Posted by Bernhard Daenzer | Filed under Flying, Travelogues
Fueling went pretty smoothly, until the Olympic DH8A serving Sitia arrived ;-) Well we already had the fuel, but felt like paying, so we waited *G*. Apparently this isn’t granted in Greece… A cashier in a department store joked when we bought an item that wasn’t theft protected: “Why didn’t you just take it? *G*” Oh well…
Takeoff in cross-windy Sitia was again quite the challenge, even more so than the landing. The ground handling and weathervaning of the tail being quite a hand / feet full. Glad the RV takes off so quickly and the RWY itself was plenty big as well.
Sitia was also one of these AFIS fields that tried to play ATC. So he held us on ground for about 12minutes before he let us go, applying some kind of procedural IFR separation or whatever. We could have been airborne in the first minute and since it was VFR/AFIS technically there should have been no restriction. Fortunately the 30kt wind was helping keep temperatures down vente toboggan aquatique gonflable with the engine already running.
The flight itself was smooth, got a great clearance from Heraklion to climb to FL85 and we flew back economically and with less headwind over Santorini/Milos heading to Megara. The next downfall literally was another procedural (and probably non-ATC) FIC operator, which apparently couldn’t think 2 minutes ahead… Anyway, she ended up requiring us to descend from FL85 to 2500ft in about 15NM! Very uncomfortable experience with ears popping and a large temperature change. Based on the way she acted previously, i was already expecting a smooth letdown through the Athens TMA.
The approach into Megara was easy, with only about 7kts westerly winds.
Statistics
Planned Distance: 227.7 NM
Actually Flown Distance (TO to LDG): 221.2 NM
Top Ground Speed: 169.4 kts
Average Ground Speed: 136.1 kts
True Flight Time: 01:38
Block Time: 01:55