PC Flight Magazine Vol.4

Hellenic Fly-In Article
By Terry McGee

Flight Plan: LIRF to LGAT

Flight Level: FL330

Route:TEA-BRD-NOSTO-ARA-DDM-ATH

You have been hearing about SquawkBox and how it offers live on-line ATC throughout various parts of the World. Quite often there is a 'Fly-In' organised by an ATC Center to which virtual Pilots and Virtual Airlines are invited. The best way to keep informed on what is happening on SATCO is to join the various mailing lists available on the ARTCC Web Sites. When a 'Fly-in' is arranged, all relevant information on, ATC opening/ closing times, SIDs, STARs, ILS Charts, Routes and scenery are normally made available on the host Web Site. And what a Web Site these guys have ! It is very well designed and has 'everything' you need to fly in Greece - whether you fly at home or on SquawkBox the files available on this Web Site will make your flights more enjoyable.

The default scenery of Athens in FS98 is acceptable to me as 1 never flew to any other part of Greece, but they have Greece Scenery ver 2.71 by Ted Katranas available, which I downloaded as I wanted to fly elsewhere in Greece after I landed in Athens. This scenery is very good, in particular around Athens - try it at dusk or night and look at those city lights, but watch out for the mountains on approach and especially departing from runway 33R. Every Island and every airport in Greece is included in this scenery - they have even included the new Athens airport which is still under construction. As I said earlier, you can download approach charts etc. for each airport but you will need an airway chart to navigate around - Jeppesen E(HI) 7/8 and E(LO) 9/10. Most Greek airports use VORDME approaches, which will certainly make your flights even more interesting !

The Greek Fly-In was held on Friday 22nd October and Greece was the destination. I has asked a number of club members to participate and use a 'Shamrock' callsign (fly the flag). There were six El (Shamrock) aircraft which flew into Greece, they were: EI4217 (Alan & Tony McNulty), EIN159 / Shamrock 159 (lan), El-330 / Shamrock 330 (Myself), El-727 (Nigel Hughes), El-527 / Shamrock 527 (Anthony Martin), EIN6901 / Shamrock 6901 (Laurence Kiernan). Those using BattleCom for voice communication with ATC are shown with the "Shamrock" callsign.

All but EI6901 and El-727 flew from Rome, Fuimicino and for those interested here is the Flight Plan which I used and the vectors I got once inside Greek Airspace (FIR). You can do this flight yourself if you wish, if you have SquawkBox or an EFIS, just key in the waypoints and Flight Levels. I cannot remember the exact ATC instructions I received, so the following are somewhat near those I received.

At the time there was no ATC available at Rome, so I decided not to wait. However, Rome ATC did come on-line before I reached TEA, I was then under his control.

Takeoff was from runway 25 at Rome, Fiumicino, then a left turn direct to TEA (112.9) climbing to FL330. Shortly after TEA, Rome ATC handed me over to Brindisi ATC, who cleared me to BRD (113,2) [a distance of 187 miles]. From BRD I track the 100 Radial outbound for 66 miles to NOSTRO, where shortly after I was handed over to Athens Centre. All the Greek controllers were on voice, so from here on the flight was really enjoyable as things were rather busy and you had toJisten out for your callsign among the other aircraft online same ATC frequency. I was told to continue to ARA (112.70) where I was descended to FL120 and to continue to DDM (117.2). I was handed over to Athens Approach before DDM and was told to to expect vectors for ILS 33R. On reaching DDM I was instructed to fly direct to KEA (115.0) for spacing due to aircraft on approach ahead of me. I was descended to 5000 ft before KEA and given vectors to a heading of 290 and descended to 2000 ft and told to report established Localiser 33R. On doing so, I was handed over to Tower who cleared me to land. On reporting runway vacated, Tower cleared me to taxi to the terminal and report shutting down. After which I listened and watched other aircraft landing before I filed a Flight Plan for another flight to Iraklion (Crete). This was a VORDME Approach and I had one incident, after I disengaged the autopilot at 7 miles final to commence my final descent, my aircraft suddenly trimmed up to 20° which caused me some concern ! I quickly trimmed it down before I reached stall speed and succeeded in doing a safe landing. All with the help of the Crete Controller.

It was a busy night for Greek Controllers who handled 120 flights over 3 hours 30 minutes ! Of course there were quite a few other virtual pilots using real airlines callsigns, plus a few Virtual Airlines. A sample of others who participated were: Austrian, Alitalia, British Airways, Heavy Lift, Brathams, Air Canada, Cyprus, KLM, Lufthansa, Olympic, Angel Air, Scandinavian, Swissair, TAP Air Portugal, Sur Air (va), TCA (va), West Winds (va), Great Western Airlines (va). va=Virtual Airline. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and successful Fly-In for all who participated - especially the 'Shamrocks'. My thanks to all the Greek Controllers for a great nights flying and to Vangelis Hassiotis for supplying the flight information for this article.

If you are interested in such events you can find details of any planned events for Europe listed on the SATCO Europe Web Site www.sateur.org/ or the SATCO Web Site www.satco.org for US events.

Terry McGee