Flying IFR in Poland was easy, and the flight was issue free the entire time. We spent 8.5 hrs @FL100 and I wish had taken my mountain high device with me, but that’s got nothing to do with the country ;). Flight time from EDLN to EPRZ was 4hrs, back 4.5 hrs, and I chose to fly IFR the whole time to make it easy.
We delivered medical goods, ca 150kg, for a specific hospital in UA, and took back with us a challenged boy with his companion who just days before survived Russian artillery. Overall a very successful mission. Thanks also to https://www.ukraine-air-rescue.de/
On arrival in Rzeszow we needed a steep descent, but with gear down no problem. There are patriot systems ready to fire, direction East, along the runway.
That’s a very good cause
It would be very interesting to hear afterwards how you got on.
thank you all for the info. It is part of a humanitarian airlift programme with a PPR in EPRZ and I just wanted to know in general.
EuroFlyer wrote:
Is it correct that while Polish CAS starts above FL95, I will be able to request early descent through uncontrolled airspace remaining IFR ? So to speak, other than in Germany, IFR is possible in Poland in uncontrolled airspace ? Yes or no ?
Yes, IFR in G is fine.
Airspace above FL95 is controlled, yes. Warszawa Radar will be your host.
There are areas of controlled airspace around airports, in the usual “reverse wedding cake” layout (TMA), and going to an airport that has a TMA, your IFR flight will be controlled within those. Rzeszow Approach will be your host, and then will hand you off to Rzeszow Tower as you enter the CTR. Approach may ask you to do a dogleg / diversion / descent in order to let commercial traffic get better routing, but won’t dump you OCAS and pretend to forget about you.
Should your flight path take you slightly OCAS but back into it, you’ll likely stay with Approach anyway, as it won’t be convenient to hand you over back and forth between Approach and FIS.
The TMAs are quite large, why do you want out of CAS for the descent?
I flew EPPK-EPSU (near Lithuania) last week and all was normal. Again, I advise to fly on Saturday or Sunday. Fewer military zones active then.
My friend came from Poprad 2 days ago- as you can see from FR24 picture, he was cleared quite directly, mostly at FL80..
Regarding the polish-lithuanian border, there has always been restricted area below 4000ft or so, I have always flown over it, so I don’t know whether they allow you through at lower altitude or not. Usually the polish ATC is very helpful.
Looking at what is being air shipped, I would expect E Poland to resemble the Berlin airlift
There’s lots of military activity presently. New zones were created and get activated by the military on demand. Many of them are not active during weekends. You can see a visualization of these airspaces here:
Select “AUP” for today and “Next AUP” for tomorrow. On the right slider select altitude range. On the bottom slider select time. Clicking on a zone will provide altitudes and reservation times.
Right. For flights in all the eastern parts of Poland, this summer, one has to conduct a very careful study of ALL the NOTAMs and also plan a route that is wholly outside special use airspace (a difficult task in Poland!) to be „safe“.
@ Erik, PuF 09/21 has some infos for you.
I’m hoping to fly VFR UK – Modlin – Kaunas (Lithuania) later in the summer and wonder what effect the present military situation is having on VFR flight, especially the corridor between Kaliningrad and Belorus. It was always a bit of a Frisson being in sight of the hills in the Russian enclave, but these days that’s the sort of Frisson that I can do without!