Day: August 3, 2015

Aug 2, 2015. Afternoon

The airfield of Telavi was absolutely empty…no planes to see. But there’s security and the airfield is secured as well. The airfield is named after Mimino, a georgian bush pilot, who played in a Russian tv series in 1977. The views drom this airfield are absolutely spectacular ( again): you see the wide plains and behind it the Caucasus mountains. Stunning !

Telavi airfield

The city of Telavi is quite small ( 22.000 inhab.). We made a quick tour of the city in a cab and had lunch prior to fly back to our Natakhtari home basis. Hereunder are somme additional pics of tjis memorable day

Landing at Natakhtari airfield – Vanilla Sky in our Cessna 182

After landing, we enjoyed the vibrant music scene at the swimming pool of Natakhtari airport…a unique combination which makes this place even more special.

With temperatures outside nearly 40 degrees, we were happy to end this flying day in a fresh and cool water swimming pool

Aug 2, 2015

We presented ourselves early in the morning at the Natakhtari airfield (Vanilla Sky) and were presented to the owners and pilots. The landowner Amiran Manjavidze built this airfield built a unique combination of a winery, an airfield and a hotel and swimming pool for the local youngsters with good music. When we arrived in the morning, the swimming pool was already full. Very cool !

After a short briefing, we discovered our plane we’re going to fly with: a Cessna 182. This airfield is not very formal from a setup point of view and we were able to take off quickly. The first thing which struck me, is how green the land is from above. We saw the Caucasus approaching in front of us and started to climb out on our way to the highest mountain of Europe, which is located over here: the Shkhara of more than 5200 metres ( forget the Mont Blanc!).

We passed a place I’m particularly interested in, which is Gudauri and which is high on my to visit list as this should be a great place for Caucasus skiing ( at inexpensive rates compared to the Alps). From the air, it proved promising as you can see hereunder

I recorded my flight with a Hero 3 Go Pro

Flying in the Caucasus

Gudauri from the air

Gudauri map

moving higher in the Caucasus

Europe’s highest mountain : Shkhara 5193 m

The views high in the Caucasus were spectacular and worth the voyage. We neared the border with Russia and South Ossetia but made sure not to cross it 🙂 The transponder was turned off btw.

From there, we flew over the mountains at a 9000 ft altitude with our small Cessna to the airfield Telavi where we landed for lunch

Will be continued….

August 1, 2015. 
We landed in the late afternoon at Tblisi airport. The weather was hot, almost 40° celcius is the shade. Our friends Artem and Mike picked us up at the airport. They arrived a day earlier than us and have been flying on this Saturday to Mestia with a local Georgian Pilot. They were very enthusiastic, to say the least. They have been climbing to more than 9000 ft in the C182 of Vanilla Sky operations. It proved to be big fun with great Caucasus views. 

Jean (Jänghi) Birgen and myself

Borjomi water (quite salted) has an unforgettable taste. Recommended !

We ended our first evening in Georgia in a local pub with live music ( all pubs seems to have live bands..).