The trip looked more-less like this, although the actual routes flown were bit different due to airways and some restricted areas. According to ADL tracking, it was 2742 NM.
It started from Zagreb LDZA with short visit to my base field Varazdin LDVA to refill the oxygen. Then we continued to seaside to enjoy beautiful weather forecasted for weekend on Adriatic Sea. After landing to Split LDSP we took ferry to island of Vis, to charming city of Komiza, my favorite place on Adriatic which unfortunately still doesn’t have an airfield despite the ongoing initiative.
After coming back to Split we made a short hop to Sarajevo LQSA for some business meetings. Sarajevo is definitely place to visit with rich history and specific architecture, surrounded with beautiful mountains which hosted Winter Olympic games in 1984. City is pretty much rebuilt after the war (1992-1995) but you still can see some scars and ruins. The only problem for average GA visitor is no 100LL at LQSA (or any other international airport in Bosnia and Herzegovina) but you can combine the trip with flying to neighboring countries and land with sufficient fuel for return. I guess 100LL can be arranged with local flight club but it requires good local support and flying to nearby airfield. For those who can use mogas, it’s not a problem – you can get it at petrol station in front of the airport and arrange refueling from cans with airport authorities – they are quite relaxed on this.
With cold front approaching we didn’t have much choice for flying further east, so we left Sarajevo a day earlier than planned and flew our longest (800 NM) leg to Alanya LTFG. The flight was uneventful except last hour which consisted of lot of avoiding and light to moderate icing during arrival which was easily handled with TKS until reaching below freezing level.
GA aviation is not strong in Turkey and airports are not easy to contact and although very friendly, they are not so accustomed to handle GA flights. However, with local support everything can be arranged and after initial arrangement for only one day parking, it was extended to required three days. I can’t say anything about the fees, since a friend of mine who’s prominent GA pilot in Turkey, didn’t allow me to pay any.
Alanya itself is vibrant touristic city with large castle and beautiful citadel on the hill which can be reached by foot or by cable-car.
From Alanya we flew northeast to Samsun LTFH, port town located on Black Sea. We departed at 10 a.m. local time with the idea to land before usual spring TCUs start to develop. However, FL180 wasn’t sufficient to top-up the clouds and we did few avoids which actually shortened our route. When flying relatively close to Syrian border and some military installations we experienced a lot of GPS jamming which caused us to revert out navigation to time, heading and VORs.
Our friend was waiting for us at Samsun airport apron and we went to visit small GA airfield called 19th May LTFI which is his base. There’s probably the largest TB20 fleet in Europe with 6 aircrafts owned by my friend’s company and 3 more owned by other private owners. This is probably the best equipped and the most beautiful TB20 around the world (sorry @peter 
) including radar altimeter.
From Samsun we flew to Tokat LTAW, a small city towards south across few hills. Since our departure was delayed because I left my glasses and we had to return to pick them up, we had to do a lot of avoiding to escape developing thunderstorms, precisely forecasted both on timing and locations. Although we filed IFR plan, ATC was pretty relaxed allowing us to follow the route we chose on altitudes of our choice to remain visual for efficient avoidance which made our flight pretty much look like VFR. For actual VFR flying in Turkey you have to have Turkish speaking pilot on board for communicating with ATC for reporting VFR points. IFR flying is easy and ATC is very cooperative and responsive on every request, trying to make your flight as easy as possible. Weather data and weather radar related advices are available – I can’t say if this is usual practice or special friendly treatment but communication was very smooth and friendly. Although there’s no radar images coverage for Turkey with ADL, this IR image can give you quite good idea of weather.
In Tokat we were greeted by whole bunch of friendly people pretty much enthusiastic about someone from Croatia visiting their airfield.
Tokat is old city with typical Ottoman-Turkish architecture and I chose to take pictures of some beautiful and old houses, unfortunately not in good condition due to ageing and wooden construction.
Ali Pasha mosque in Tokat – practically identical to Ali Pasha mosque in Sarajevo.
Flying back to Alanya was game of choosing the right altitude to fly between the layers against the headwind before passing the front ad reaching sunshine on the shoreline. Some pretty high mountains parallel to our route and again a lot of GPS jamming close to Syrian border.
We landed to Alanya LTFG and stayed there for another 3 days and we were awarded with beautiful weather and almost warm sea – it’s not as worm as later in the year but it’s around 20 degrees which makes it ok for swimming.
First part of our return flight was from Alanya to Skopje LWSK and it was against pretty strong headwind (up to 35 kts) and clear skies almost all the way except some 15 minutes prior to descent when we had to climb to top-up the clouds rather than to stay in icing conditions which we briefly experienced few minutes later in the first part of descent.
After quick refueling at Skopje (Jet A1 €0.72 payment in cash, fees for technical stop €28) we continued to Zagreb LDZA choosing longer route over Serbia rather than the short one over Bosnia. The reason was weather and coming front with low located somewhere in Bosnia. As forecasted, flying on edge of this low we had tailwind while flying shorter route would give us headwind – according to autorouter shorter route would take us more time and looking in-flight weather on ADL confirmed this. Light icing and rain during descent as well as OVC010 at Zagreb reminded us that summer still hadn’t find its way to all parts of Europe.
Great! Alanya looks nice!
But we need more details on the flight planning / permits / handling side: who exactly did you deal with for that and what was the workflow?
For actual VFR flying in Turkey you have to have Turkish speaking pilot on board for communicating with ATC for reporting VFR points.
This can‘t be very accurate, since every year, a few VFR only crews from Europe fly to and in Turkey.
Same question: is the requirement of a turkish speaking Co mentioned in the AIP (like in the Ukraine) and enforced in real life?
Nice trip report Emir. We have never been at Turkey, but it seems worth to fly to.
Impressive trip! Thanks for sharing!
I’m also curious if flying VFR over turkey is possible.
boscomantico wrote:
But we need more details on the flight planning / permits / handling side: who exactly did you deal with for that and what was the workflow?
Flight planning was done with Autorouter with Foreflight as backup. Standard weather info resources were used (TAFs, METARs, windy.com, meteox.com, ogimet.com and Autorouter’s weather briefing). In addition I used Golze’s ADL in flight weather although it misses radar coverage for anything eastern of Bosnia. However, checking forecasts before the flights and getting last actual radar data and forecasts from other resources, using ADL in-flight IR images, flying at FL160-180 and being TKS equipped (for plan B if needed) gave sufficient safety margin for flying these conditions (most of the time above the clouds with some avoiding of build-ups and short periods of time in light icing, mainly during descends).
All handling and permits were arranged by my friend Tamer (who’s prominent GA figure in Turkey) and I believe he can help anyone to establish connection with appropriate authorities (airports and Turkish CAA if needed). Unlike in the past when you had to obtain flight number from CAA and put it in field 18 of flight plan, putting “FLIGHT UNDER ECAC” in RMK was sufficient this time. TBH I didn’t bother too much about details in AIP (GEN 1.1 lists all contacts and GEN 1.2 describes permits) because everything was prearranged and practically everyone knew I was arriving Just PM if you want Tamer’s contact and he’ll give you right information if you plan trip to Turkey. However, if you read GEN 1.2 section 2, it says that for GA flights it’s sufficient to send flight plan 3 hours before scheduled departure, depart from international airport outside of Turkey and land to international airport in Turkey. For airport landing and parking arrangements you have to contact handler and numbers in AIP are usually correct, although usually there’s no e-mail address.
boscomantico wrote:
For actual VFR flying in Turkey you have to have Turkish speaking pilot on board for communicating with ATC for reporting VFR points.This can‘t be very accurate, since every year, a few VFR only crews from Europe fly to and in Turkey.
You are probably right and I might stand corrected on this (because I couldn’t find it anywhere in AIP) but that’s info I got and I took it for granted.
Thanks!
All handling and permits were arranged by my friend Tamer (who’s prominent GA figure in Turkey) and I believe he can help anyone to establish connection with appropriate authorities (airports and Turkish CAA if needed).
OK, I assumed that. I was interested in the way to go if one does NOT have friends in low places. In the past, the classic way was to contact Gozen Air Services, which do both permits AND ground handling (which, at first glance, sounds like a good idea, but actually isn’t, because it enables them to fleece you).
Unlike in the past when you had to obtain flight number from CAA and put it in field 18 of flight plan, putting “FLIGHT UNDER ECAC” in RMK was sufficient this time.
Well, this has been the case for many years (IF the aircraft is in fact registered in an ECAC state).
You are probably right and I might stand corrected on this (because I couldn’t find it anywhere in AIP) but that’s info I got and I took it for granted.
What he possibly described (a bit as in Ukraine) is the case where pilots want to use domestic-only aerodromes for internal flights.
But unless Erdogan has recently changed somehting, it is not a requirment to have a Tuskish speaker on board for VFR flights between international aerodromes.
One thing which seems to have changed is that, in the past, foreigners had to use Customs airports even for internal flights. Apparently this was to make artefact smuggling harder. This was reported a few years ago by someone who flew around there quite a bit.
A great trip and great photos
Fantastic trip. Thanks for sharing.
