Istanbul - Antalya

Short information from here in Amman:

Istanbul Antalya: WX was forecasted not so bad, just over the maincountry Turkey, clouds on mountains,
climbing VFR!! through a blue spot on top level 100. controller was a bit funny, they dont know well to handle vfr-traffic. I love my Lycoming so much, and enjoy having lots of Avgas on board :-)

enjoy the pictures:

Left side: no comment...

right side...no comment...

after a while, maybe 50 minutes the cloudlayer opend and we relaxed a bit playing around..I like that pictures of Hannes... V...icroty!!!

snow on turkish mountains... it´s cold like hell, decending lower, having still fun...

Approach to Antalya LTAI, what a big City..lots of tourists here...

Tower told to join dct final..good airportshot!

shortly before touchdown...look at the rubber on the runway!

Like an attak after landing...many managers managing our time...will we make it on time? of course not...

OPS Antalya: Better file 5 flightplans, they have never heared about a formationflight-plan, we are under timepressure...blodpressure is coming in red arc already... They are not even afraid of big Hannes :-)

but finally, they were nice and we made it out of there...

to remark: 300 Euros landing/handling fee, Avgas 2.45 Euros a litre, not so cheap down here, GA small in Turkey... off to Amman, it´s gettn dark!

Salzburg - Istanbul

Please klick on the headline of entry below to see pictures of first two legs...

Salzburg - Arad/Rumania - Istanbul/Turkey ..update w/pix

Hannes and Matthias before takeoff in Salzburg to a very special trip!!!

My wingman over austrian alps...15 min. after dep on top of that white stuff..

Arad refueling. More east..more people involved...we did not take picutures of paperwork :-)

Tigerbaby taking a deap breath at his rest in Arad, enjoing sitting on the elevator of D-EUNA...

26.03.2007 Salzburg 0800 LT. Customs delaration, carnet for aircrafts, passportcontroll, last items collecting, wx-check. Looking good for the flight. Hannes and I took of at LOWS at 0920 this morning, blue skies, perfect weather for our trip to Arad. Level 100 enroute to the hungarian border, 7000 feet to rumanian border at TEGRI. After 2:40 hours we landed safe in Arad, quick refuel, wx-check again and: Pay landingfees, pay fuel, and pay ATS-Fees. Still east, but already Europe... good service in Arad, very friendly people there.

Weather enroute from Arad to Istanbul was cavok at beginning, with some problems further down south,
the "Karpaten" Mountains in Rumania broght us our first off-track, but managed well to pass the high hills,
apps. 3.600 meters high... passing Bukarest down to Bulgaria, abeam Burgas we had real low clouds and partly snow and rain. Into Turkey we have flown over almost just forest all the time, I cant remember when I was flying over such big forests ever, except canada. Take it by the word: Lots of wood in front of the door here in Turkey. My longest flight in an Extra300 today, after 3:40 h we landed safe in Istanbul. Very nice approach, self made in formation, around the whole city, direct very uncomplicated into Atatürk Int´l. Just after landing refueling and parking the planes in a nice hangar beside a Falcon2000.

Sorry for not having pictures from today, the WLAN here in the hotel is just not working good enough, some problems to get the pix online. I will try to upload them tomorrow from Amman.

Our planned route is due to weather again, from Istanbul to Antalya, then nonstop Antalya-Cyprus-Israel-Amman. It´ll be a long way, and the most difficult during our trip for us tomorrow. Again very high mountains here in Turkey.

More informations as soon as possible.
Best from both of us
Matthias + Hannes

Tannheim - Salzburg

AF1 ready to go at EDMT, Tigerbaby ready, also my summertime and turtle :-) (not on the pix) aircraft fully fully loaded, w&b checked by major Kai !

Verena and me, take care sis!
I took of at Tannheim Airfield at 1500 LT today. 50 minutes to Salzburg, everything was running smooth. My family and many friends at Tannheim Airfield got together to say bye bye to me, which was very emotional.
After landing I re-packed my luggage in the airplane, fueled and met Hannes for briefing, wx-check and flightplanning. The wx-forecast looks still ok for tomorrow, to expect 20 kts headwind until reaching Turkey.

D-EUNA in front of Hangar 8 in Salzburg

Tigerbaby happy in front of Hangar-7 :-)

ROUTE Update 25 March 07

Due to the bad weather along down the adria we will most probably reroute our flight. As it looks like now we will fly from Salzburg dct Arad/Rumania, then try to get to Istanbul on the shortest way. Below the map of our planned route. The WX-Forecast looks great for Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria down to Istanbul, we should be lucky, even we might have some headwind. Keep on tracking us, this flight will be a big challange for both of us.

The evening before leaving Tannheim 4 Abu Dhabi. Airplane and Pilot ready to go. Tigerbaby is on board, as you can see on the pix.




Some facts: We (me in the Extra300LP and Hannes Arch in the Edge540..www.hannesarch.com) planned to fly as mentioned below:

Monday: Salzburg to Dubrovnik and Istanbul before dark.
Tuesday: Istanbul - Amman (Jordan) - Route is not yet clear
Wednesday: Amman - Jeddah (Saudi Arabia)
Thursday and Friday Airshow in Jeddah (SA)
Saturday: Jeddah - Riyadh (SA) - Abu Dhabi (Emirates)

Route totals almost 7.000 km
estimated Flying time 25 hours

Getting ready for Abu Dhabi

Die Vorbereitungen für den Ferry nach Abu Dhabi über Jeddah laufen auf vollen Touren, Sonntag gehts los, mehr Infos hier ab Montag abend aus Istanbul.