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Arcus M, this newest and greatest product of the well renowned factory Schempp Hirth was rented from the newly established company "Rent a Glider" owned by Wolfgang Janowitsch and Ludwig Starkle. Their idea of professional renting state of the art gliders in top condition is rather new to the gliding world. This represents a huge advantage to the until now practice of individual and unofficial rental of gliders of more or less unknown condition.
This particular glider Arcus M with a contest number "TWO" ("WO" is a many years trade mark contest number of world and multiple european champion Wolfgang Janowitsch) was delivered to us by the Arcus chief design engineer Andy Lutz on an early Bavarian morning. Andy and Wolfgang had just returned from Ostrow, Poland where they have very successfully demonstrated all the performance abilities of this Arcus by winning the European Championship. This meant that we had no excuse for not utilizing this gilder to it fullest capabilities in Livno !
Our drive to Livno took us through the picturesque town of Bled Slovenia at the foothills of southern Alps where we had dinner and breakfast with our gliding friends and their families. My flying partner Martin Schulz and I were so ambitious that we even managed to make a morning run around the lake of Bled (5 km) together with our breakfast host Karel Čeč. We arrived in Livno in the eve of 4.th August where we were greeted and welcomed by Livno aeroclub members and our flying friends. We had no idea that the next two weeks would be some of the best of our flying experience, accumulating in total 80 hours of flying, 7500 kilometers and flying the glider all 14 out of the 14 days that we had it available.
Our days were very long but successful. Starting with a wake up call at 7 am, having breakfast in the hotel "Park" restaurant at 8 am , enjoying the crystal clear skies and cool morning temperatures of 14 degrees C. Driving to the glider port at 9 am and making a regular stop at a local bakery for some fresh and still hot pretzels and making sure we avoid the heavy stuff like "burek" and "pita" ! Having a briefing with Miro or Edo at 10:30 am SHARP ! Well OK, on some days we were a bit late for the briefing and didn't hear over and over that danger zone "Barbara" is active again . . . Preparing this glider for the flight was also pure pleasure since that every piece of equipment is state of the art and it all still has that brand new smell :) The glider is equipped with two LX 9000 flight computers (for the front and rear cockpit), all instruments are Winter, LX NAV Flarm, two comfortable National parachutes, EDS oxygen system and of course the latest and greatest Walter Binder SOLO engine producing 78 HP fuel injected and all automatically controlled and regulated by an engine computer system. The only piece of high end gliding equipment that was missing was our old trusty friend "Oudie 2" and this was only because of our rental contract stipulation! We were not allowed to use any suction cups on the glider!
And Livno it was at its BEST! The weather patterns almost every day were very similar except for one day when we had north easterly winds of "bura" blowing and even that allowed us to make several easy runs on a 60 km long ridge. Every day we had nice developed and defined convergence lines running in NorthWesterly - SouthEasterly direction with cloud bases as high as 4300 meters MSL. This allowed us to fly as far north as a- beam Zadar and to the south a- beam Tivat. For most of us this was unknown flying territory, or at least all in one flight!
8.th of August represented a special day for several of us. Boštjan Pristavec flying with his wife Tanja in their EB-28 flew the first 1000 km flight in the Balkans. He devoted this historic flight to the late Stipe Krišto, founder and developer of Livno gliding center. For me it was exactly 30 years since my first solo flight and there was no better way to commemorate this then with a flight of 820 km flown at average speeds of 140+ kmh in close vicinity with my good friend Andrej Kolar who was flying a Ventus 2cxm. At one point of our flight Andrej and I got rather low on the hills of mountain Golia. We bravely and cautiously pushed forward and each found a good thermal which allowed us to keep our high average speeds. Later on in the evening Andrej called this "Run for the glory", and glory it was at least for the two of us, two happy good friends! The top three places on the OLC scoreboard were reserved for the three musketeers from Livno :) The evening ceremonies continued at a high level thanks to "ceremony meister" Dr Darko Gagula with whom I had made prior arrangements and ordered a roasted lamb which we all enjoyed. My flying partner Martin has brought two barrels of German beer from his home town and the party was on until late. It was very nice to celebrate again with old and new friends. That evening the spirits were so high that Andrej and I have sent the following SMS message to the Arcus owner : " Wolfgang, you have to buy a new variometer for your Arcus glider ! This one shows climbs only up to 5 m/s ! Ha ha ha "
Our daily routine was very similar day after day, more and more high quality flying and then enjoying nice cool temperatures in the evening either at an open fire cookout at the airport or in one of the local Livno restaurants. My flying partner Martin enjoyed his newly gained gliding experience in particular since that in the northern part of Germany where he flies his St. Cirrus he has no opportunity to fly in the mountains, ridges and such strong convergence lines. Also flying in close proximity of other gliders for hundreds and hundreds of kilometers was something new to him. Unfortunately all good things have and ending and for Marin it was after seven days when he had to leave and join his wife in the coastal town of Trogir and start enjoying the beauties of the Adriatic sea . . . Don't we all love these wonderful moments ? ? ?
Good bye I said to Martin and thanked him for his exceptional help and airmanship and Hello I said to Luka Znidaršič my flying partner for the next seven days. Flying with Luka represented a great new experience since that Luka is a very skillful glider pilot and also a Schempp Hirth dealer for Slovenia so he was eager to get to know his factory product even better. Flying jointly we were able to utilize mutual experience and knowledge as well as good team work which is so important when flying in a high performance two seat glider. On numerous occasions our flight path was in close proximity of other fast flying pilots from Livno. Every time we saw them the race was on trying to out climb them or over take them in straight flight! Flying in close vicinity of other gliders such as JS-1, ASH-25,Ventus2cxm and others we were able to check the superb performance capabilities of our Arcus, and "superb" they were !!! For me it was a special joy to utilize all my recently acquired knowledge from a week long training with my coach Wolfgang Janowitsch. Last December I had the privilege of being trained by a world champion in Namibia. We particularly worked on utilizing long energy lines and here in Livno the condition were perfect to check what was learned and retained. For hundreds of kilometers Luka and I were able to cruise at very high ground speeds (220 kmh and more) without the need to circle at all. I did my best to utilize all signs of lift and avoid areas of "bad air" and at times I could almost hear my coach "WO" -s words from behind : "Milan, you have to put all your heart into this straight flying! " in his typical and pleasant austro - english accent :) For those of you wondering what is it like to fly with a world champion imagine playing tennis and being coached by Roger Federer himself ! The highlight of this second week of flying was when Luka and I flew for 863 km and placed first for Europe and second in the world on the OLC scoring list . At one point we got low in the vicinity of Nikšić airport and it looked like we will have to start the motor due to many rain showers and lack of lift in that area. Luka was able to find a very turbulent and difficult to center thermal and get us to a comfortable altitude. "Great job Luka ! " the credit for this save goes to you :) We landed at Livno 5 minutes after official sunset ( at 19:56 local time) happy and tired with some great pictures of the sun setting behind the Arcus wing.
The following day Boštjan Pristavec flew another 1000 km flight from Livno, showing once again that he is a true master and his specialty are these ultra long 1000 km + flights. On this day Luka and I took off about an hour later than usual but for what we believed was a good reason ! I have taken a very motivated 16 years old glider pilot Maruša from Slovenj Gradec on her first flight in a high performance glider. Her motivation and enthusiasm was so high that both Luka and I believed that this flight opportunity for her was far more important than any OLC points that the two of us could of have racked ! "Maruška, keep the good work and continue pursuing your glider flying ! " . On the last day of our stay in Livno we decided to fly the Arcus to Bihać gliderport just to the south of the border line with Croatia. Luka being a true gentleman offered the back seat of Arcus to his lovely wife Maja. He in turn volunteered to tow the trailer to Bihać and there we would meet to disassemble and pack the glider. Maja and I had a great flight once we were able to climb high enough and connect with another great convergence line guiding us directly to Bihać. In the 120 km that we cruised to Bihać at maximum turbulent airspeed we made only one un necessary turn. Maja wanted to check the handling of Arcus :), once the 360 was completed and Maja was satisfied with signature work of the Schempp Hirth team we pressed on! On this flight we were escorted in close formation by Maja's father in law Matija Znidaršić flying his 18 m FES (Front Electric Sustainer) equipped LAK glider. Once Matija was sure that our LX 9000 was pointing us in the right direction towards Bihać and we had a 2000 meter and more reserve on our final glide calculator he wished us a "Bon voyage and happy landing" and made a sharp 180 degree turn pointing his glider towards his favorite turn point of Blidinje some 200 kilometers to the south ! We landed at Bihać glider port where we were greeted and helped by many of our gliding friends. Some I knew from some 25 years ago when we all flew together at the wave camp in "Korenica" (then called Titova Korenica) and others we met the previous year. Our drive to Ljubljana was long and slow due to the numerous tourist cars on the road but what helped were three large and "healthy" portions of "chevapchici" (traditional and very typical sausages from this part of the world. If you have cholesterol issues stay away from this stuff! or eat at your own risk!) which we got in the town of Bihać and a continuous conversation and laugh recalling the events of the past two weeks. My return back to "reality" of Hong Kong took me well over 48 hours, first sitting in the front seat of Arcus, then right side seat of Lukas BMW, and then two jump seats: Adria Airways Airbus 319 and Cathay Pacific Boeing 747. "Thank you jet skippers for helping this glider pilot get back home in time for his flying job "
In conclusion once again I will say that this was a "pure privilege"! Flying, traveling and having a good time with best pilots and friends that I have met so far ! Flying over these beautiful landscapes of a county that was once called Yugoslavia (now days it is four newly formed countries) has once again convinced me that there is no greater natural beauty than here in a place that many of us once called and considered "home"! Once again many thanks to all the members of Aeroklub Livno, in particular to Edvard Krišto and his late father Stipe Krišto without whom and their vision and unselfish enthusiasm none of this would ever be possible ! Safe flying and good skies to all of you :) Milan Petković, Petko
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Bahia Gliding 2013 (Return to Paradise) - An Update on the Bahia Gliding Resort Milan Petković Petko v Livnem = 80 ur v 14 dneh Milan Petković Petko in Livno = 80 hours in 14 days
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