Brac used to have about 150 flights per week, something like 10-20 years ago. Must have been the usual twin turboprops. Amazing they fitted them in! Then the business gradually died down, as a result of (apparently) mismanagement of the airport and other stuff. Now it is slowly picking up again.
Also there is Hvar next door whose grass strip is decaying and nobody is likely to do anything with it. So Brac airport can act as a destination for Hvar, which does attract a lot of money.
Is that the crew checking the cushions?
She was using a satellite phone too – as someone hanging loose on such a boat should even if there is perfect GSM reception 
I will do a mailing soon to remind everyone. It should be a really great fly-in, with lots to do for the whole family.
I could do with some assistance with the route plan using autorouter EGBE to LDSB. This is a 950NM trip for me and although I’m going to split it up into two legs with an overnight stay about halfway, how would others attack this route with Autorouter?
Normally with shorter routes I select ‘preferred level’ and put in either FL100 or FL120. Obviously this trip is over the Alps (first time for Me). I’ve tried the different options, eg, 1. just let Autorouter find a route with its normal parameters of FL040 to F180. 2. Preferred FL say FL120 and 3. Inputting levels 120 – 150. The last one giving one FL for the whole trip at F150. This would mean oxygen for the whole flight which is not really necessary.
Firstly I don’t think this can be done in one leg without oxygen – because going around the Alps would increase the distance excessively, for almost any GA plane short of one of the Mooneys with extended tanks.
Secondly, you will normally have a nice tailwind on the outbound route. Not always though – on the [in]famous flight EGKA-LDLO 2014 fly-in flight where we had a strong headwind; this is really rare though.
If you want two legs then you need to plan them separately, obviously. I normally use the router with predefined flight levels, not the FL040… automatic choice because that often gives you a route which is wholly OCAS in UK airspace and then London Control chucks the flight plan in the bin! I normally use preferred levels FL090-FL190 and this normally ensures FL090/100 at the starting point in the UK, which avoids the “FP chucking out” issue. Then I fly at this level all the way to the Alps, at which point the filed route will have a climb.
I use oxygen at FL100 just to stay wide awake but passengers often don’t bother, and in any case the gas flow rate is very low.
This Alps overflight will be FL140 if you go for the lowest option possible in the Alps which is basically the route here
or FL150/160 for the other popular one which is here and is like this
If you were to nominate a stop then we can look at routes.
As to where to stop, I would suggest stopping after the Alps (south of them) even though this means the second leg will be short. This is because stopping just before them exposes you more to dodgy wx and has the effect of reducing the probability of making a departure at all. It has the additional advantage that you will be climbing over them with a lot of fuel already burnt off which makes the climb a lot easier. The name of the game in IFR out of the UK is to make the first leg long enough to get you out of the dodgy N European weather…
Good airports with nice cities to hang out for the afternoon are e.g. Trieste (not sure about the avgas pump – any recent pireps?), Pula, Portoroz…
Note that ATC sometimes cannot see your various filed level changes, so you need to look after yourself, and proactively start climbing well before the terrain. The UK ATC system for example has poor software which makes all filed levels except the first invisible to them. I have a letter from NATS which confirms this defect.
Aim to be a few thousand feet above the terrain, in case of wind.
It is almost never possible to return from Brac to the UK nonstop, due to winds. I did it once… in virtually calm air, landing at Shoreham with 23 USG.
For the return from Croatia to the UK, I normally use the first of the two routes above, because there is less headwind on it, and it burns off more fuel before one has to climb high. It also provides the opportunity to climb high over N Italy and eyeball the wx over the Alps, and if it looks dodgy, flying Plan B which is carrying straight on to say Cannes.
Obviously one uses the IR images etc to judge the cloud tops but this is not accurate especially in the summer when they air can be ISA+15 and this makes the tops much higher than they appear.
I’m OK with using oxygen an still feel comfortable at FL100 without any. The Cirrus has in built oxygen which is easy and comfortable to use.
This is what Autorouter gives me when I input ‘shortest time’ FL100 – FL150
just can’t understand the need for FL140 to start at DTY and indeed FL150 at KONAN.?
Rob2701 wrote:
just can’t understand the need for FL140 to start at DTY and indeed FL150 at KONAN.?
There is no “need”, the router is just doing what you tell it to do. You give it FL100-150 (meaning every level above/below is treated as 10% longer internally) and you have a Cirrus SR22 Turbo which gets faster the higher you go. Therefore the router has a strong incentive to bring you high up.
If you do not feel comfortable above FL100 why do you tell it to prefer FL100-FL150? With a S22T, a lowest level is not useful when optimizing for time/fuel so you can remove the FL100 floor.
BTW: A SR22T is made for flying up high, thus with oxygen. I would not embark on a trip like this without oxygen and the intention to use it.
achimha,
Thanks, I’m now beginning to understand the logic behind it. Of course, I asked it for the ‘shortest time’ between FL100 and FL150, therefore higher = faster. I’m comfortable with flights above FL100 and have done these regularly over the last couple of months up FL180 with canulars, though never close to a 5 hour trip as this would be without a stop. BTW, I use Autorouter all the time and think it’s fantastic.
2 options Rob.
One is to edit the generated route and drop down the initial level and see what validates.
The other which I do all the time is to ask for a stop climb at FL100 if the wx is nice.
