Video: Day 10 and 11

October 9/10, 2014

Day 9 was probably the most stressful of all the journey. After crossing the Greek/Turkish border I was not able to establish radio communcation with the Turkish ATC. I must have tried at least hundred times but no response. Not daring to enter the Istanbul TMA I circled at various altitudes and tried to talk to someone. Finally, a Lufhtansa pilot helped out by relying my message. Originally I wanted to fly via Bosphorus but in the end I was not allowed to do so and I had to turn north, directly to Bulgaria.

The airport of Velka Oryachovitsa in Bulgaria had absolutely no traffic but about 10 staff using the opportunity of my arrival got out of their hiding places to make my life a bit more difficult by requiring this and that. Getting fuel meant hiring a taxi a and making three journeys to the 15 km distant fuel station. I got to bed at midnight.

The last day of the trip was fine but the flight of about 6 hours took me through some bad weather so I landed quite exhausted. Also, a couple of months later I got a letter from the Czech immigration police accusing me of illigal entry into the Czech Republic and I was fined about USD 50.- . This because I forgot that eventhough Bulgaria is an EU country, it is not a member of the Schengen agreement....