Hungary to the Slovak Republic FS2002

**mjanicki** · 07-12-2009, 08:10 PM

Well, the strong winds are still in the area, but conditions are good with expected scattered above 6000 ft for the first part of the trip. So, off we go from Budapest-Ferihegy, Hungary (LHBP) to Kosice, Slovakia (LZKZ). Our routing today is TPS-SAG-LZKZ at 5500 ft, but we expect to have to head down to 3500 ft nearing the border as reports are that clouds near Kosice are at 4500. That's the official route, but this 1.5 hour flight could just as easily be done following the E71 motorway all the way to Kosice.

Temperature is 18C here in Budapest even though it's still fairly early in the morning. We take a last look at the modern terminal in the distance as we approach the holding point for runway 31L.

Still climbing as we say goodbye to Budapest. The wind is 14 knots from our left and we can expect that to stay about the same for the entire flight.

Along the way we pass quite a few towns in Hungary. Here we see Hatvan on the Nagygombos Plains. Hatvan is really comprised of this city center and 11 other smaller villages on the plains for a total of about 22,000 inhabitants.

Continuing Eastward we come upon Gyongyos, Hungary set against the Sarhegy and Matra mountains. Gyongyos is home to many food production facilities servicing the farmlands of the plains. Residents also run a number of vineyards along the slopes of the mountains. Gyongyos also boasts being the home of Olympic swimmer Gabriella Csepe.

We've made our turn to the North near Emod, Hungary and are now passing through the valley area which contains quite a few small villages such as Mera to our front right. We've descended to 3500 ft as the forecasts were right and clouds are scattered at 4500. Wind is 12 knots directly into our nose and is expected to stay that way all the way to Kosice.

Not much further to go, we've been given a straight in approach for runway 01. I really feel like I've been getting lazy with all these long, wide runways, so I've convinced Kosice tower to let us use 01C, the 3600 ft grass strip. Heading into Kosice we can make out the bases of the Slovak Ore Mountains which the city borders on the East end. Kosice is home to some 235,000 making it the second largest city in Slovakia and the most influential city in the Eastern part of Slovakia.

Wind is still 12 knots in line with the runway so we're at flaps 20 carrying a few more knots than usual as we near the infield. This really is much more rewarding than landing on that 10,170 ft of nice smooth pavement. From here we can also start to see signs of the city which lies just North of the airfield.

With only a few bumps, we're here and just need to find a parking spot before heading into the city for the afternoon.

Welcome to the Slovak Republic and thanks for viewing.

Addons for this flight
======================
- Charts Hungary: http://ivao.kerozingozos.hu/downloads/charts
- Charts Slovakia: http://www.ivao.sk/eng/charts.html
- LHBP, Budapest for FS2002 (lhbp222.zip) by Gabor Rucz
- LHBP AFCAD by Otto Prokopovitsch

**adamb** · 07-12-2009, 08:49 PM

Swell looking shots Mike.Great tour.

Adam

**Alexander** · 07-12-2009, 09:50 PM

Great shots again.

**aircav1970** · 07-13-2009, 11:32 AM

Great set again Mike,you fly in areas that never even occure to me to go and visit,so,with that in mind I may have to take a trip to Eastern Europe
soon!

**radishman1** · 07-13-2009, 01:11 PM

Brilliant looking shots!

**mjanicki** · 07-13-2009, 02:20 PM

Thanks for the comments, everyone. Yep, hadn't done much flying in Eastern Europe myself so this is has been a fun part of the tour for me. One way I've been expanding my flying habits is to use random departure and destination options in Destination Finder (destfn20.zip). I can tell it I want a 200 nm flight with grass or dirt runways no more than 3000 ft and it can tell me all the places I could try or even randomize two airports for me. Very handy when you can't decide where to fly today.

-- Mike