if the weather is too bad)… This trip was done rather in the latter circumstances… No conclusions here, just pondering :) Anyway, my experience so far is that flexibility is absolutely critical if you want to fly anywhere GA….

Last Edited by Mateusz at 19 Apr 08:41
EPKM, Poland
Nice trip and good example that you can do a lot even with VFR ..
EETU, Estonia

I loved your “can do” attitude laced with caution.
There are 2 ways I have found to ease my wife’s stomach in turbulence. One is to fly a twin, the other, perhaps more practical are wrist bands with a button which sits on the veins. Don’t know why it works or how but they seem to work even at sea, and I can get mal de mer when still in port.

France

@gallois ginger biscuits also work

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom
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