Where have you been? What have you seen?
By reubeno
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1556540
Just back from a superb trip to the Czech republic and Poland, with 6 people in a C172 and an Arrow over 7 days (1960 nm).

The routing was:

    Biggin
    Kortrijk Wevelgem (EBKT), Belgium
    Siegerland (EDGS), Germany
    Letňany Praha (LKLT), Czech republic
    Bielsko-Bialo Kaniow (EPKW), Poland
    Toruń, Poland (EPTO)
    Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa (EPGD), Poland
    Heringsdorf (EDAH), Germany
    Bremen (EDDW), Germany
    Biggin

A few things that might be of use to others.

Kortrijk (EBKT) - there was a small airshow on the day we arrived (we had requested PPR) and I was asked to park at the far end of the airfield, where there was a cafe and a bus service to the terminal - no problem so far. However, it was about an hour after we landed we made it to the main terminal and met the passengers and crew from the other plane that we bumped into a border policeman who was none too pleased that we hadn’t presented ourselves in a timely manner upon arrival. He was only half joking when he mentioned a €3,500 fine and sending us back to the UK.

Siegerland (EDGS) - a nice airfield, but the nearest town with hotels was 25km away and the taxi was 60 Euros each way (at least the bill was split by 6!).

Letňany (LKLT) - the post at: https://www.euroga.org/forums/trips-air ... -ga?page=2 from Pimparoo was very helpful. A lovely airfield, right next to the government airfield at Kbely. The arrivals and departures are via point “M” which is to the North East of the field. We routed North of Roudnice & Sazena keeping clear of the Praha TMA to point “M”, where we were instructed to call Kbely who immediately told us to QSY to Letňany and then took up a long final for 23R. The runway markings aren’t very clear and I didn’t see the “R” cut out in the grass (not in chalk) until about 200ft agl. Letňany has an 8.33Khz channel (120.335) so we finally got some value out of the thousands of pounds we’ve spent on upgrading the radios. There is a very nice aviation museum at the airport which is free to enter and a taxi into Praha was 12 Euros (we didn’t have any Czech koruna). The flight from Germany was very straight forward, so definitely worth visiting.

Kaniow (EPKW) - originally we were planning to go to Krakow, but they have a lot of construction underway and will only allow GA parking for 4 hours. So then we tried Katowice, who provided the prerequisite PPR but we couldn’t get a very clear answer regarding the costs for landing, parking and handling. So finally we settled on Kaniow which worked out brilliantly. Mateusz (an instructor with http://www.fcfly.eu) was fantastic, organising for two rental cars (AutoJet 505-112-112) to be delivered to the airport as well as answering our many questions about the local weather, military zones, NOTAMs. Landing fees, parking, avgas and the car rentals had to be paid for in cash (including the deposit on the cars). The airfield is situated on a new business park and there is nothing there, so a car is essential.

On the topic of NOTAMS both pilots had missed the significance of “Q) EPWW/QRAXX/IV/BO/W/000/095/5208N01846E250 E) 2017 EUROPEAN VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP - SUP 106/17, MIL SUP 94/17 (MIL ENR5), VFR SUP 128/17 (VFR ENR) WEF 24 AUG 2017”. It was shown covering the entire country but the important information was in the supplement, which detailed restricted zones around Gdańsk, Katowice and Krakow at specific times of the day. We got lucky having arrived at lunch time before the games, but it reinforced the importance of checking the supplements.

A number of the restricted zones in Poland are shown as “Active by NOTAM”, however there weren’t any NOTAMS showing and its necessary to go to http://amc.pansa.pl/generator_AUP.php where the restricted areas are listed, along with the flight blocks that are active and the validity periods. Some of the zones that we were crossing were active but from FL95 upwards, which didn’t present us any problems.

With the hire cars we stayed in a spa hotel in Bielsko-Biała and used one of the days to drive to Acshwitz (30 minutes from Kaniow).

The next stop should have been direct to Gdańsk, but it was NOTAMd as having no Avgas which was confirmed by phone (a delivery was expected a couple of days out). Mateusz recommended Toruń, which has a self-service fuel machine that takes credit cards, so we stopped there on the way to Gdańsk.

Gdańsk (EPGD) - is a big international airport, but there was no issue flying in, provided a flight plan was submitted. Handling is required, which was provided by Welcome Airport Services. Parking overnight, landing and handling came to 472 Zlotys (£100) per plane (ouch). That said, we did get a full sized airport bus (good for 100 people or so) that took us back out to our planes! Gdańsk is beautiful and the taxi from the airport to the hotel was very reasonable.

Heringsdorf (EDAH) - a stop off on the way to Bremen. A lovely field with a fantastic restaurant and museum. We didn’t have time to visit the museum, so may have to fit it in on another trip in the future.

Bremen (EDDW) - another very large airport, next to an Airbus facility (a Beluga took off just after we landed). The service here was excellent value, 37 Euros for overnight parking, handling and landing and a taxi into town was about 15 Euros.

Radio - in general not too many problems, but in both Poland and the Czech republic, some of the controllers had stronger accents than others, which made it difficult to understand at times. Rather than trying to pronounce names, I generally stuck to using the phonetic alphabet and ICAO codes for airport, but this doesn't help when you are asked a question like "Will you be routing north or south of ...?". In the cases where I wasn't sure, I'd reply with something like "Routing north of Lima-Kilo-Papa-Delta" guessing that was the field the controller was asking about.

SkyDemon - its absolutely fantastic for trips like this. I have the AirMillion maps for Germany, Eastern Europe, Central Europe but none of these cover the North East of Poland. I tried to order the Poland half mill maps (EP1-5) from the only place I found selling them, PilotWarehouse, but they never arrived and I never heard from PilotWarehouse despite emailing and phoning on multiple occasions so in the end, flew with just the SkyDemon maps. That said, SkyDemon did give up on me twice. The first time the underlying map stopped drawing, although the route was still displayed, panning and zooming didn’t fix this so I had to quit and restart (I’ve had this happen before). The second time I was panning the map and the screen went black and then dropped me back to the iPad home page. On both occasions a restart fixed the problem in a few seconds but it does reinforce my desire to fly with paper maps and I’m still old fashioned when it comes to maintaining a paper PLOG too.

If you've been thinking about going to Czech republic or Poland, I'd highly recommend it, we had a fantastic time. If you have any questions feel free to ask via the forum or send me a PM.
Dave W, Birdyboy1, kingbing liked this