We just paid this morning about 245 EUR at LDDU, 7 days parking 2 pax. But they now have a new GAT, everythng is efficient and there is plenty of GA parking, no problem to stay for a week and JetA1 was quite cheap.
It would be really great if everyone going to these places did a report on our airports database. Then we would have a lot more data, and recent data. I will be doing a batch shortly.
Getting out of LGKC is a bit of a challenge, as mentioned here. Actually Greece is a nightmare right now, with LGIO being the only obvious spot of sanity and non ripoff normal function, among the usable airports.
And the storm system which affected the Sicily fly-in is still there a week later, moving perilously close to Greece and threatening to cut off the return flight
Long haul today.
Long haul tomorrow too
Godspeed!
Almost 4 hours in…godspeed Peter!
North of Paris with 155 kts GS at FL110 by the looks of it. Amazing travel machine that TB20.
Edit: And landed after what looks like 5 . 5 hours flight time. Lovely.
Congrats Peter, great trip yet again.
Here is the rest of the trip report.
In Kithira:
The bridge built under British administration, c. 1825
Departing LGKC.
I got a 20 minute CTOT, quite likely due to the bizjet arriving If so, somebody is pulling some strings in Greece
The enroute winds were nothing like the windy.com forecast. A 10kt tailwind was really a 20kt headwind, etc. I had filed for Italy but had to make some decisions… About 1/2 of the flight was in IMC so I descended from FL140 to FL130 to remain in the ~0C area, but still collected some ice. TKS removed it immediately but it is better to not waste the stuff
Some mountains in there
The ADL150 got some use and was brilliant. It was great to compare the WX500 stormscope and the ADL150 data. The WX500 produced a bearing within ~10 degrees which is pretty good but was very much on the safe side (by a factor of ~5x) in its distance estimation.
Over Albania it started to clear up
Right downwind for a visual approach to Dubrovnik
A rapid refuel (and over €200, mostly “handling”) in Dubrovnik. Landed with 22 USG
Nice evening flight to Mali Losinj, at near max power to get there before 1800UTC closure (Pula also closes at 1800UTC so the alternate would have been all the way back down to Dubrovnik, perhaps).
Brac LDSB in the haze. Probably closed; they close early on most days
Mali Losinj airport is straight ahead here
At Losinj, the fuel was already closed (1hr before airport closure). But they can refuel fast in the morning. Amazingly, a number of German and Austrian planes were departing into the darkness, apparently heading over the Alps…
Next morning, a quick walkabout and heading back to the airport
Departing on the long flight home.
Pula LDPL
Actual landing fuel on board was 23.4 USG
Venice Lido LIPV
Venice itself
Padova LIPU
The Alps
Last leg:
The French allowed absolutely no shortcuts through the “active military” and same with the Swiss before that, but I got a little bit of a shortcut through the Paris TMA, on a rare occassion where somebody actually tried to coordinate instead of fobbing me off with “ask the next sector”.
Nearly home
Cloud near the UK, as usual The wx on this flight was excellent
but tomorrow and for quite a number of days it’s a very different story, so today was the last day to get back from this trip
Airborne time 5:25.
Tomorrow:
This trip was the hardest I have ever done in Greece. Conflicting issues included
Greece remains a great destination for airline+ferry tourism, but GA is for “hard” pilots now Hopefully things will improve after this CV19 craze fizzles out.
A brief note on Kithira: it isn’t practically possible to do any trips out of there, to nearby islands. This is quite a problem. But the island itself is really beautiful, especially Avlemonas.
Peter, it is time you ask the Greek Ministry of Tourism the title of Flying Ambassador, like the bahamas do.
You would get full flexibility at all airports
Thanks
However, I have got Greece “out of my system” for a while, with all the current difficulties. Some of these won’t go away, like the Fraport slot booking “scam” which is not just a question of throwing money at it.
I was kidding. Yes it’s a shame. If you get fed up, many will.
And few have the required time flexibility, when you can only get in or out two days per week