Sczcecin (Goleniow)  EPSC

Date of Visit = August 1996

Pilot: = Chris Belton

e-mail = chris@yarboo.freeserve.co.uk

Field Report = Near the NW border, so it's a useful place to start if you're visiting Poland. Also useful for getting information about any other places you want to go.

Basic information on flying in Poland:

There is a network of VFR ("VK") routes, loosely based on the Airways, though at 300 to 600 metres AGL (yes, it's all in metres) you often can't pick up the VOR/NDB signals. Moreover, the radio aids are quite widely spaced in Poland, so without a GPS it's easy to get lost, the more so since the lanscape tends to be featureless. You need to put them on the flight plan, the same as the border entry points, but in the remarks column you can ask for a direct routing.

The smaller fields are PPR, so they can find someone to do the RT in English. The easiest way to get this permission is to ask when you get to the airport of entry, e.g. Szczecin.

The Bottlang Airfield Manual now covers this area, as do the Jeppeson VFR/GPS charts, which makes it a lot easier. These charts also mark the VK routes.

You'll probably have to wait till the next day, but there's a cheap hotel (the IKAR, £10 a night) in Goleniow, and the taxi fare's only £4. There are people selling berries on the roadside and a Mig fighter as a "toy" in a children's playground as you go into Goleniow. Be warned: no-one speaks English. It's not a tourist area. Take a phrase book. In the restaurants (like school canteens) you take what comes (mostly pork). You can buy telephone tokens at the hotel, in two sizes. For international calls you need the large size.

If you want to look round Sczcecin, there are regular trains, and buses which go from outside Goleniow train station at about £3 each way.

Woe betide you if you need medical treatment. I got scared when I saw the scabs on my mosquito bites wiggling: they were ticks, from an airfield we had visited the previous day. As the pilot I couldn't afford to get encephalitis. We found the clinic, then had to explain the problem with insect drawings and latin words. Eventually they brought in an English speaking doctor, who told me to go to the fever hospital in Sczcecin. Hence the bus. Then we had to get a taxi the rest of the way, by which time it was 2230 hrs. The hospital was huge, and no-one spoke English again. Then it was drawings and latin words all over again, after which they simply sprayed the "wounds" with antiseptic and stood over me while I took some antihistamines. They did ensure me that this was not an area for tick fever, though. The antihistamines stopped the mozzy bites from itching, which was nice,