Ldsh Airport
Jenifer Griffard
All times Local time CET
14:55
During routine runway FOD inspection, ground crew noticed a large unmanned aircraft flying over the runway, direction north to south perpendicular to the direction of the runway, at an estimate altitude of 150ft AGL.
15:13
In the mean time the drone operator was located some 150m west of the airport parked to the side of the road. By the time we reached the drone operator he has landed his unmanned vehicle. We noted down his car registration before approaching him.
Drone operator was informed to come with us to the LDSH operator office to wait for the arrival of police and in the mean time LDSH Hvar Radio frequency was monitored for the blind call of the arriving LSA aircraft.
Hvar Airport is a small airport in Split-Dalmatia, Croatia. The airport is located at latitude 43.18159 and longitude 16.63342. The airport has one runway: 10/28.The ICAO airport code of this field is LDSH.Nearby other airfields are Brač Airport, Split Airport, Sinj Piket Airfield, Livno Brda Bosni Airport and Mostar.
Go to Vliegles.nl to find flying lessons, skydives and other flying experiences. Browse the page for all available activities near Hvar Airport. You can also use the search function to find specific flying lessons, skydives or other flying experiences near your place.
This is a little (simple) scenery of an aerodrome in Hvar island, Croatia, that I discovered some years ago. I assigned LDHV ICAO to it 1 feb 2013: Changed ICAO code from LDHV to LDSH. This is important because LDSH is the real one ( -croatia.com/airport/).
And after the parachutists came the plane, making a perfect landing and answering our question about the condition of the runway. With a set of big chunky tyres, one small plane can use the airport in winter, even after a day of rain. Turns out it was a Cessna 206 with a turbine engine, perfect for hauling skydivers to altitude in a hurry.
Well, the journey here began many months ago with the training and the never-ending paperwork that comes along with deployment. However, as the departure day came closer, all soldiers involved were ready to go.
We had two days of even more paperwork and roll calls before we could actually get on the plane to take us to Afghanistan. Departure day finally came, and we began the long trip for our final destination, our Forward Operating Base (FOB). We said our farewells to family and friends and boarded the buses to take us to the Edmonton International Airport with a police escort down 97th Street.
Upon arrival at the airport we prepared to load the aircraft and, with one last look at the city, we boarded and headed towards Winnipeg, Manitoba. There we stopped and picked up some more soldiers to join us. We took off from Winnipeg and headed for Trenton, Ontario where the aircrews switched around, then off to Germany. Upon arrival in Germany we got off the plane and had a much needed stretch, and for the smokers, several cigarettes were put down range. We then boarded again and off to Cyprus where we got off the Airbus and prepared to board the C-17 Globemaster for our final fixed wing aircraft to Kandahar Airfield (KAF), Afghanistan.
Once we hit Afghan airspace, we donned our fighting order and began our decent down into the blackness. The aircraft by this time was fully tactical and looking around at the soldiers some looked like kids at Christmas and others had no expressions on their faces at all. As we got lower we took a steep dip and then before we knew it the aircraft was on the ground and we began the long taxi to the tarmac.
Canada's longest peacekeeping mission began a few years after the Suez Crisis. In 1959, Cyprus, an island in the Mediterranean, gained its independence from Great Britain. Greek and Turkish communities on the island, however, could not coexist peacefully. By 1963, fighting had broken out between the two groups. When both Greece and Turkey threatened to intervene, the conflict was poised to become an international crisis. Britain hoped to restore peace through the intervention of the UN. Subsequently, UN troops, including a Canadian contingent, were stationed in Cyprus to keep the peace. In the past, Canadian troops had been regarded as essentially "British." However, their presence in Cyprus elicited no objection from either the Turkish or Greek Cypriots, indicating that Canada was regarded as a state whose position was essentially a neutral one. The conflict continued, however, and led to the partitioning of Cyprus into Turkish and Greek republics.
On 15 July 1974, Greek army officers serving in the Greek Cypriot National Guard staged a coup d'tat against the president of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios. Their aim was to unite Cyprus with Greece, the goal that was the original cause of the Cypriot civil war. Turkey reacted five days later by launching an amphibious invasion of Cyprus with 40,000 troops. Turkey's stated aim was the protection of the Turkish Cypriot minority. Within 24 hours, the Turkish invasion force had gone beyond its initial objectives, securing the port of Kryenia, their beachhead in the northern part of Cyprus, and extending its territory into the Turkish sector of Nicosia. Their final objective was to be the Nicosia airport on the western end the city. Indian Lieutenant-General Prem Chand, who had also commanded the 1962 UN action against secessionist Katangan gendarmes and mercenaries, led the UN forces in Cyprus. He and his chief of staff, Canada's Colonel Clay Beattie, who was also the commander of the Canadian contingent, decided that to allow the Turks to take the airport would be an unacceptable blow to UN credibility.
Elements of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, Canada's UNFICYP (United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus) contingent at the time, were deployed to the airport, which had been defined as a UN protected zone. An initial attack by the Turks was stopped by Greek Cypriot defensive fire, but, when word of an impending second assault reached the Canadian contingent, it reminded both sides that they had agreed to a ceasefire. The Canadian soldiers also clearly stated that they would defend their positions. The world press could then report a Turkish assault on UN troops. The Turks apparently believed that the Canadian contingent would stand its ground -- they certainly had the means to overcome these troops but chose not to do so. Bravado, credible because of the evident professionalism of Canada's soldiers, won the day. In addition to preventing the Nicosia airport from falling into Turk hands, the action defined a new style of peacekeeping: actively intervening between opposing sides rather than passively occupying ground between them. Actions at the airport and other hot spots throughout Nicosia came at a high cost for Canadian peacekeepers, 2 dead and more than 30 wounded! The same proactive style of peacekeeping, which certainly has its roots in the UN action in Katanga in 1960s, was to be used in Croatia and Bosnia. These operations, however, exacted an even higher price.
Canada kept an infantry battalion of varying size in Cyprus until the mid-1990s and still maintains a small group of observers there. Virtually every Canadian infantry battalion did at least one Cyprus tour and most did several. Armoured regiments and at least one artillery regiment also took their turn.
With Suez, Cyprus, and a number of other smaller missions, peacekeeping was established as a central feature of Canadian foreign policy. It continued to be vital both to Canadian diplomacy and military policy right up until the 1980s and 1990s.
This is a quick update regarding what has already been completed. Firstly, I completed the three remaining airports in Albania. I plan to go back and redo Tirana when imagery of its updated taxiways is released. This completed Albania.
After completing Albania, I moved on to the next country, Austria. There were 33 remaining airports in Austria, all of which I managed to complete in about a week. I will eventually get around to updating the five remaining airports in Austria, which are not up to standards. However, due to the difficulty in getting assigned to small airfields like those, if a supervisor would like to do those for me, I would greatly appreciate it. This completed Austria.
After completing the first two countries, I moved on to the third, Belarus. So far, I have completed five of the previously incomplete airports. Those were (in the same order as the images below) UMBB and UMIO, the two remaining commercial airports in Belarus, UMBK and UMDD, two air bases, and UMGI, a GA airfield. Stay tuned for more airports in Belarus!
WorldEditor (often abbreviated to WED) is an open source 2-d scenery and airport editor for X-Plane. There are several versions of WED from which you can download. Additional information on how to use WED, including the manual, can be found on...
All the 9 commercial airports in Croatia have seen an upsurge in traffic (with the possible exception of Osijek) prior to the pandemic. We have produced a detailed TC guide to each of them. In this way, you know what to expect in terms of facilities and onward journey to the destination.
I got SO many questions about flights to Hvar when I lived there. Yes there IS an airfield, but there are NO commercial flights. Additionally, there are restrictions on the number of passengers allowed per flight (from memory it is 6).
Hvar Airport (LDSH) is actually a grassy strip in the middle of the UNESCO World Heritage site, the Stari Grad Plain. Discussions about a proper airport on eastern Hvar surface every few years without any progress.
August 27, 2014 was an historic day in modern European seaplane history, as the first scheduled flight took off from near Split Airport to Jelsa on Hvar. Sadly, the European Coastal Airlines service stopped in 2016. There is occasional talk of resurrecting the project with different players. But for now, the Croatia seaplane dream remains a fading memory.
c80f0f1006