Hungary

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Guess with which type of aircraft you can fly 1200 Nm in 12 Hrs with altitudes up to 10000 Ft ground speeds up to 130 Kts?
No it’s not with a fuel gulping Bonanza and it’s not with a Piper Arrow, it’s with a Taifun, the best motorglider ever build in its category. And all this with only 15 liters of 98 octane car gasoline per hour.
A report by Luc Vermeulen:

The target
Fly from Geilenkirchen ETNG, close to the German Dutch border to Kaposujlak LHKV in Hungary.

Quickplan Navlog

Distance:
Crew:
Aircraft:
Departure date:
Return Flight:
Ground crew:
Track:
Altitude:
Refueling / sanitary stop:
Customs at Hungary:
Destination Airfield:

560 Nm
PIC Henk (The Flying Dutchman), Navigator Luc (The well …flying Belgian)
Taifun 17EII (D-KFDI)
18 th May
20th May (or earlier)
Ellie
a more or less straight line from ETNG to LHKV
somewhere between 3000 Ft and FL100 over the Austrian Alps
LOLS ..:-) (Suben Austria)
LHSM (Hungary Balaton Airport)
LHKV (Kaposujlak, served city Kaposvar 3km)

Ok, you must be thinking, what the heck are they going to do in Hungary? The story was that Henk had planned to visit some friends in Austria. The aero club in Fürstenfeld was planning a trip to Croatia with a couple of club aircraft, including an Austrian Taifun, The Taifun ‘gang’ in Europe is small and so the plan was to join the expedition for a couple of days.

The scope
I met Henk a couple of months before as I was looking for a Taifun myself. Living not to far from Henk we started to discuss some technical issues about the aircraft…and finally I decided to purchase a Taifun myself (the story about this will be published soon, mandatory reading for anyone looking to purchase a Taifun..:-))

Anyway as my wife is Hungarian and she was going to visit her parents in Kaposvar together with our two sons during the four days of the ascension holidays the idea came up to fly to central Europe.
For our American and not knowledgeable European readers please follow the links at the end of this article were you will find some interesting details about the place and the role the area played during the Bosnia crisis.
Time frame was four days. Wednesday we would meet with the people from Furstenfeld and join the Furstenfled Aero club expedition to Croatia. On the way back we would then deviate to Hungarian Airspace and meet with my family in Kaposvar (70 km southeast of Lake Balaton).

Ambitious it was, but when the actual departure date closing in, we noticed a serious deterioration of the weather conditions. We had been spoiled with the weather in the Benelux. April 2007 was without rain (never happened in History before, guess why?). A couple of days before the planned departure we decided to reduce the scope of the operation and skip the Croatian route segment, weather conditions depending.

The first leg
So, due to bad weather our departure was delayed to Friday may the 17 th. I arrived the day before at Henks place in Susteren and enjoyed the hospitality and excellent catering services of Ellie (Henks wife).

Flight planning was done with a couple of beers and an orange marker. I think Flying Henk wanted to leave a Dutch statement on my brand new DFS (Deutche Flugsicherung) maps of Germany and Austria. Editor: (Orange is the national color of the Netherlands). For non European readers Dutch and Belgian jokes are part of friendly relationship between Belgium and the Netherlands

After we plotted our track with some waypoints and timings we hit the sack for an early departure (sic).

The take off at 9hr15 LT, the next morning, was uneventful and with a big smile on our faces we tracked the first waypoint.

En-route we decided to climb to 3000 ft to be on top of some patches of cloud.

Closing in on the Frankfurt area we noticed that underneath the cloud deck started to become overcast. Discussing the situation we decided to continue as at the horizon we noticed some cumulus cloud popping out, indicating a broken layer.

Going under the cloud deck was no option and we were very lucky to keep clear of controlled Frankfurt Airspace which started at 3500ft (Frankfurt ATC the busiest airport in Europe does keep VFR traffic out of their controlled airspace).

I have flown often VFR in Belgian Airspace and often had the opportunity to sit in the jump seat of B737 or A330/340 at the time I still was a Maintenance Avionics Instructor, however nothing beats the feeling of riding above the clouds in a wonderful aircraft like the Taifun with a 360 degree random view.

Mac Gyver @ LOLS
After three and a half hours we reached our destination Schärding-Suben (ICAO designator LOLS) just across the German Austrian border. After landing we had to refuel with mogas, at this point poor Henk stress levels went into the red zone…
The Taifun requires a special tool to open the fuel caps, well; the tool was not in the aircraft so we were unable to refuel the aircraft. Henk shouted for about some 50 minutes names which I won’t repeat here.
The only option left over at this point was to hit with a hammer and a pin the hole drilled in the fuel cap trying to open it. Henk was successful however it left some damage on the aluminum fuel caps. It took some time for Henk to calm down after this event (the details behind are not discussed in this article).
The welcoming and service at Schärding-Suben airfield was without exaggerating super, friendly ARO service and atmosphere really a must when en-route from Germany or Belgium to Central Europe.
After filing an ICAO Flight Plan for LHSM and filling in some custom papers we were again en-route for what would be the most challenging part route segment. The crossing of the Austrian Alps.

Terrain clearance
Afer Take off at Schärding-Suben you will cross the Donau. Our track led to Linz, after leaving the Linz area behind we started to climb as the Alp mountains rise up to 7500 Ft .
Taking a look at the map you will find out that safe terrain clearance over that area is 8200 FT MSL. Honestly speaking don’t try this if you’ve never flown into Hi Mountain Terrain.
I was lucky to do this with Henk who had seen this scenery already several times. I doubt if I would have had the nerve, with my limited mountain flying experience, to take the aircraft alone over the mountains, finding a way through towering cumulus. Very impressive indeed a sight never to forget!

Crossing the Hungarian FIR
After about 1.5 Hrs were clear of the highest peaks and had LHSM in view on the GPS at about 78 NM final. This is were the Taifun shows its capability, almost being at 9500 Ft with a slight tailwind we descended at slightly reduced power taking into advantage the best glide speed of the aircraft. Following the Mc Cready Soaring theory you will get a very good groundspeed for limited vertical descent speed. The Taifun has almost 29/1 soaring ratio and this we really felt. At 9000 Ft you plan your top of descent at 50 NM from destination…wow, what an aircraft!

Landing at Balaton Airport
Closing in on the Lake Balaton, which is the biggest lake in Europe, 70 km long, we contacted Balaton Tower with position and intentions. We were instructed to fly to Dioskal and hold. Fortunately our latest DFS Austrian map included the Dioskal reporting point. During the hold over Dioskal we noticed a serious drift when in the turn. And yes after 8 minutes in the hold we were cleared for landing with winds 26 Kts gusting 30 Kts direction 360 degrees. Wow, this was no beginners landing weather, especially not with a motorglider. With this kind of wind you should keep up the speed about 10 Km/Hrs above the normal approach speed, by doing this you avoid hitting the runway hard when the wind falls back close to the ground.
I saw Henk struggling with the controls and after a helicopter approach we touched down with after touchdown full speed brakes to avoid the long wing bird wants to get fly again.

Destination Kaposujlak (ICAO: LHKV)
Customs at Balaton Airport was passed and after paying the fees which were still acceptable we continued our journey to the last leg Kaposujlak. Before we started the engine I called my wife to inform her that everything was OK and that we would arrive in less then 30 minutes. Surprisingly she asked me can you land there. Euhm …what do you mean Honey..? Well, baby they are keeping a motorbike contest on the runway….WOOOOPS…This was worrying news! I immediately called my Hungarian friend Gabor, the chief mechanic on the airfield to confirm this story….Yes, concrete runway closed, land on the grass was his friendly reply. OK anyway we had no choice to find out the situation so Henk punched LHKV in his state of the art GPS which resulted in a not found….mmmhm. On the second GPS the airfield was found immediately!
Mr. Jeppesen what went wrong here? Maybe the EAD (European Aeronautical Database supported by EUROCONTROL and in fact the project I am professionally involved with) could be the final solution of missing Aeronautical data of this kind.
The airfield only 3 km from the city of Kaposvar has a concrete runway of 650 m however after passing overhead it was confirmed that using the runway would be out of the question. The runway was fenced and on top motorbikes were sighted buzzing from left to right, so lets go for the grass! Sheep not one, not two, but almost a hundred were enjoying a late afternoon dinner.
After some brief discussion we called for finals, taking into respect some sheep which we used as runway edge markings.
The landing was without hitting any woolmark animals and so we parked the bird behind a huge Hangar to shield it from the still strongly gusting wind.
Happy to see my wife we drove to my parents in law and Henk enjoyed the Hungarian hospitality with a spicy goulash soup together wit some Palinka and some Bull’s Blood wine (Bikaver) , soon we forgot about the sheep altogether.

Kaposvar and Somogy county.
In the evening I showed Henk the city center and told him about some recent war history which affected the area during the mid nineties. During the Bosnia crisis (Operation Joint Endeavor) some 35000 US soldiers were deployed from Taszar and Kaposvar. Also Belgian troops were stationed in the Baranya area not so far from Kaposvar. I met my wife in early 2000 and still then the US presence was strongly felt.
The region offers plenty of recreational activities from playing golf to thermal baths and cultural excursions to e.g. Pecs (candidate for the European city of culture in 2010).
After a couple of beers in local pub we went back to our Panzio for a good night rest after quite an exciting day!

Next day fly back decision
Bad weather predictions for the next day were a bit worrying, however we decided to sleep it over and call the weatherman in the morning to get a more detailed en-route meteo briefing.

The next day Henk called the German weather briefer and while I was enjoying my breakfast a heard Henk grumping and nodding for about ten minutes. The verdict after the call was clear. Over the Alps today, no problem, tomorrow, it would be impossible. Weather was expected to fall below VFR limits around the Frankfurt or Koblenz area somewhere in the afternoon……

OK so, my wife picked us up and drove us to the airfield. I left Henk doing the preflighting, after I made sure we could fill our tanks with Avgas. I had to attend and arrange some family matters and told Henk I would be back ASAP.
I noticed when I arrived back at the airfield that Henk made some new friends. One of the Mechanics working there gave him a tool (used for opening flex discs), this of course solved the problem we would otherwise had encountered when refueling in Austria.

The motor bikers were still occupying the runway (in fact Sunday was the official contest day), so we were again forced to use the 1700m grass runway. Take off was without problems.

We landed without problems on LHSM for Flight Planning and customs.

After departing from LHSM we found out we could fly between the mountains and overcast at 11000Ft.

The remainder of the return flight went without further problems. We really enjoyed the incredible scenery and landscapes that passed below us.

Over the ridge!

Lenticularis still indicating strong winds and propably wave over the mountains.

Beautiful isn’t it?

Base leg again for LOLS, This time from the other Runway.

Getting the best out of the weather Service in Austria.
Notice the FWS (Flintstone Weatherinformation Sign)!

Bye, bye friendly Schärding-Suben (LOLS). Note he Donau and the highway to Linz after departure.

After some three hours and 25 minutes of flying we landed safely without encountering bad weather as predicted at Geilenkirchen.

We parked the aircraft and drove back to Henk and Ellie’s home were we debriefed and again enjoyed the excellent food made by Ellie.

The next morning I drove back to Mechelen in Belgium were I live and as Belgian tradition wants on crossing the border it started to rain….

So the weatherman was right anyway although the front passage was delayed….

Thanks again Henk for giving me this unbelievable experience. I learned a lot about the performance of the Taifun and how to tackle the mountains and terrain you overfly.
Also many thanks to Ellie for the hospitality and excellent ground and catering services.

(c) Luc Vermeulen
(since recently the happy owner of Taifun 17E, D-KJTN)

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