Day 10 Lithuania

Click on the photo to get it full size, then answer the question would you take on fuel here?

It was my own stupid fault. I got to the airfield with flight plans filed for the short hop to Lapaija for refuelling before on to Kurresare and Helsinki. I uncovered the plane and went to lower the flaps only to see that the ignition switch was not off. Yes, a flat battery. It was all to easy to see what happened on Saturday. A storm was forecast and as I was securing the plane I thought I ought to raise the flaps. I did so and obviously in reaching across to turn off the ignition I failed. Removing the battery is not trivial as it means both upper and lower cowls off. The airfield was deserted so I thought priorities. 1 cancel the flight plan with the last 30 seconds or so of my phone. 2 . get a taxi, somehow and buy a charger to charge the battery up. At that moment I saw someone open up the parachute school clubhouse so I wondered over. He spoke not a word of English or German so with sign language I managed to get the problem across to him. He went and found an avionics engineer who had just arrived and the nice man put my battery on charge. He warned me that it would be 3-4 hours before the battery was ready enough to use, so I waited. My attempts to change the flight plan were not good. Neither Vilnius nor Palanga would answer the phone. Eventually it turned out that the number I had was 2 years out of date (Thanks Jeppesen)but even with the correct number There was no one answering. By this time the parachute instructor had arrived. He spoke a little English and helped. Eventually I logged into the AFPEX system to delay or cancel the plan. Both options require you to use the same addresses as when the plan was created. These are added automatically for departure,destination and alternates, and as I had no record of these I had to phone the UK help desk. The guy there amended the plan directly giving a 3 hour delay, and later cancelled it when I gave up for the day.

The weather began to deteriorate and was forecast to be raining by 4pm local. So in the end I cancelled the plan and waited for the battery to be fully charged. Meanwhile it was interesting watching the training being given, and then the flight of the AN2.

A squadron of AN2s all airworthy. You can tell where they park on the Apron as there is such a big oil slick underneath them that the tarmac has dissolved and they have started to sink in.

and a trio of AN-2's not quite ready for flight. There are two more examples under maintenance in the hangers.

They are huge biplanes and are the largest aircraft my licence allows me to fly. They carry 2 crew and 12 passengers. Even with this load on board it was off the ground in a little over 80 meters. Talking to the pilot he sad that empty he could be off the ground in 40 meters and land again at about 40km/hour in almost the same distance. It was truly impressive. He described as the nearest thing to a helicopter there is in the fixed wing world.

At 4 o'clock I refitted the battery just as the rain started to fall. After that one of the parachutists very kindly offered to drive me back to the hotel. There are a lot of nice people around. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.