Back to Georgia

I was back in Georgia last week, it is a great place for skiing and unknown by most Europeans. No long cues on the ski slopes (they haven’t got carnaval holidays), lots of fresh snow. The Gudauri station where we went for the second year is at 2200 meter and goes to 3300 meter altitude. We loved it. 

A second reason to go there was to visit my pilot friends at the Natakhtari airfield, the main general aviation airfield north of capital Tbilisi. With AOPA Luxembourg we are facilitating a private pilot VFR rally this June bringing French and Luxembourg planes to this place. Some 17 planes confirmed and as with every organisation, there were some issues to take care of.

Vanilla Sky – Cessna flying in Georgia, Europe

Airfield with a swimming pool

Dinner offered by Amiran Manjavidze, owner of Natakhtari airfield

Natakhari is a regional hub, terrain will be extended to 2500 m

old power lines at end of runway

Amiran’s newest purchase…to tow gliders

for glider towing

old timers 1

old timers – a gift for Amiran for his 60th birthday

old-timer Sovjet Gouvernment car

The Russian answer on Fiat 500

General aviation develops at Natakhtari airfield, Georgia

General aviation develops at Natakhtari airfield, Georgia

They install a Jet-A fuel tank, AVGAS is available in barrels

running as President for UPL-AOPA Luxembourg

I’m active since a couple of years in the board of the Luxembourg AOPA, which is called UPL-AOPA. The first year, I have been mainly a listener and organized some fly-outs , even long distance ones. I contributed to get AOPA Belgium on the fly again and am working on themes as digitalisation within UPL-AOPA as we need to reinvent ourselves to attract a younger crowd.

Our president is unfortunately not representing himself for election next Saturday at the General Assembly. It is a pity, he does a very good job. Our secretary, Marcel Felten, passed unexpectedly away some weeks ago and we have also two other board members who are not representing themselves anymore. 

Lucky for us, we have a couple of new volunteers to join the board. There’s also some news from my side. I’m running as president of our association next Saturday. Here’s the English version of the letter I sent today to the board members.

I’m running for succeeding Nicolas Bannasch as President of UPL-AOPA Luxembourg at the General Assembly of February 3rd, 2018
Flying has been my passion since the age of 16, when I obtained my glider license at the Belgian Air Cadets. When I started my professional life, I immediately started taking private pilot courses.
I’m responsible, a good listener and communicator and can bring people together.
I have organized several fly-outs for UPL-AOPA, actively contributed to the new setup of AOPA Belgium bringing people together and worked around digitalization and communication themes of our association.
I’m running as President of UPL-AOPA since I like to work around four themes in the upcoming period:
enable * kickstart * connect * inform *
1 ENABLE
Using digitalization as a lever for strengthening the setup of our association and reaching out to the interests of the general aviation community. Project by project, we’ll enable new initiatives within UPL-AOPA for the benefit of our pilot community– together.
2. KICKSTART
We are passionate about kick-starting projects that help the general aviation community moving forward in Luxembourg.


3. CONNECT
We will actively bring together ministries, institutions, flight schools, aviation clubs and aviation enthusiast individuals, helping them to create innovative solutions to meet current and future needs of general aviation in Luxembourg.
4. INFORM

UPL-AOPA is the central node in the Luxembourg general aviation eco-system, we’ll map the progress achieved and develop new ways to enhance communication about our goals and how we attain them.