Trip report - Sweden, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Austria and back

Every summer for the last 10 years or so me and a couple of pilots friends have done a longer trip with different destinations. Last year we visited Jersey, La Rochelle (where we met Peter) and Colmar. This year we chose Portoroz as our main destination, with a day trip to Croatia. On the return flight back to Sweden we planned to make a stop in Bolzano to fly via the Brenner pass on our way home.

We departed Sweden (ESMI and ESTL) with three aircraft and 8 pilots, of whom 5 are instrument rated, on Saturday the 11th. It turned out to be a good day to fly weather wise with almost blue skies all the way south to Portoroz.

With fuelling completed and everything checked, it’s the same great feeling every year to call IFR clearance. You know that a small adventure and a great couple of days are waiting. Since everyone has an interest in aviation, there no stopping in aviation related discussions :)

Our first leg was ESMI/ESTL (depending on acft) to EDQM Hof Plauen. I’ve visited EDQM 4-5 times before and it’s a great stop for fuel and food on the way south. They have an ILS and since it’s a small airport you can do a fast turn-around. There’s a decent restaurant just outside the airport as well.

For the first time since I got my IR ticket I got a full procedure without asking for it, so full procedure ILS 26 was flown on the G1000/GFC700 AP.

After fuel both for the aircraft and pilots we did a quick visit to the tower to check our VFR flightplans for Portoroz LJPZ. Everything was OK so we were off again. All aircraft had planned to fly this leg VFR since we aimed to fly through the alps.

A lesson learned from earlier trips is to always check the status of a VFR flightplan. We file these via the Swedish FPC (who offer a wonderful service free of charge), but if the departure is outside Sweden they fax/phone it to the departure country and sometimes the flightplan gets stuck on the way, probably the receiving country doesn’t handle it correctly. So it’s always worth to check the fpl before start-up VFR.

Anyways, after a good meal, fuel and numerous telegram checks regarding the alp weather we decided to go. The flight to Salzburg was a no brainer VFR. When we approached Salzburg we got a ”Cleared south through Salzburg TMA FL75” as a response on our initial call. Thanks for that!

After Salzburg the flight was more demanding with the navigation through the alps. It was the first time I flew in the Alps and wow, it was amazing! The weather was good but a bit of haze spoiled some of the views. To the west the wx looked worse with a few TCUs, luckily that wasn’t our destination this time.

We noticed early that our feeling of distance was much more difficult that anticipated. Did the lead aircraft turn before or after that ridge? Is it the next canyon to the right or the one after? With the help of SkyDemon and Jeppesen Mobile VFR (more on that later) we managed to find our way south in one piece.

Somewhat unexpected we got several traffic information alerts from Ljubljana Information. ”Traffic 12 o clock, same altitude” is not what I want to hear in hazy conditions, so we decided to climb 1000ft to avoid most of it.

Once we arrived at Portoroz we were greeted with the same hospitality as always. They are truly helpful and quickly arranged a transport to our hotel.

The first time we visited LJPZ was on our way to Vrsar and Poréc, so I never visited the city of Portoroz before. Unfortunately I expected more, it was the classic tourist city with hotels and cheap restaurants at the (concrete) beach. Fortunately for us we found Piran, which is located just west of Portoroz. What a great little picturesque town!

If you are planning to stay in Portoroz, don’t. Choose Piran instead :)

Three countries in one picture :)

After a day with rest (and walk to Piran) it was time for the day trip to Croatia. We decided on Mali Losinj, the destination of the 2014 EuroGA meet-up. We flew VFR and followed the ADRIA route south to SAL NDB between 2500ft and 1000ft. What a wonderful 2 hour flight. Island after island, crystal clear water and tons of small sailing boats. Amazing!

After landing in Losinj we decided to walk to the nearby village just east of the airport, located in the small bay to get some food and take a quick swim. Without expectations of a more than a sandwich for lunch we found a great little restaurant, so the 30 minute lunch turned into 1:30h. The sandwich became sea bass with a nice dessert :)

On Wednesday we headed for Bolzano. I filed a Y flightplan and got a perfect routing just above Lido and Venice :) The weather forecast told us that the WX was good, but it turned out to be very hazy.

After cancelling IFR inbound VIC VOR we continued VFR towards Trento TNT VOR. The ground rose rapidly as we got closer to VIC and we had planned to follow a canyon north west inbound TNT. The haze and unexpected cloud base caused us to make a 180 and head back east instead 5 minutes after we went into the canyon and before the turn into the narrower part. It would have been dangerous to continue. After a quick map check we decided to follow A22 highway instead, with a wider valley which allowed for 180 turns in case the WX wasn’t cooperating. Luckily it cleared up near Trento and looked more like the forecasted wx conditions.

After an uneventful landing in Bolzano we got rooms at the Four Points by Sheraton. The temperature had risen to a whooping 37 degrees when we left the hotel that afternoon, so we decided to seek higher grounds immediately :)

Bolzano was truly wonderful. We visited a nearby mountain just north of the city and took the cable and train combo to Klobenstein, where you can find the earth pyramids.

After a warm night (even with AC) we scheduled to depart at 07:30Z for Innsbruck via the Brennerpass route. When we did our checks of the aircraft that morning we had lots of unexpected visitors who wanted to join us north. Ants! All three aircraft had loads of them on the wings and body, some had also found their way into the cabin. We tried to get rid of those we could and hoped that the altitude would take care of the rest (which it did).

The weather through the alps was marginal due to the haze (as an Alps noobie), but we decided to give a try as GAFOR showed all routes as Open until 10:00Z. Due to the haze we didn’t really get the views I had hoped for and the flight also demanded most of my concentration.

Innsbruck was quite busy with GA aircraft when we arrived and believe it or nor, I got a ”S-XN, minimum speed on final” in a Cessna 172! That made my day :)

After a quick turn-around in Innsbruck for fuel we departed on a Z flightplan towards Magdeburg City. I got an IFR pick-up after leaving November 1 and climbed to FL100 just west of Munich.

We decided on Magdeburg City because they offer an LPV approach :) They also have a nice restaurant and the landing fee is only 7 Euro.

The last leg towards ESMI was uneventful.

All accounted for it was another great week of flying. We had a couple of moments when the whole group was somehow amazed how useful GA is, as we didn’t already know it. I would never have found either Piran, the small village in Losinj or get to see the alps in that way without GA. I get to see parts of Europe I’d never ever visited otherwise and get experiences thereafter.

Most trips also have some lessons learned of course.

The first thing is that thanks to Achim & CO our time spent in flight planning is probably 20% of what it used to be. The router worked wonderful and we had everything we needed in the briefing pack. The only time I had to find the route myself was the Y flight from LJPZ→LIPB, where the router suggest a route north of the alps and then the brenner pass to LIPB ;)

The telegram bot was great as well, I used it intensely before and during the flight (when I got a 3G connection). It’s so much faster to check the WX than surfing through my bookmarks for SATIR, Radar etc.

@Achimha and everyone else involved, thank you for a wonderful service.

I also took the opportunity to compare Jeppesen Mobile VFR vs Skydemon, as Jeppesen offer a 30 day trial. I won’t write much about this, but two things turned out to be better with Jeppesen. The maps are clearer and their WX overlay turned out to be quite useful. They were also the only one who had the correct ADRIA route in Croatia (Skydemon showed it as going right overhead LDLO). But Skydemon still beats them with all the other functions that’s offered, including the price and coverage.

And last, as great as the Cessna 172 is for the average flyer, there is simply not enough power to combat WX when it’s summer temperatures in southern Europe. We had an 8kt wind when we flew from Salzburg to Portoroz and the downdraft caused by that was enough to cause a descent, even with full power. If that was 15kt our flight would not have been the same great experience.

A great week! Next trip is most likely to Poland in September.

(all pics taken with my iPhone 6+ and VSCO picture app)