What I am about to present, is a short report of my trip in Romania.
The city I visited and enjoyed a lot was Tirgu Mures, located in Transylvania (central Romania) situated in a depression surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains.
I was born in this city and as a youngster, I had my first sail plane flights. This is how I got involved in aviation.
After many, many years, I returned here and I was very pleasantly surprised that the Aero-Club I had attended, was still fully functional and subsidized by the government. The club has different sections: sail planes, light aircraft, sky diving and perhaps sometime soon, it will have a PPG section as well.
My hosts Ioan Mateiu a businessman and Mihai Birsan a jet pilot, were very kind and enabled me to do other reports about sail planes and sky diving. About 6 months ago, Mihai Birsan who is a member of the pilotsppgclub list, in an e-mail, asked a few questions. Since the name was typical Romanian, I answered him in this language and he was very happy to learn that we were born in the same city..
Later, we spoke on the phone and he and Ioan Mateiu invited me to visit them in Romania. This is how it all started.
Paragliding in Romania is a well established sport but Paramotoring is a relatively new discipline. In the town of Tirgu Mures only my hosts practice our wonderful sport .
Before I go any further, I will present an aerial view of this city:
The sport of PPG is not regulated in Romania yet and we were not allowed to take off from the local airport.
My hosts have several good fields at the outskirts of town.
On a sunny and hot afternoon, my cell phone rang. It was Ioan Mateiu asking me to go flying with him. Unfortunately, I did not take my wing or paramotor with me and we had to share his. He flies an older Perche "Sensor" and a brand new Fly Castelluccio machine. It is not a Fly Products machine. Fly Castelluccio is a different Italian company and has nothing to do with Fly Products.
The field was nice and since I was the guest, Ioan Mateiu pulled out his wing, we did a preflight check and he invited me to go first.
After a blown forward inflation (I was not familiar with the wing) I inflated and I had my first flight in Romania. The scenery was gorgeous.
Within a few turns, I became more familiar with this DHV 2 wing.
It turned very easily and felt solid in the small turbulence I encountered. I began to do my "usual" touch and go's which I enjoy enormously and after a few minutes I landed. I did not want to abuse my host.
Ioan Mateiu has many free flight hours under his belt and about 40 hours in his machine. He is an experienced sail plane, GA, PG and PPG pilot.
Like it usually happens everywhere, people would come and watch us flying these "parachutes".
We flew many times when the weather allowed.
On one occasion we even had a picnic out there.
Ioan Mateiu just loves flying. Every minute of his spare time he spends flying sail planes, airplanes and if the weather cooperates, he does long cross country flights in his PPG machine. He usually flies to the nearest town 32 Km away covering over 60 Km round trip.
As one can see in the images, the nearby mountains are an excellent place for ridge flying. He and Mihai Birsan also do a lot of ridge flying without the motor.
The picture below, shows Ioan Mateiu after one of his 64 Km cross county flights:
As mentioned before, Mihai Birsan is a jet pilot , instructor, sail plane pilot , experienced paragliding and Powered Paragliging pilot. He started flying sail planes when he was 17 years old. He attended the same Aero Club like me but many, many years later.
One day, over a hot coffee, he confessed to me that the best flying he enjoys is while flying a Powered Paraglider.
The first time I met Mihai Birsan in person, I was truly amazed how he does his preflight checks. It takes him much longer than one would think.
He checks everything! He treats his machine as if it were a jet plane!
I wish more pilots would do such preflights.
He is also a very cautious pilot. Mihai would never push the envelope and take chances.
During my 5 week stay in Romania we flew many times and I also took literarily hundreds of pictures of towing sail planes with the Wilga 35 (PZL 35), skydiving from the biggest biplane ever made (the Russian AN2) but since they are not PPG related, I will probably publish them in some GA magazines or just keep them in my private photo collection.
I am planning another trip to Romania. This time I will take my equipment or have new one, directly delivered there from manufacturers so I will be able to join my new Romanian friends on those spectacular cross country trips over mountains, extinct volcanoes, wildlife or just buzzing around those beautiful and pristine fields crossed with rivers and streams.
Before I end, I would like to thank the following:
Ioan Mateiu, Mihai Birsan, Mr. Petru Cormos the President of the local Aero-Club for making me feel "home" again, high above my city and the Major of the City of Tirgu Mures who turned his head the other way when "certain aerial pictures" above the city were taken with a shaky hand....
Without their help, my wonderful PPG trip in Romania might not have been possible.
Alex Varv
