2014.05.24 EY Cargo

The last two weeks were hard for me. After my return from Krosno I had some hard work to do in school, but now, when I have more time I could get back to my favorite activities. Yesterday we had an official welcome party for our new winch. Well, it was supposed to happen a week earlier, but due to the weather (and a couple of different things) we postponed it.
This weekend, in Berlin, ILA was opened to the general public, unfortunately I wasn't able to attend, maybe in two years. Also, we had an unusual visitor at EPWA. Etihad Cargo came by for some cigarettes (gossip is that for 100 tonnes). Flight ETD9931 was delayed by over 2 hours and arrived minutes after 7pm (scheduled time of departure form WAW :P ) How did it end? Check for yourself, additionally, a couple of photos of aircraft landing around that time.

Approaching somewhere between trees :)

Krosno

My gliding division of Warsaw's aeroclub is buying a new winch. The old, Czechoslovakian made Herkules H4 will be replaced by a Moto-Hurt Ropczyce WS02 winch. This is the reason of my trip to Krosno. Because it is very much expected at EPBC we want it to be flawless when it arrives. If it would arrive and there would be any problems with how it works.. I don't even want to think of what they would do to and with us...
I picked up a friend after noon and we headed for our ride to Krosno via Ropczyce where we joined the rest of our "team" and had a look at the winch, got to test the systems and the way it drives. We then parked it on a gun carriage which took it to the airport in Krosno with us. We parked it at the airport and headed to the place that we where going to spend the night. That's how Thursday ended.

Friday morning, first thing after breakfast we directed ourself to the airport. The day surely started slowly. We took one Puchacz out and prepared it for flights. Meanwhile the winch guy got a basic tutorial of what and how. The plan was ambitious, very ambitious. We wanted to do 100 test runs. All in all we finished at 41 and ~2,5h of flight time. I did 8 flights during which I spent in the air 30 minutes. As there wasn't any other goal than to test the winch, we practiced a bit short and steep approaches and the accuracy of our landings.

I should also add a 20 minute flight on-board An-2 because of a problem with the winch that needed to be fixed. That'd be my first An-2 experience. FAN-TAS-TIC!
Summing it all up, we came up with a list of things that needs to be repaired or adjusted before we'll take the winch to Warsaw and present it officially to the rest. I would love to thank all the people that helped. Thanks!

Inside the winch

 One of the first departures

2014.04.30/05.01 ELY744/LOT788

Recently there has been a couple of nice movements at EPWA. El Al arrived with a total of 4 Jumbo Jets in a time window of a week. The first 2 came from JFK and YYZ on the 24th of April in the morning and the second 2 came from TLV on the 30th of April, in the evening. Unfortunately I did not have the possibility to go and see the first 2. I only caught one of the evening ones, and not exactly as I wished to.

On the first day of May the 6th Dreamliner arrived for LOT from Everett. SP-LRF made a low pass before touching down on runway 33. I wanted to have different photos than I would usually make at that time of the day. Well, plans are always great, until you get to confront them with reality. Too much experimenting isn't always the best option. The final effect is satisfactory, but not the thing I wanted to achieve.

In the mean time two CanJet 737s' arrived from Canada to fly on charter routes for LOT. Both ex. RYR planes with Y189 config. I did not meet them yet, but as soon as I do, I'll post a couple of photos.

I couldn't forget about a couple of military planes that visited us. Including a HUAF Antonov and Finish guests. None of them seen by me this time. Unfortunately I don't have the ability to visit the airport every time something cool swings by.

 4X-ELC approaching rwy 33 over Piaseczno