Prague by plane
Years ago I’ve been to beautiful Prague by train. The connection was horrible, to be frank. From Munich I took a regional train, but we needed to change locomotive three times, twice to change direction and once to change the electrical system when crossing over to Czechia. It took ages. Don’t get me wrong: I love trains - a lot! And I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that again any time soon.
Instead I surprised my sister and her fiancé with a day trip by plane to Czechias capital city.
The Plane
I flew a Piper Archer II, which is the newest addition to our flying club. It still has a traditional six pack, an autopilot that does not like to have its mode switched and a 25kHz secondary radio. But it also has an an engine monitor, a great audio panel and power outlets. Not my favorite plane, but certainly not my least favorite.
The Route
We flew directly from Frankfurt Egelsbach (EDFE) to Prague Letňany (LKLT), via northern Bavaria, crossing into Czechia at Cheb, flying south of Karlovy Vary and Prague, then crossed Kbley military CTR.
The Flight
On the morning of the flight I filed a flight plan via Skydemon. This is strictly not necessary for flights from Germany to Czechia, but since I was going to cross a military CTR, I decided I needed to file a plan ahead of time.
The day of the flight was a relatively cool day after a couple of really hot ones, also ceilings were, for the most part at about 5000 feet MSL. So especially in the border region and south of Prague, we would be flying relatively low over forested area. This of course meant a lot of turbulence. I was OK, but my sisters fiancé was not all that happy on her very flight in a small plane.
Another thing that went wrong was, that the autopilot was stuck in NAV mode, and because of other issues could not be trusted. So hand flying all the was the name of the game.
The flight took about 2:06 hours, with an average ground speed of 123kt. Except for the wind, turbulence and the whole autopilot issue, there was nothing particularly challenging about this flight.
Along my route were a couple of ATZs in Czechia, which I made sure to either overfly or circumnavigate.
Radio
During the flight I was in contact with German FIS Langen Information and the Czech FIS Praha Information. Both were exceptional.
Langen passed me to Karlovy Vary after flying into Czech airspace, because they expected me to cross their TMA, which I didn’t plan on doing. I was then passed to Praha Information. They gave me traffic information and also warned me of other restricted airspace. 5 minutes prior to reaching “R” for Kbely, I requested a crossing. Thereafter I was asked to contact Kbely, who allowed crossing to Letňany. Here things happen really quickly, since Letňany ist just on the other side of the road from Kbely. Be prepared.
Letňany Airport
Letňany has two parallel gras runways in east-westerly orientation with the longer one being 860 meters. Service is great, fuel, even unleaded Avgas, was available.
After refueling and parking we walked for about 10 minutes to the nearby metro station also called “Letňany”. It is served by the C-line and we were in the city center in another 15-20 minutes. I doubt a taxi would have been any faster.
What have I learned from this flight?
- Don’t be afraid of flying in other countries.
- Prepare how to enter the pattern well ahead of time. Because of all the stress with Kbely, I was a bit surprised with the instructions and I joined differently (worked out, no other traffic, but caused more stress)
- I should definitely practice my soft field take-offs more. I think I did it right, but I was nervous, because I hardly take off from grass strips. For my next flight with an instructor, we plan on making me feel more comfortable in this regard.