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In related news, it will become clearer in October or November whether the Czech Republic will buy C-130 Hercules military transport planes from the United States. The Czech Defence Minister Martin Barták said on Friday after meeting with his US counterpart Robert Gates that negotiations were continuing. The planes could replace Russian An-26s in the Czech Air Force. Final details will be negotiated at the same time as other items, such as possible participation the development of a new US anti-missile system. Sources reported this week that the sale of the Hercules planes to the Czech Republic had hit a road bump over a rise in the asking price by the US.

The two-day Czech International Air Fest 2009 began at the airfield in Hradec Králové, eastern Bohemia, on Saturday, with aircraft from 13 countries. The air show features the Royal Jordanian Falcons acrobatic team as well as Eurofighters of the Austrian Air Force, Belgian F-16s, Czech Republic’s Jas 39 Grippen and the Harrier aircraft of the RAF. Flights of the historic plane of the Wright brothers from 1906 had to be cancelled due to strong winds.

In related news, sales of plane tickets shot up in the Czech Republic last year by almost ten percent. According to data released by the International Air Transport Association, Czechs bought over 790,000 plane tickets in 2008, and spent a sum worth more than ten billion crowns on flights. According to the news website iDnes.cz which released the figures, sales could in fact be even higher, as no low-cost airlines have been counted in this survey. The study found that the average cost of a plane ticket fell by 400 crowns to 10,242 crowns (nearly 500 USD) in 2008.

After four days in the air, two replicas of Czech-made Avia BH aeroplanes successfully landed in Belgium on Tuesday. The flight was a re-enactment of a 1923 air race between Prague and Brussels, which was won by Czech pilot Zdenek Lhota. To commemorate the victory, the planes touched down in Belgium on the 75th anniversary of the win. Karel Kasal, one of the members of the ground crew responsible for fuelling the planes along the way, has described the journey over the phone from the Belgian capital:

A replica Czech-made Avia BH 5 aeroplane will next week take to the skies as part of a re-enactment of a 1923 air race between Prague and Brussels. The original race 85 years ago was won by a Czech - Zdenek Lhota - flying in exactly the same model, and this event will commemorate what was a proud moment for Czech aviation history.

At the weekend two Czech pilots made history by flying a vintage Czech aircraft to the North Pole. The small twin-engine plane known as the Morava L-200 flew first took flight 50 years ago and the duo of Petr Bold and Richard Santus wanted to mark the anniversary by flying to the pole, stopping off for refuelling at the Russian base of Barneo. Preparing for the 11-hour journey meant preparing for the dangers of poor visibility, buffeting winds and even the possibility of an emergency landing among polar bears. Luckily, everything went off without

Two Czech aviators reached the North Pole on Saturday in the historic aircraft Aero L-200 Morava. After taking off from the Longyearbyen airstrip on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, pilots Petr Bold and Richard Samus reached the North Pole at 1905 CET; during a two-minute flyover they crossed all meridians and then landed at the Russian artic base of Barneo, some 100 km away from the Pole, where they refuelled. Petr Bold said the conditions were extremely rough with strong winds and the temperature of minus 25 degrees Celsius which forced them to refuel with the engines running. The L-200 Morava was developed in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s as an light all-purpose airplane; until the end of production in 1964, more than 360 aircraft were produced.

Two Czechoslovak L-200 Morava planes left for the North Pole on Tuesday, marking the 50th anniversary of the plane’s launch. The L-200 Morava was one of the few light aircrafts to be exported from behind the Iron Curtain in the communist era. The North Pole Expedition 2008 is also intended to mark 90 years of Czech aviation.

The L-200 Morava is a Czech-made retractable four-seat light aircraft designed in the mid 1950s. It was one of the few light aircraft to be exported from behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War era and remains a favourite with many pilots today. Two Czech pilots – Petr Bold and Richard Santus – have decided to mark the plane’s fiftieth birthday anniversary by flying it to the North Pole and back. I spoke to Richard Santus earlier today to find out more about the plane and expedition North Pole 2008:

Czech police are investigating the disappearance of a quarter of a million Euros from a Czech Airlines plane last week. According to the Czech daily Mladá fronta Dnes, the airplane stopped off in Prague en route to the Estonian capital Tallinn from London. The plane was carrying billions of Euros in cash, as part of a routine trip from a money-printing facility. Investigators are looking into whether somebody working at the airport managed to pocket a bag containing a quarter of a million Euros during the plane’s stop-over in Prague. However, investigators are also looking at the possibility that the money may have been stolen in Estonia, where the plane landed shortly thereafter – its cargo was later returned to Prague after the missing money was not accounted for by the Estonian authorities.