Peter wrote:
Above Bol
The approach over Bol is really great, a bit like Courchevel. But just a word of caution. At this very same spot we once did experience massive downdrafts and turbulence. After us some other GA plane got damaged on the landing and the runway was blocked for the rest of the day. It turned out that the runway is long and the approach is much smoother and safer if one does not aim for the threshold but a few hundred meters into the runway coming in a bit higher.
Tomorrow looks ok for the return flight, using the same standard old route
One could almost do it this afternoon as that muck moves east, but then buildups are forecast down here
Yes one should not do a shallow approach to any runway on a cliff, because the wind is bound to create a downdraught at the cliff edge. In the UK, many PPLs do extremely shallow approaches. Flying as #2 behind I often see their shadow on the ground for the last mile or two 
Walked up Monte Baston
Airport in the distance.
Peter wrote:
One could almost do it this afternoon as that muck moves east, but then buildups are forecast down here
Quite a lot of convective stuff is still around Switzerland now and will be for the rest of the day.
Back home. Had to divert to Lydd EGMD due to apparent low cloud / fog at Shoreham EGKA (few at 200ft and later few at 100ft, in the metar, looking awfully like sea fog), landed, refuelled, phoned up Shoreham to find out it is all offshore, and flew there right away.
LFOB at EGKA would have been 28 USG, which is quite a lot and not bad considering headwind 2/3 of the way, 15-20kt, plus downdraughts before and over the Alps, but there is nothing like full tanks
The diversion resulted in a very p1ssed off bunch of policemen waiting for me at Shoreham. At Lydd it was done with a phone call – very civilised.
The quarantine tracing mob has already been onto me, so something in the UK is working A very strange phone call, poor and barely legible English, asking me to confirm my date of birth. Obviously I refused (scam calls are a daily thing) and eventually it became apparent the guy wanted just the year.
The regime is 3 (three) PCR tests: day 2 (arrival day is day 1), day 5 and day 8. If the day 5 one is negative then you can go walkabout as soon as you have that result (typically on day 6, obviously no sooner unless you find a same-day lab). If you skip the day 5 one, you have to quarantine the full 10 days. This obviously stops most people travelling…
The pre-return-flight test, nobody was interested in.
I will write up the trip when I get around to it.
Well done Peter!
RobertL18C wrote:
Well done @Peter and @Emir were you the only GA at the airport?
No. Both airports (LDLO and LDSB) were visited by GA from different countries – Austria, Czechia, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy and some N-reg – pistons, turboprops and jets. It’s not as it was in “normal” years but the traffic is increasing. Unlike my recent trip to Canaries where I was the only GA aircraft at 5 visited airports.
Here we go, with some more pics, covering the rest of the trip.
On the same day as Emir flew back out of Brac, I relocated back to Losinj – because it is ~1hr nearer the UK so with much better fuel options for the almost inevitable headwind. On the 2014 fly-in the winds were opposite, with a ~7hr run EGKA-LDLO
The return wx had worsened considerably and it started to look like a couple of summers ago when the whole summer was wasted by TSRA right across Europe, N of the Alps.
The gliding part of the trip didn’t go ahead because the guy won so many medals in some competition that he had to go to a ceremony to collect them and could not do the flight Another time…
I also abandoned the collection of the donated TKS fluid from Caen, because of pretty dramatic issues in France should I be grounded there. I “lost” two credit cards while on this trip, and a CC not authorising when paying for fuel would do just nicely; the airport could just call the police. I did have a plan, involving Brac to Portoroz (Slovenia is another “smart country”, allowing 2x vacc for entry) and then to Caen which would leave me with enough fuel to fly Caen-Shoreham if there was a fuelling issue at Caen, but a lack of response from Caen airport on this left me with too much doubt. Refuelling is CV19-exempt everywhere but… do you feel lucky? Extracting myself from France, minus the plane, would be extremely difficult and would start with a quarantine in France, in solitary confinement. Another option, for bad wx over the Alps, was via Montpellier LFMT, and an extremely kind pilot friend phoned me up and said that if there was any problem with fuelling he would fly there and pay for it. But LFMT did not reply to an email I sent them to clarify…
Departure from Brac
The standard amazing Adriatic Sea landscape – never get tired of this
There is a number of fish islands
Approaching Losinj
There was another inbound on a huuuuge long final so ATC offered me an orbit over the town, authorising 1000ft, which was something you never get offered in N Europe!
Left base
Some interesting hardware
I was concerned when directed to taxi over some loose rope, so I shut down and we pushed the plane into position
A final meal at the El Paso
They do absolutely amazing salads, like you never see in the town (fish not in the photo 
)
Mostly German and Austrian planes
This wall is gradually crumbling, since my first visit many years ago
I walked up to the highest point on Losinj
Back at the famous-from-2014-meetup Barracuda for a fish coup. After a week of eating amazing fish I started to reduce my intake
Last evening on Losinj. Staying again at the really good Mare Mare hotel, which is normally fully booked from 1st May, but with tourism destroyed now by CV19, it had plenty of space
Morning of departure… interesting wx remained. The previous days’ TSs cleared up for the return route, which is the normal one, on which you harrass ATC to cut off those corners
LDLO N0152F110 PUL3F PUL P11 ROTAR L615 AKADO Y265 INBUT N503 VIC L615 PEXUG/N0148F130 L615 DESIP N851 UTAVO/N0147F140 N851 ELMUR L613 MANEG/N0152F110 L613 HOC G4 RLP B3 BILGO H20 XORBI H40 NEBRU/N0150F120 H40 ABB N20 KUNAV DCT HARDY DCT SFD EGKA
IR image never lies; it just doesn’t tell you how fast the stuff will build after you took off
A TS remaining near Pula, so a slight left detour
Radar confirmed
Tafs and metars OK along the route, with only EGKK available at the UK end – this is from the airport database telegram bot
Metar
EGKK 060550Z 25004KT 220V290 CAVOK 13/12 Q1024
TAF
EGKK 060456Z 0606/0712 24005KT 9999 SCT045
PROB40
TEMPO 0606/0609 8000 BKN007
PROB30
TEMPO 0611/0620 7000 SHRA
TEMPO 0701/0709 7000 BKN010
PROB30
TEMPO 0702/0707 4000 BR BKN004
6am local
Airport opens 0600Z officially but the nice police let me through to get the plane ready
The TS etc stuff to the NE of the route
Climbing FL160 and looking for gaps. Temp was about -7C at FL160 which affects the operating ceiling considerably; in ISA conditions the TB20, with full TKS fitted, goes straight up to FL195 which is the highest one can get in the UK before ATC gets nervous
This is even before the Alps. 15-20kt headwind and substantial downdraughts too
LFOB = 22USG which is good for the conditions, and would improve a lot later on. I later got a DCT to ABESI, and then Swiss let me stay at FL160 from there to HR
I will try to fill in the names of these lakes when I do the video because that will have the GPS track
The nearer one is a disused runway; the smaller one is Munster
The famous mountains – Matterhorn and Weisshorn, I think, which I got on the way down a week earlier
Probably Monch there
LFOB improving to 30, with a little tailwind. Prob99 due to being a Sunday, I got an extremely rate shortcut HR-REM, via some mil airspace, but no luck with any Paris airspace
A very tedious last 2-3hrs, but luckily the nice ladies at the hotel made me a bottle of coffee
Shoreham wx suddenly worsened
Metar
EGKA 061220Z 22011KT 9999 FEW001 SCT012 18/15 Q1025
TAF
EGKA 061112Z 0612/0618 20009KT 9999 FEW015
PROB30
TEMPO 0612/0618 4000 BR BKN004
but with London Control there was no way to get any detail e.g. where exactly the OVC001 is. Also ATC will never commit to anything (in the UK); the most you will get is the standard wx report, and “FEW” can be a long way from the airport. It looked like possibly fog moving in, and when that happens, all the coastal airports are gone fast, clean forecasts regardless. So with 28 USG LFOB (enough for 2.5hrs at low level) I diverted immediately to Lydd, which was very inviting
Landed with 27.3 USG.
A very posh lounge
With full tanks and a phone call to Shoreham establishing the OVC001 is offshore and has been there all day, I flew straight down there
The other option would be to set up the tent, which obviously can’t be done airside but there are plenty of places just outside Lydd where you could do some “illegal wild camping”
The police were waiting at Shoreham and were probably highly p1ssed off, but it was sorted at Lydd with just a phone call with a very pleasant policewoman. It is probably illegal to stay in a hotel in this situation
Shoreham, left base 20
Eventual route flown is pretty straight
The low cloud did move in a few hours later
A great trip, and I am so glad I did it. I am looking forward to our Sep 2021 Sicily fly-in
Now I am facing the UK quarantine, with its stupid CV19 management disregarding vaccination status for all purposes, due to the opposition all aligning itself behind the “equality/solidarity” position regardless of cost or who will be paying for the ~£1BN/day cost, 20 years from now (mostly, it will be paid by those who are “young” and favour this “no advantage for older people” position – because the rest of us old codgers will be retired or dead). Very frustrating. £300 for 3 tests, and a lot of them are sold by scammers who sell you the test but fail to deliver the “certificate process”. Or just don’t send you the kit for days or weeks. One option I saw is you drive up to some test location, some dick hands you a £5 chinese kit, the dick watches you stick it up your nose (along with watching a dozen others sitting in their cars), comes back after 15 mins, and charges you £200+ for that. You then repeat that 3 times.
Could be worse though; better doing it in my “country village care home” than in the 10-day solitary confinement for £1700 like tens of thousands “red country” arrivals are doing right now (a process so disorganised that media reporting on it is under a lot of control) and a fair % of them will be either walking out (£10k fine, in theory) or looking for a way to commit suicide (not actually kidding, especially in a windowless room like some airport hotels have).
I have two videos to edit: Losinj-Brac (scenic one at 6000ft) and Losinj-Lydd. The original Shoreham-Losinj is already up
Getting back today was judged much harder, and it would be
Always fly at the first opportunity!
Hey, Peter what day were you at Mali Losinj? We refuelled there yesterday (Sunday) at 14.30 local time and, having been tipped by you, had our first meal at El Paso. Wonderful!! The kind police lady let us through to have lunch without bothering to formally let us into Croatia or our again. Great people. All the same planes were on the ramp that you photographed. It would have been really cool to finally meet you at LDLO for the first time. We chatted with the guys in the black Duke. We met them the last time we were in Losinj. They arrived at the same time as we did, but were not let in as they had had the wrong type of Covid tests.
The flight back was a bit too exciting. Over Venice we had no choice but to fly through a fairly dark cloud area for 20 minutes, but it showed nothing threatening in terms of radar return. But the thing I didnt forsee was the stupendous downdraft I had to deal with the whole time. Very hard managing to maintain altitude while not overheating the engine.
We arrived at Corfu airport on May 30 and it was still a ghost town. But on the way out yesterday it was transformed into normal summer madness. Handler told me there would be 60 or so commercial flights – Tui, EZY, Ryan, LOT etc
