Flying therapy ✈

Still ill.

But since I have flown a few hours in the weekend at least the office depression passed.

We hoped with Matt in our good old rented Piper on Saturday, and flew to Wiener Neustadt (LOAN) to have the best wiener schnitzel in Austria, strictly "unter den Turm". The Piper has four places but you either carry fuel either carry passangers. It has 160 HP, but still doesn't seem to be enough.

It is located near a military airfield (LOXN). So I was coming in for a landing on the RWY10 and reported over the Pulverturm as asked (this is the entry point, the turn from crosswind to downwind). I was trying not to overfly the railway which is paralel with the base. Then turned to final at 100-150 ft, in case of the Piper I extended full flaps and touched down (my buddy Matt was like a real F/O, he was constantly giving me the speed). Meanwhile the crazy old guy from the tower awaits the moment when you have the highest workload and starts asking you about your departure airfield and the name of the captain and similar very importan questions. Me just asked him to stand by. So we were down and happy but not for a long time as there was no free table at the restaurant. On the picture behind the Piper you can see the tower and the restaurant.

Wiener Neustadt airfield is home of the Diamond Aircraft. So there's a lot to see. And there is a small aviation museum too, where among other airplanes they have a Messerchmitt Bf109 which looks to me to be in flying condition (but I might be wrong).

With no place to eat but hungry we hopped back in the Piper and headed for Tokorcs airfield in Hungary (such a small one that it doesn't even have a code). But they have a great restaurant there and by air it is only 30 minutes. From there we flew to Kaposújlak (LHKV). Here I had my first wake turbulence encountered on final. There was parachute dropping from an L410. After deploying the packages she was descending like crazy (as it is used in case of parachute dropping). Turned to final some half mile in front of me while I was holding to let her land. Then I turned to final and saw her touching down. Was also descending towards the runway when I first encountered a strong turbulence yawing me to the left. Agressively corrected it and got into an other one now to the right. This was when I realized that I'm in the turbulence zone of the Let. Turned left and left the final. Made a slow slight prolonged turn. Got back on final a few minutes later and landed without further events.

Sunday. LHSA. 0600Z. We've been planning to go to Portorož (LJPZ) in Slovenia. But haven't.
Instead We flew to Nove Zamky (LZNZ) in Slovakia. We met a few slovak pilots. Chatted for an hour or so and headed back to LHSA.

Had some coolers and took off for Punitz/Gussing (LOGG) airfield. Matt fell asleep on the way there. In the Hungarian airspace there was no big traffic. The engine was working perfectly and for a few minutes I also had to fight not to fall asleep. Landing, an Almdudler and we were heading back to LHSA again. Climbed up to 8000 ft to catch the building clouds.

Climbed above the cloud base. The sight was gorgeous. The air was smooth. And I forgat that I'm ill. So when we started to descend intensively for LHSA hell broke out in my head. As I had this flu it probably blocked my eustachian tube and my middle ear couldn't decompress. I was swallowing and yawning and doing the valsalva without any success. My tears bursted. Gush. Was I stupid to go to those hights.

It took 2 days for the barotrauma to go away. And did I mention that I'm still ill :)

But hey flying we must (I think master Yoda told this to young Skywalker).