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Greek Islands Summer 2011

F

flyvans.com

Well Known Member
After several smaller trips around Europe this spring, we are now travelling the Greek Islands for about 3 weeks.

Highlights are Corfu, Milos, Santorini, Rhodes, Karpathos and Dubrovnik along the way.
The first few leg reports are posted on http://www.flyvans.com
Currently we are on Santorini, leaving for Rhodes tomorrow.

If you've never been, Santorini is definitely one of the must-see places in the world. Despite high expectations, we never expected it to be as beautiful as it turned out to be! Many mediterranean cruises stop here, too BTW.

Some highlight pictures so far:

Hotel Irida, Imerovigli, Santorini
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Approaching Santorini airport
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Parked on Milos Island
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Klima, fishermen village on Milos
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Beach on Milos
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Apollonia, another fishermen village on Milos
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Fort in Kerkira, Corfu.
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in the Fort in Kerkira
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Lugano airport, Southern Switzerland
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Fuel stop in Lugano
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Santorini:

I stopped there on a cruise last year. Indeed it was gorgeous. I notice the airport as we toured the island, but didn't think you could get there in a light plane. Looking at the map it looks like only 100 miles or so from Athens.

Very cool pictures.

Kent
 
Nice

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Thanks for the memories - I wish we could have flown there in our RV-6A. Your airplane and photos are great.

Bob Axsom
 
We absolutely LOVED Santorini!!

Except for navigating the donkey-doo on the walk down to the cruise ship pier...:)
 
Santorini is awesome. It is very laid back other than the days the big cruise ships are in port. We spent a week there earlier this year.

Rhodes is nice too. The old fort is incredible, as is the story of its siege towards the end of the crusades.

The movie "The Guns of Navarrone" was filmed on Rhodes. After you've been, watch the movie on late night TV. You'll recognize quite a few features.
 
Great writeup

Hi Bernie,

Great info on your website - I'm looking forward to reading about the trip back through Croatia!

I was shocked to hear you could get up to FL115 VFR in IT. I've never heard of anyone getting more than 2k. Must be some secret contoller handshake you'll have to teach me. :)
 
rv8ch said:
Hi Bernie,

Great info on your website - I'm looking forward to reading about the trip back through Croatia!

I was shocked to hear you could get up to FL115 VFR in IT. I've never heard of anyone getting more than 2k. Must be some secret contoller handshake you'll have to teach me. :)
Click to expand...

hi mickey,

it took a bit of persuasive talent, besides some planning for exactly that.
the main "technical" problem is the large chunk of milano class A airspace that keeps you low for most of northern italy. however, if you fly around that to the east, at least there is no airspace class prohibiting higher levels, even if the controller would agree to let you up.
the key is to plan a route via "NESTI" and east of it.
the rest of it is really unwritten stuff ;-) good R/T, knowing all the points and where you are yourself, coming across well briefed and on top of the game, predictable trajectory of the aircraft etc... will show the controller that he can put at least a bit of trust in you, unlike the other 80% of VFR pilots around i'm afraid to say... and no, there is no secret code word or flightplan remark or such ;-)

rgds from Rhodes, bernie
 
flyvans.com said:
snip


good R/T, knowing all the points and where you are yourself, coming across well briefed and on top of the game, predictable trajectory of the aircraft etc... will show the controller that he can put at least a bit of trust in you, unlike the other 80% of VFR pilots around i'm afraid to say... and no, there is no secret code word or flightplan remark or such ;-)

rgds from Rhodes, bernie
Click to expand...




Good trip great advice. Thank you Bernie.
 
you're welcome, vlad...

and by the way (for those still building), even if you plan to build a "vfr" only panel, make sure to include a gps with ifr waypoint capability and update them every once in a while....

it's much easier to file flight plans referring to ifr waypoints (shorter text) and helps communication with the controllers immensely. at work, we tend to know our airspaces and ifr waypoints very well, however referencing everything to geographical city etc... names is much harder and with a less predictable outcome. and at the very moment where a vfr-pilot can tell me his next 2 or 3 legs based on ifr intersections, i get a clear mental picture. of course you still have to factor in him not being able to fly the plan due to weather, possibly not exactly holding altitudes etc... but you get the idea.

greetings from Rhodes, tomorrow we'll head to Karpathos,
regards Bernie
 
Part 2 is now up.
http://www.flyvans.com/wordpress

Some highlights:

Hotel Irida, Imerovigli, Santorini
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Dolmades, stuffed vine leaves. Delicious.
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Rhodes, old town
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Hotel Irini, Karpathos
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Fishermen village on Karpathos
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Crazy crosswind at Sitia, Crete. (GPS puck to spinner is aircraft centerline, established!)
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Santorini in synthetic vision on the way back. (Starting to love SV, if only terrain back home could be more detailed)
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Santorini out the window in the same position
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Happy couple. Now engaged ;-)
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Kerkira airport, with a bit of digital enhancement.
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Interesting approach

I flew into Chania a few times back in 2006. What I mean is we tried a few times, everyone was going missed and we didn't have the fuel to go anywhere else, so we made a few attempts. If you look at a terrain view of the area and think of winds coming from the south-east, it was interesting with mountains on the left and the updraft from the eastern cliffs pushing you back up towards the clouds. In a helo with radar, so last option was to do a radar sweep, let ourselves down over the water then come in slowly under clouds to airport. Sat in the aircraft for an hour waiting for the rain to stop.

Wish I could have seen more of the island from the air.
 
Looks like you are having a great trip. Oshkosh wedding next year? Karen and I will be following your reports.
Mike
 
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