From Slovakia to Slovenia

Click here if you haven’t seen the beginning of the trip!

7th June 2019, day two

Good morning from Ruzomberok! The streets here are all wet as it was quite rainy last night. We went to a local shop to buy some food and dined back in the hotel. We’d have loved to stay there a bit longer if it wasn’t for the Alps we were heading to.

It was not safe at that time to depart due to the local thunderstorm activity, so we set off for the thermal aquapark in Besenova. A local aircraft mechanic offered us a ride for a tenner in his good old Skoda. We caught the soft shoulder a couple of times but it was fun.

The aquapark was a bit overpriced. We paid the full price of 20 eur/person but could only use 1/3 of all the attractions as the rest of them remained closed until 1pm.

Having fun before the flight. You can easily tell who’s the crew and who’s the passengers (coffee and Coke vs wine and beer)

Our return journey was halfway on foot (including a quick break for lunch) and halfway by train. The train station had an extremely narrow platform but the locals didn’t seem to have any safety-related issues with it. Moreover, they were happy to queue literally inches away from the oncoming train.

“Please stay away from the platform edge.” So… where should I go then?

The scheduled departure was in the late afternoon again but I estimated our landing time in Lesce to be approximately 15 minutes before the sunset. I updated the performance calculations by increased temperature and a slight headwind: both Take-Off Distance Required and Climb Gradient were all “green”, although eyeballing method suggested something completely opposite.

We reached 70% of rotation speed halfway down the strip. Continue… aaand rotate! After lift-off, I realised it’s actually not that challenging and a slight correction of the heading to the left solves the problem of avoiding obstacles.

Just a full left circuit over the airfield was all we needed to climb up to the safe altitude to fly over the city and join the route.

The wind from the south was building up its speed and we were warned by the controller about moderate turbulence between 8 and 10 thousand feet while approaching the Alps. Despite the fact that our cruise altitude was only 6000 feet, the turbulence was still affecting us. Without being sure If I can overfly the mountains safely and without burning more fuel than I have, I decided to leave the high ground somewhere abeam Maribor. Unfortunately, circling around the mountains to get to Lesce was not possible due to lack of fuel and time, thus I had to report a change of plans to the ATC:

– Radar, G-SBKR, requesting diversion to Slovenj Gradec.
– G-SBKR, roger, standby.

– G-SBKR, Slovenj Gradec is closed, they have some works in progress on the runway. I can offer you Sostanj, LJSO.
– Unable, my aircraft is not able to operate to Sostanj… can we try Maribor? Is it still open?
– Negative, Maribor closed about 20 minutes ago.

One last chance.

– Can we try Ljubljana, G-SBKR?
– G-SBKR, affirm, Ljubljana is approved, proceed via direct.

Landing at the biggest airport in the country gave us an extra few minutes but, first of all, allowed us to complete the flight in an absolutely legal and safe manner, in case we had to land after the sunset.

Let’s get that approach checklist done before I have to call “Minimums!”

On final…

The approach was made by my F/O but we went a bit sideways on short final, so I took over all the way until landing as otherwise we would have to go around.

Welcome to Ljubljana!

Having disembarked and gone to the main terminal we realised that… the last bus to the city had already gone at 8pm. The taxi costs 60 euros and the shuttle bus 9eur/person so not much better than the taxi. Michael had got an idea to try hitchhiking but some of us just wanted to go home and even pay for the shuttle bus. We were just about ready to go when he shouted he’d just arranged a car for us! Unfortunately, they only had two spare seats so we let Paul and Monica go first as they were the most exhausted ones and we went towards another car to ask for a lift.

This time I spoke to the driver and, after a couple of minutes, the nice lady agreed to take us with her. We even set off before our friends who had already had the ride arranged!

We decided not to fly the day after which allowed us to celebrate Paul’s birthday by drinking some local Slovenian beer.

To read about the last part of our trip, click here.

Thunderstorms and decisions

6th June 2019, day one

80 questions. That’s how many I had to answer to pass the Aircraft General Knowledge exam which I sat in the Polish CAA. After submitting my final answers (I passed, of course) I set off to Modlin Airport.

We gathered at 3pm and went to our TB10 aircraft which was already waiting for us, having gone through an engine overhaul.

My passengers – Monica and Michael – were exploring a wide range of aircraft parked up in the hangar. Meanwhile, I took my co-pilot to complete the pre-flight inspection. The plan for today is to reach Znojmo (LKZN) and make one technical stop on the way in Czestochowa (EPRU). The PFI caused a slight delay as I had to drain about 0.5 litre of water from the fuel tanks.

Pre-flight inspection in progress

We were all boiling in the 30 degrees Celsius which was not beneficial for the aircraft performance either, so I taxied all the way to the runway end to use the full length for takeoff. The first flight was uneventful and we even had some time to have a meal in the local restaurant and to chat with other people.

Following Ryanair all the way to the end as we need the full runway length too

A quick meal and weather review before we set off again…

We were coming back to the aircraft when I noticed a group of people surrounding it. One of them was sitting on the leading edge. I yelled at them to get off my aircraft not knowing who they were or what they were doing there. It turned out that all of them were pilots of another German-registered TB10 and they just wanted to see what our plane is equipped with.

Our next takeoff was in the late afternoon. The blueness of the sky gave way to frequent thunderstorms and lined up over Silesia creating an east-west border. Soon we saw frequent bolts of lightning which left us with only one option – fly along the front.

And the mother Earth is preparing a surprise for us. At this time I was still only considering a course deviation but not a diversion.

It’s time to make a tough decision. One that is safe, economical and convenient.

I chose to go upwind (eastbound). We had to carry on deviating from our original route until reaching the west end of the Krakow CTR, where we managed to steer south safely again. It all happened within controlled airspace so my every movement had to be cleared by the ATC.

It was obvious that now we can’t make it to the Czech Republic before the sunset. I could either divert and land at one of the local airstrips on the Polish side (EPNT or EPKP) or jump across the border and hit one of the Slovakian ones.

And we’re making it just before the sunset.

The weather in Slovakia was looking promising, thus I decided to land at Ruzomberok (LZRU). The surroundings were somewhat challenging for the approach but the landing itself was straight-forward. Nice soft landing, a quick taxi to the grass apron and a few moments later we were on the ground enjoying the views and breathing fresh air.

Finally, we had to take care of overnight accommodation. One can never tell where we are eventually going to end up, so it’s good to leave arranging hotels ’till the end.

With the help of a local Slovakian tourist (who clearly struggled to spell the name of the nearest town), we found a place to stay just 20 minutes away from the airfield.

We went out in the late evening to get some food but only bars were open so our only catering were chips and chocolate bars for that night.
The weather forecast was showing thunderstorms through the night and ending in the early afternoon, so we didn’t rush with planning the next day…

To be continued…