By me
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For what is (very nearly) the first anniversary of my article on Croatian cropdusting airstrips, I decided to do something rather special: actually sit down and write something for the first time in 11 and a half months 🤨. Self-critique aside however, I do honestly have something relevant to post. Following in the footsteps of my landing at Blagorodovac in the Falke, an opportunity came about in June 2023 to do the same at Čazma… and since the last time I had landed there was back in 2006 (when it was still more-or-less open), what sort of self-respecting nerd would I be if I passed that up?!

While in essence a very similar affair to the Blagorodovac op, Čazma does however have a couple of peculiarities to keep in mind. Unlike the former:

• it is not in use (unless tractors, lorries and teens looking for privacy count as traffic)
• it is not maintained in any way, shape or form
• and, most importantly, legally it is no longer an airfield, rather just a random strip of general-purpose tarmac owned by the municipal government

Thus, while securing permission to land at Blagorodovac took nothing more than a phone call to its owner, landing at Čazma would involve seeking an off-field landing permit from the Croatian Civil Aviation Authority. Thankfully, what was once quite an intellectually painful process has now become a more sensible bit of quick bureaucracy, which a colleague from work – who would also be supplying the airplane for the job¹ – took care of post-haste.

¹ since it had not featured at Achtung, Skyhawk! before, here’s the obligatory introduction: it’s a wonderful little FlySynthesis Storch HS 582 ultralight, manufactured in 1995 with the serial 190. The 582 refers to its Rotax 582 two-stroke engine developing 64 HP, while the HS (short for a very optimistic “High Speed”) indicates it sports a 1.45 m shorter wing than the normal CL model. Used mostly for training, 9A-UFO now sports a pretty chunky three-blade prop, which does limit its top speed to around 120-130 km/h… but on the other end of the spectrum gives a respectable 600-800 FPM rate of climb fully loaded

Paperwork aside, the list of considerations for landing at Čazma was roughly similar to that for Blagorodovac:

• performance? Yep, we had that; despite the 60-ish HP and the small wing, the figures said 200 m would be more than enough for both take-off and landing (even accounting for a healthy margin of error), leaving us with plenty of room to spare on Čazma’s 650 m runway
• obstacles? Nothing close-in for RWY 19; for RWY 01 there’s a power line approx. 200 m from the threshold, but low enough that it doesn’t require any particular aerobatics to get over (it didn’t even with the much heavier and faster C172 back in 2006). Further out, fields as far as the eye can see for RWY 01; but for 19 there’s a hill 800 m past the runway end that would warrant some consideration in case of a go-around or take-off from that direction. The only thorn in the eye were disused power line poles running parallel to the runway with a 30 m offset (which tend to look much closer when you’re actually on approach!)
• runway state? My colleague had already been there a few days earlier, plus I frequently visit by car and inspect it from the air on pretty much every flight with the Falke. A bit bumpy, but structurally intact along its full length and perfectly usable even by aircraft heavier than the 450 kg Storch
• runway characteristics? Length, no problem as stated. Width? The Storch’s 1.65 m main gear span on Čazma’s 10 m wide runway is considerably more comfortable than the Falke’s 6.5 m outrigger span on Blagorodovac’s 8 meters! Slope? There’s a three meter elevation difference between the thresholds, which works out to a 0.3° upslope along RWY 19; noticeable, but nothing to write home about

All that was left then was the weather. As was the case with Blagorodovac, it had failed to cooperate fully: whereas I did the latter on the hottest day of 2022 (a sweltering 38° C and not a cloud nor shade in sight), The Čazma Run would be marked by thunderstorms in the distance and a mild, but constantly shifting frontal wind that made for quite a bit of turbulence.

Though the wind direction was all over the place (occasional gusts from surrounding CBs didn’t help either), markers on the ground – smoke, dust, trees – suggested RWY 01 was the better bet, despite taking us over the aforementioned hill on approach. As before, the landing was preceded by a low pass, both for a final runway inspection and to let any vehicles/pedestrians/animals near the strip know that some airplaning was about to go down. Again as before, I had my action cam with me – but on the inbound flight it had suffered a circuit fart and did not record a single thing 😔. However, I had managed to mend it once on the ground, so to make up for that fail, I decided to shoot a touch-and-go on departure to (hopefully) show just how cool this hidden gem of an airfield really is 😊…