Walking around Zagorje, a region of Croatia to the North of Zagreb, you can expect to find many things, but an airplane in Zagorje, parked in a backyard – well, that’s new…
Robert Sedlar from Zabok says that it was a great dream of his, to get his airplane, 24sata reports, and this Monday he succeeded when a Fokker-100, an airplane that used to be owned by Trade Air company, found its way to his backyard in Strmec Stubički. Robert says that he had been an airplane enthusiast since he was a kid and now he has managed to purchase one for himself, to restore and put back together.
The Fokker-100 was made in the Netherlands in 1991 and used to hold 109 passengers and four crew members. It flew for four different companies, Indonesian, Mexican, Brasilian, and finally the Croatian Trade Air. Robert explains that he had wanted to buy an airplane for a while and that he asked the owner of Trade Air to help him procure an airplane that has been decommissioned.
He immediately told Sedlar about the aircraft he donated to Osijek Airport, where it had been sitting since 2014. The airport wanted to turn it into a restaurant but gave up on the idea, so he purchased it from Osijek Airport.
It took him and some of his friends six weeks to take it apart in Osijek before they could even consider taking it to Zagorje, which is a 330 kilometre route. They measured each section of the road to make sure it was possible. The fuselage, the body of the plane, was the critical part, and it got transported on a flatbed trailer. All in all, the vehicle was 36 metres long. He admits that he was very anxious in anticipation to see if everything would go as planned. Now that the airplane is safely in his back yard, he can relax a bit, but also make plans for putting the airplane back together and then working on redesigning it.
The redesigning and repurposing plans are impressive: he plans to put a swimming pool (five by five metres) on the right wing, and there will be a go-cart track around the airplane. That will make the airplane attractive for children’s birthday parties, but other types of celebrations as well, such as bachelor parties or grown-up birthdays. He plans to install two flight simulators in the cockpit, which will make the simulations very realistic.
The opening party for the entertaining airplane in Zagorje is planned for early March, and after that, many parties will be taking off in an airplane in Zagorje (excuse the pun!).
