Last weekend, I visited the Aero trade fair in Friedrichshafen Germany in order to see the latest developments in General Aviation.
Jean Birgen was also around and he facilitated the contact with our advisory board member Turgut (whom I never met so far). We’ve met and our discussion was quite fruitfull and will cause us to make some changes to the organisational planning. Turgut used to be President of the Istanbul aviation club and is nowadays President of the Bosphorus aviation club. He’ll join our rally to Georgia with his TB-20 plane.
- Arrival in Turkey has so far been scheduled at Tekirdağ Çorlu Airport (LTBU). However, Turgut learned me that the handling fee over there is …700€, which can’t be waived. So he suggest to go anyway to Bursa Yenishir (LTBR) south east from Istanbul. There’s AVGAS and there’s immigration ! The handling cost is “only” 100€ and Turgut will do its best that this gets waived for our pilots. (note: Sabiha Gokhen airport is not an option as turgut explained, only 2 or 3 VFR flights an hour are authorized etc…)
- Turgut mentioned we could have a helicopter bringing us in the evening from Bursa Yenishir to Istanbul. To discuss.
- Flyin in Turkey with EU registered aircrafts are not a problem, for non EU registered airplanes, a permission is needed
- There are no VFR routes or maps as such in Turkey, Turgut recommends us to use IFR waypoints. Our Mike Kornev will develop a plan together with Turgut pointing out a suggested route.
- Turgut has another fuel stop option close to the black sea in a University town, details to follow.