What's new
Van's Air Force

Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.

Count Your Blessings

Y

Yukon

Well Known Member
Maya and I just got back from our vacation in Europe. Had a great time, but couldn't help but notice how rare General Aviation is in Europe. Kept looking for small general aviation fields from the airliners, but saw none. In three weeks time I saw one Piaggio pusher fly over in Rome and 2 Cessnas on Island Brac in Croatia. I love America. Count your GA blessings.
 
Stunning isn't it?

Same experience, John.
Small craft in the air are rare. Many trips overseas for me. Can't remember seeing any SELs in the air. Had to be some, but they are few enough that they are easy to miss.

I even took a car journey over to a local small regional airport in Ireland to see what I could see. (A homebuilder, or an airport gang? ) NADA... other than chain link fence topped with razor wire and a guard shack. I didn't bother trying to cajole my way past security. Turned around and went to the pub. :rolleyes:

My hat goes off to the gentlemen that are persevering in the personal flying endeavor in europe. Takes real love of the sport, I think.
 
In 2000 we made a 20-day trip to France. One week we stayed in a small village, Ambert, in south central France, which had a local airport and flying club. I brought along a San Francisco Sectional as a good-will measure and "talked" to the locals in my survival French. They let me fly one of their airplanes, a Piper, with an instructor, who refused payment. I still treasure the entry in my log book. At that time I estimated it cost twice as much to fly as in the USA.

However there are amenities there unthinkable in the USA, such as a complete bar in the flying club! Apparently they trust their pilots to know when to fly, and when to drink and hangar-fly.
 
GA in Europe

I was in France last spring and didn't see much in the way of GA. Even went out to Bourget Airport (remember Lindy in 1927). I'm off to Florence, Italy next month for a few weeks. I know there are a few Van's builders in Italy.
It should be interesting to see what's there for GA:)
 
i'm withering away

i'm in europe for 6 months on a military deployment... i'm looking everywhere for some GA to go saturate myself.. i on Google Earth i found a few GA planes in Palermo, Sicily (Italy).... we got a rent-a-car today and gonna head out that way in a few minutes....:D

but so far the only "GA" that i get to see, is all the private Gulfstreams that these "important Officers" have.. :(
 
Last edited:
GA in Europe

France is very GA friendly. The local flying club http://www.aeroclub-bellegarde.asso.fr/ here http://weather.gladstonefamily.net/site/LFHN has the TECNAM P92 for 71 Euros/hour wet, which is actually quite affordable.

The Piper Archer at the Geneva flying club was about 250 USD/hour wet last time I rented it.

Italy restricts VFR flight to maximum 1000 ft AGL. Not very nice, and probably has a big impact on the number of planes flying.

Spain requires a flight plan for every flight, even touch and goes.

Almost all airports have landing fees. There is an invoice posted at our flying club from a recent visit to Basel. The landing fee was about 24 Euros (can't recall the aircraft type), and the mandatory bus that picks you up from your aircraft and brings you to the "C" office to pay the landing fee was over 40 Euros.
 
rv8ch said:
Italy restricts VFR flight to maximum 1000 ft AGL. Not very nice, and probably has a big impact on the number of planes flying.
Click to expand...

i guess that explains my problem here in italy.. :mad:

does that 1000' AGL have a max MSL limit.. (1000' AGL not to exceed 10,000' MSL)?
the reason i ask is cause i'm very near Mt. Etna, and i REALLY wanna fly around the summit and get some amazing views of the VERY active lava flows... anyway the [currently erupting] volcano is measured at 10,924' MSL.

:eek::cool:
 
Last edited:
be very very quiet

The skys are very quiet here. I've seen more takeoffs and landings in 1 day in Colorado Springs than all of 2 years here (all over Europe). But oddly enough, most airports have cafes or places to watch... nothing happen.

They can have a bar at the flying club because no one is flying. Actually... Gliding clubs seem to be very active and busy in the summer months. Most airports have landing fees, but if you join a club for training those fees can be waived sometimes. A local club here in Eindhoven has somewhere around 280 Euro per 6 month dues and no landing fees. A piper tomahawk will cost around 120 Euro/ hour and 40 for the instructor.
Very pricey.

Go a wee bit farther south now... South Africa seemed to be closer in line with the US for rental rates, but still has landing fees. Lots of planes in the air near Pretoria.
 
Some European Airspace Classifications

Here's a graphic that show airspace classifications in Switzerland and surrounding countries.

20080706120657903_1.PNG


At first glance, the Italian airspace looks quite reasonable. The problem is if you look at the chart, most of the places I want to go has one of these covering the airspace:

20080706120657903_2.PNG


IFR only over 1000 feet AGL. :(

My charts only cover northern Italy, so I can't tell you about Sicily, but if you can find a flying club, I'm sure they will be able to help you out. If you have a lot of spare time, this website contains a lot of charts. http://www.vatita.net/
 
Flying in Italy?

Intrigued at the comments about Italy. Did some research and it doesn't seem to be as bad as what people have alluded to above.

Yes, aviating in Europe is sadly expensive and discouraged, but it's far from dead, at least in the UK.
 
Israel has little ...

....general aviation according to a Mr. Perry who just did transition training with me this week. He said that all the airspace is controlled and the Country being small (400 miles long) with a lot of military and Airline flying, all VFR routes are low...around 1500' and altitude pre-assigned.

His -7A will be the third RV flying, although several more are being built.

He was envious of our ability to simply go to 11,500 or whatever we choose.

We are definitely blessed.

Regards,
 
Czech Republic

While staying in Prague last year I saw light twins flying every day. My son, who was working on the new Narnia film there at the time, took me out an hour from Prague to an airshow. It was held on what looked like a mile square grass field. There were all sorts of GA aircraft including LSA types, a Stearman, a four plane Bucker formation act, military flyovers, parachutists, sailplanes, and a number of unknown types I'd never seen. The crowd was just like American crowds: blankets spread on the grass, kids playing with toy gliders, men drinking beer, everyone eating, portable outhouses, numerous hawkers selling stuff. I showed my EAA card and Pilots License and was allowed to wander inside the roped area where the planes were. The highlight for me was seeing the sailplane perform a low altitude OUTSIDE loop!
 
While I will not argue about the horrific cost of flying in Europe this thread is a little unrepresentative of what is going on. To use Israel and Italy as examples is perhaps a little like judging US activity by GA activity over DC on 9/12!

UK, F, G, CH, Scandinavia and some other countries all have busy locations though it is typically much less shared with commercial traffic, so tends to be more hidden away. There is no doubt that there is much more going on in the USA, but as I tap this in, I am within half an hour drive of two small airfields which would be busy if the cloud wasnt on the deck, and at least 6 private strips, plus my own. No, it is not like the thread indicates.

Now the weather, here in the UK, that's another matter!
 
Italy flying

Andy_RR said:
Intrigued at the comments about Italy. Did some research and it doesn't seem to be as bad as what people have alluded to above. ...
Click to expand...
Good to hear - I hope my information is out of date. I know IAOPA was pushing to improve VFR flying safety:

Italy moves on VFR safety

After years of complaints someone has shown interest in VFR flight safety in Italy, reports AOPA-Italy?s President Massimo Levy. The Italian National Safety Agency ANSV has published five safety recommendations, which it has sent to the Civil Aviation Authority (ENAC), air traffic control (ENAV) and the Italian Air Force, which provides ATC in military airspace.

The recommendations are simple but at the same time very important. ANSV recommends ENAC, ENAV and the IAF firstly establish a general review of the national airspace structure with a view to reducing the horizontal and vertical size of TMAs and CTRs (Italy has the largest ones in Europe) and, possibly, of their classification (Italy makes ample use of A and C class airspace) in order to make VFR flying safer.

They recommend that it be made easier for transponder-equipped aircraft to cross controlled airspace, limiting the use of compulsory VFR routes only to cases where these are required for the safe and efficient co-ordination of VFR and IFR traffic.

The third recommendation is that compulsory VFR routes should be based upon geographical features that are easy to identify and follow, taking proper account of the topography of the region and of the relevant climate situations like localised fog or haze.

Fourthly, clear and simple reporting points should be identified along these routes, and logical identification names should be established on them, such as N for north and S for south. Everyone flying in Italy knows that reporting points use local geographical names which can be very hard for foreign pilots to pronounce.

Lastly, the recommendation is that different flying altitudes be established for different headings in order to ensure adequate separation from terrain, and to express these altitudes with reference to sea level rather than to the ground level ? in Italy, most VFR routes are quoted as 1,000 feet agl.

The relevant authorities must now comply with the ANSV?s suggestions, or explain why they can not. Massimo Levy says: ?It has taken a long time, but perhaps now we can begin to make VFR flying in Italy safer.?
Click to expand...
 
I saw a Europa flying over head last week while we were in southern England. Weather seems to be more of a factor for our UK friends. There were low clouds and rain for almost the entire week we were there. Temps were in the low seventies though, which is a very nice break from the mid nineties and extreme humidity here at home at the moment.
 
I should know this but

Being an ex pat Brit and all, but..

Arn't experimentals prohibited from flying IFR?...In the UK that would REALLY limit flying!

Frank
 
italy TODAY

i haven't had a chance to see any new posts (since my last) but today i went to Taormina, sicily. and saw a yellow C-172? (i think) at about 1200 MSL... he was over the water.. but as soon as he crossed those cliffs he was maybe 5-600 agl right above me....

then about 30 minutes later saw a homemade Gyrocopter with 2 passengers playing around with some "low level surveillance", 4-600 AGL, above the city streets!! :)

good to see some guys out enjoying the beautiful weather!!! :cool:
 
Last edited:
No as bad, as some of you may think!

If you are looking for GA, at least in Germany you have to stay away from the big airports. The landings fees are much higher than at the small private or flying club owned airports. Our M20J is based at Celle-Arloh (EDVC) north of Hannover. The airport has a 2700 ft gras runway, a clubhouse with a large bar :D, hangar space for about 40 aircrafts and is run by our flying club. It is one of the rare airports in Germany without any landing fees.
You can fly with only very few restrictions throughout europe. Some countries are more bureaucratic than others, with Italy belonging to the worst, but there is no problem to fly to wherever you want, exept maybe the weather.
Most GA flying in Europe is VFR. Many smaller airports are open on Saturday, Sunday and holidays only. You have to call, if you want to land there during the week. The really big problem are the rising AVGAS prices of about 2.30 EUR/Liter (13 USD/GAL) here in Germany.

Have Fun!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top