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– Ljubljana Information, SP-GON, good afternoon.
– SP-GON, Ljubljana Information, good afternoon, go ahead.
– Ljubljana Information, SP-GON over RADLY, flight from Lima-Oscar-Golf-Oscar to Lima-Juliet-Lima-Juliet.. – I made a standard announcement after crossing another border in a small, white-green aeroplane.
When you’re flying from one country to another, you can clearly tell the difference between the two. We left the Austrian landscape dominated by mountainous terrain to penetrate some inhabited uplands with signs of civilisation living in grey, old, communist blocks of flats, scattered across the valleys we were overflying.
Having passed a heavy thunderstorm moving in the opposite direction, towards our departure aerodrome, we received a weather information stating that conditions at Ljubljana Airport are good and are improving.
We approached the airport from the north-east, via VFR reporting point Kamnik. While I was approaching it, I spotted smoke coming out from the woods, a couple of miles away from Kamnik village.
– Ljubljana Information, SP-GON, inbound to Kamnik and just to let you know – there is a forest one nautical mile south of my position, and I can see smoke coming out from that forest – I was pronouncing every word very carefully, so they connect “smoke” with “forest”, not with my aircraft registration.
– SP-GON, Ljubljana Information, thank you for reporting. You can contact Ljubljana Tower on 118,0*. Bye bye.
I made another position report on the new frequency, and having received new instructions we joined right downwind to runway 30, to land. There were two airliners already set up on the approach and I had to squeeze in between them. Little did I realise then, that my best forward speed of 80 knots with flaps retracted is not sufficient to keep up with the other traffic. Soon after that I could hear the guys reporting a go-around on the radio.
After landing I vacated the runway and taxied via Foxtrot, Alpha and Tango to the General Aviation apron.
“SP-GON, Ljubljana Tower, after Tango follow the Follow Me car to the general aviation stand” – the controller said on the radio.
We followed the black-yellow car for another 50 metres to the complete stop. I shut down the avionics and the engine, shortly afterwards an airport mini-bus stopped next to my aircraft.
The airport staff was really friendly and spoke very well in English. A dispatcher – Elza – who took care of us in the GA terminal, spoke fluently English, Slovenian and Polish.
One thing I had not been aware of is how one can refuel the aircraft at controlled airports. We desperately needed more petrol to make our way to Alicaorle and then back to Ljubljana. I called the Tower saying: “Ljubljana Tower, SP-GON, at stand 6, request taxi to refuel.”. Wrong. ATC only got the part about taxiing so she gave us directions to the runway! Having realised that the lady in the tower misunderstood us, I requested 180 and taxied back in shame. You can see in one of the photos, why it would be more appropriate to call “request fuel truck” rather than “taxi to refuel”.
Off we go, we taxied to the runway (again) and lined up on 30 to… depart into the face of an arrival. I hit the full power and as soon as we got airborne, I requested “direct to Sierra 2” to get off the collision course with the big guys.
The rest of the journey was pretty much uneventful. We headed towards the Italy-Slovenia border, having been entertained by a local Slovenian radio station, interfering with the Flight Information Service frequency.
Soon we established radio contact with Ronchi – ATC responsible for the airspace around Trieste-Ronchi Airport and its vicinity. The controller gave us a clearance to fly along published VFR route which would lead us to fly along the coastline. The views were not as epic as we thought they would be, as the visibility dropped down to about 10-15km. There was no ceiling though, therefore I kept the aircraft at 3000ft, before I started the final descend towards Caorle town.
After reaching Caorle – where we were supposed to stay for two nights – I adjusted my heading to reach Alicaorle Airfield. I spotted the grass runway about 3 or 4 miles away from me. We entered right downwind to easterly runway 11. We landed at 20:25 local time, approximately 30 minutes before sunset.
There was nobody at the airfield at that time, however a board hanging just outside the airport’s office gave us some more information on how to get to the town – that is, by taxi. We called the first advertised phone number and asked for a lift which cost us about 10 EUR one way.
We left our stuff in the hotel and rushed on foot through the town centre towards the beach. I checked if the water is warm and having been satisfied with its temperature, we returned to get some food for the evening.
Coming up next: town sightseeing and return flight. One would think now that we have flown all the way from Poland to Italy, the return sectors will be like a walk in the park! No, it doesn’t work like this and we did encounter a few issues on the last two legs aswell…
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