Day 6 A washout

No flying today. It had to happen, and it did. I awoke to a light drizzle. I checked the forecasts and radar pictures for Slovakia and Czech and made the decision to stay here another day. All of Czech was covered in rain, some light but some not, most of Slovakia was the same and with mountains still to cross of 3-4000ft and the cloud at 3000 it wasn’t hard.

The day has given me an opportunity to walk around the town of Per and contemplate the changes I have seen in Hungary since I first came here over 10 years ago. Back then what clearly struck me was how few roads were surfaced and how many horses were used as transport. In fact when I was working on the logistics setup for our newly purchased Hungarian factory, we even had horse and cart collection as a normal way for retailers to collect their products! Back then the factory we (Electrolux) had purchased came complete with a zoo, a hotel, a restaurant and a sports centre of sorts. The factory had been used for making some large electrical equipment during the communist times and so watch towers were every 50 yards around the perimeter fence. The locals were very proud of showing where they had removed Stalin’s statue from the town. Things have now changed a lot, I have seen no horses used for transport, but it is nice to see lots of people using bicycles. All the houses appear to have large gardens given over to producing local food and there is still a curious mix of old and new. The airport is new, it exists now largely to support the Audi factory nearby and still has a daily passenger plane dropping off 30 Audi employees in the morning and taking them home in the evening. The financial crisis has hit these new areas quite hard. Apparently 2 years ago, the airport was worried that it could not handle any more aircraft. Their parking area was often full with 6 cargo planes, with movements taking place all through the night. Yesterday there were 6 movements in total and today will be no better. They described the situation though as better than Balaton where so many airlines have dropped out that they closed the airport during the winter and are hoping it will pick up in the summer.

Walking around the town a number of things struck me. Everyone says hello (or something that I assume means hello) to everyone they meet. And the school rush consisted of lots of young kids rushing to school, looking and sounding happy and completely unencumbered with bags of books, parents or 4x4s. What a refreshing change that was.

With hindsight, it was perhaps a good job that I was stuck here for the day. I reviewed the plans and checked Notams. Firstly I discovered that neither of my options for the next 2 stops were going to have fuel, so planning restarted. Then innocently enough I saw a reference on the Notams to something called “Flying Rhino AIP Supp 2-13 applies” I checked up this on the Czech AIP site and found that this exercise did not confine itself to normal restricted areas, but effectively stops all flying from Ground level to FL280 in great swathes across Czech. This involved plotting over 100 Lat/long points on the map. They made it clear that all other traffic was prohibited from entering this airspace. The choice was wait until the weekend or replan. So I planned once again.

Day 5 Croatia to Hungary

As promised I was met at the hotel and given a lift to the airport. Not quite such a gift as it turned out when I was given my bill for landing, overnight parking and transportation. I then had to go through the customs post and the police checkpoint, all in a room about the size of an average living room but with all the decorative charm of an old farm building. I had filed the flightplan before I left the hotel using the UK AFPEX system. It worked perfectly and saved me the hour that I would have spent waiting, except of course they found other ways of keepng me waiting. I launched off into the wide blue yonder taking this photo of the airfield as I left, and switched to Zadar radar. Whilst I enjoyed the views.That was fine until the 6500ft mountain got between me and him "GTREX I kept hearing faintly if I turned off the squelch. The turbulence was foul. I was getting a 30 knt stream straight off the mountains to the side and the rotor was horrible. I ignored my clearance and climbed up to 5500ft It was better but still not good. I switched to Zagreb information and once again was given a first class service. There were only two aircraft operating in Croatia below flight level 115, a german and myself. As the mountains gave way to flatter land the turbulence subsided a little and just became the normal thermal stuff. The switch over to Hungary 10 minutes before approaching the air defence zone went well and wasn't anything like as difficult as I feared.

I landed at Balaton to discover a wonderful terminal building, lots of staff including the inevitable customs and police. I had three pages of forms to fill in before i was allowed into the office to pay the landing fee. I wanted fuel but they had none, nor an open cafe, no filled water or coke machines. The landing fee was a shock €2879.50. I was right, I was going to pay for the whole airport for the day (I was the only plane in or out). Fortunately the layout of the invoice was at fault and they had the wrong heading over the amount. It was actually 10 Euro. With no choice, i continued to Gyor where a phone call had confirmed they really did have fuel. There was almost no traffic in the whole of Hungary, a single military flight, a helicopter and myself. The flight was bumpy and the headwind of 30 knots noticeable, but at last I got there. The wind was at 27 knots when I landed. He advised that I landed long. I realised why as when I did touch down it was almost a hover landing. A 2.5km taxi would have been necessary and perhaps more important the follow me van was waiting at other end. I got out refuelled and checked the weather . This showed my next two stops as havinga 40% chance of a 26knot crosswind, so I elected to stay. One of the airport staff ran me to a motel. This time after paying the landing fee so we shall see.

Total distance today 319 with 1673 so far

Day 4 The return to Slovenia and Croatia

Day 4. Standing outside the Alpi factory gates at 8:00 in the morning I wondered what sort of problems I might have. At 8:30 Angelo arrived and immediately instructed Marco on the problem. They jacked up the aeroplane and looked. The problem they said instantly was that the front wheel was not being stopped firmly on retraction (so much for the advice I had had earlier that the wheel rotating in flight was normal). They dismantled bits, cleaned them all up, readjusted them, regreased everything and then checked the main undercarriage. After about an hour and a half they said it was fine All I then had to do was pay for their time. Enjoyable though it was, it took me ‘til just before 12 before I could pay the bill and file the flight plan which of course required a further hour’s delay. The weather by now was not looking good in the Zagreb direction so I returned to Portoroz. They confirmed thunderstorms expected in the afternoon near Zagreb, so I elected to continue down the coast and stop there overnight in order to get an early start on crossing what are still significant hills 5000-6000 ft. Once again the flight plan required an hour’s notice, so I stopped for lunch. Although there were only two people in the restaurant and one person serving, the service was dire. It took all that hour to be served one course and over half of that was trying to get the waitress to take my order. The flight down the coast though was worth it. Deep blue Adriatic sea studded with golden sand edged islands. Beautiful. I landed as Losinj island and proceeded to tie the aircraft down. The airport was just about to close so I was hurried up. It took no prompting as the smoke from a building clearance site was choking and I was glad to get into the customs hall(!) for the police check. They took over 15 minutes and eventually came back with my passport stamped. I was then whisked outside into a bus for the 0 minute trip into town. As the airport closed, the to staff wanted to leave and so gave me a lift. Losinj itself is a lovely little coastal village and my hotel is facing the Adriatic even though my room doesn’. I have been promised a lift back to the airport in the morning as there are no taxis. I hope it works. With luck then I may just skip the big city life of Zagreb and head straight for Hungary.
So only 160 miles today making 1340 in total.

A warning

Back in Italy at the Alpi factory with the snow covered alps as a background.

Just a cautionary note to those who thought fuel was expensive. The charge in Sn Nicolo (Venice) for fuel was €2.80 per litre ! Plan accordingly.

Since the last post I have met up with Angelo, the aircraft is in the factory and the way he reacted to the problem suggested that he knew what the issue was and that he could correct it easily. I hope so as then I can continue with a very small delay only.

Distance covered today was only 148 miles making total so far in 3 days 1193 miles not bad with still a potential 18 days to go!

Day 3 There and back again

A good night’s sleep and an early start saw me at the airfield about 8:15. A pity no one mentioned that they didn’t open until 9:00. Never mind I refuelled and submitted my flight plan to portoroz in Slovenia.





This is not a sight you see at the end of the runway everyday. Line up and wait after the ship has passed.





The flight went OK except I became aware of a vibration when cruising at 120 knots plus. It felt like a propeller speed issue and could be felt noticeably. I throttled back and everything was fine so continued. I landed at Potoroz and investigated. I could see nothing wrong. Nothing loose, no play anywhere so I wondered what do next. With the factory in Italy only 30 minutes away, it wasn’t hard, so I returned to Italy and flew to Pordenone, a city I know well from my Electrolux days as that is where out large factories were. I landed and was given a great welcome by an instructor who was grateful for the opportunity to speak English as he had his commercial instructor skill test in English next week! They gave me the factory contact number for the boss and I phoned him. He told me that he would stop off on his way home and move the aircraft into the factory and they would look at it and sort it out tomorrow. Hopefully it will be simple and I can be on my way again.

Day 2 Romans to Venice

The day started early with breakfast at 7:00. By 8:00 I was in the air heading for Gap. I had hoped that by starting early I would avoid the worst of the turbulence. As I climbed to 4000ft I realised that with a wind speed of more than 40 knots and mountains more than 9000ft I was due for some trouble. I was not disappointed. At one point I nearly turned back but gradually as I reached 7500ft things settled down. After an hour I approached Gap. I was a bit high as I turned close downwind at 2000ft above the airfield, but managed to sideslip the height off. The landing was fine and refuelling was accomplished quite quickly. The flight plan was filed and off I went, “G-TREX I cannot find your flight plan” as I lined up. “Contact Marseille information when airborne. I tried, and tried and tried. Eventually once I had climbed to 8500ft they were able to hear me and activated my flight plan. The rest of that flight was wonderful. Flying over virgin snowfields was magnificent. Mont Blanc stood out to the side. Eventually the magic was over as I arrived at Cuneo (Turin South according to Ryanair). After an hour with paperwork,. I was presented with 12 A4 pages of invoice receipt etc for 13 euro. The next stage was the flight to Venice. It went according to clockwork. The approach was breathtaking. The pictures do not do it justice as I was focussed so much on the landing. A beer in St Marks square had to be done and it was not disappointing.

So day 2 another 450 miles travelled.

As I shelter from the thunderstorms I can’t help but wonder what tomorrow has in store.

Day 1 Willingale to Troyes to Romans

What a surprise, the plan didn't quite work out. An early check on the weather showed that the anticlockwise route was the most lkely to have good weather, so with a certain feeling of deja vu I set off. First stop was Troyes after 254NM. The flight was fine, and even though the airport was deserted I managed to get some fuel. My egg card was refused, but Lloyds carried the day. I then checked the weather for Switzerland and found towering Cumulous was present with Thunderstorms possible later. This all said to me no, so I headed south. Almost an exact rerun of last year except I passed over the airfields I landed at and continued to Gap. Well almost , as I cleared the first of teh mountains the turbulence got bad.Twice I hit my head on the canopy and a negative 0.2 G was recorded. I turned back after the second one and landed at a small airfield at a place called Romans. I was so releived to be on the ground that I elected not to unpack the tent and a very friendly local club mem ber drove me round the corner to a lovely little hotel tat even has WiFi so hence the update.

So Day 1 522 Nm covered about 600 miles, so not bad. I woner what tomorrow will bring.