VFR Flight Salzburg to Klagenfurt

The AVSIM VFR Flight Center

(Mostly) VFR Flight from Salzburg to Klagenfurt, Austrian Alps

LOWS - LOWK

Country	Austria
Original flight	June 27th, 2001
Estimated distance	approx. 150 miles
Estimated time en route	1 hour

Download flight plan	FS2000 plan
	FSNavigator 3 plan
	FSNavigator 4 plan
(Download) scenery	click here
(Download) plane	standard King Air 350
(Download) panel	-

Contributed by	Francois 'Navman' Dumas

Comments

I got a mail message from my friend Miro the other day: "why don't you make a VFR trip from Klagenfurt to Ljubljana, it's a nice route and there is new airport scenery available" he wrote.
Problem is, I was in Salzburg at the time, not in Klagenfurt. But, still in Austria and not that far away. So I figured if I would rent a fast twin I could still make it before dark. So I got me a map, looked it all up and started planning. Then I built my flightplan, printed it, and drove to the airport, where a twin King Air 350 was waiting for me. The sun was still shining over the airport at that time.

When I filed my flightplan to Ljubljana in Slovenia, I ran into an old friend. We started talking and before I knew it, 30 minutes had passed. I grabbed my stuff and ran out to the aircraft, hopped on board, did the preflight checks and asked permission to taxi. Once I got airborne I realized this was going to be tight. High up at 10,000 feet the sun was still visible, but down in the valleys the shadows set in quickly.

And sure enough, I wasn't going to make it. When I made the turn over Zell am See, after Fix 01, it was getting dark quickly. And some heavier cloud then expected was on my way as well. I had to go up to 12,000 feet to clear the mountains, just got me in and out of the clouds. The views were spectacular, sun set in the Alps is always awesome. But I decided to call Klagenfurt and ask permission to land there. Good decision, and the landing was difficult enough as it was. The valley was already in total darkness, with mountains all around. Getting down from 10,000 feet and flying the approach was not easy.