inspired by some of Peters trip reports. Flying out was beautiful, the return, less so… but thanks to the IMC/IR two people are alive to tell the tale!
That’s scary! You never told me about that… 
I do recall one meeting c. 2008 I had with a group of pilots who were going to fly from the UK to Greece. We went through the usual stuff; I told them about where to get the charts, etc. Unfortunately they ended up crashing in France in totally sub VFR conditions which, according to one of the group, they should have never flown in. They all survived. Much later, one chap brought me a smashed Garmin 296 asking whether I could retrieve the final track from it which fortunately was possible using an RS232 connection to Navbox.
I was going to fly to the Greek fly-in also but gave up due to bad wx – I had the IR then but it was not even possible IFR. Instead we got an airline flight down there.
OTOH a great deal is possible VFR below the cloud, which could not be done in a non-deiced TB20 using high altitude (Eurocontrol) IFR. You may just need to be flexible as to where you end up for the night, etc.
they call Lydd London Ashford now
More than a decade ago I had a date with a lady who had a Masters in Computer Science from the Open University. The most complex thing she had done was some javascript. She could have equally come out with an MBA and got a job as an airport manager… such is life these days, and anybody in business struggles with this “crazy society stuff” every day.
(miles outside of) London Southend
Don’t these airfields realise how silly these geographically challenged names look? I remember visiting Lydd once and discovering it was now London Lydd. I sort of remarked “they’ll be calling Birmingham airport London Birmingham soon” and got some guff that Ashford was only x minutes from London by train, which seems to miss the point that Lydd doesn’t even have a railway station and it’s probably a £30 taxi ride to Ashford (each way).
(I think they call Lydd London Ashford now which is equally as silly since it’s not in Ashford either).
That brings back some memories…. I did a similar trip, with less than 50hrs P1, inspired by some of Peters trip reports. Flying out was beautiful, the return, less so… but thanks to the IMC/IR two people are alive to tell the tale!
Enjoyed the trip report – a mini Flight of Passage.
The same thing could happen at ‘(miles outside of) London Southend’. Take in a well known orange low cost airline, introduce some airspace, put up some prices… Or do what Cambridge seem to be doing and making people fill out some kind of web form some hours in advance to get PPR – very discouraging (though an opportunity for SkyDemon to use their magic and integrate the ‘special’ form into their tool :-) Suddenly what were nice big airfields for GA to use, become exclusive.
Nor would the CAA
And herein lies another problem:
Ofcom regulates telecoms prices.
Ofgem regulates gas and electiricy prices.
The CAA regulates Heathrow and Gatwick and NATS en-route prices, and presumably no more.
Isn’t the real issue that the “management” of Luton, Stansted and Gatwick gave exclusive rights to bizjet-only handling companies (presumably in exchange for guaranteed fat rents which only bizjet clients are capable of supporting) like Signature, Harrods, etc, and these companies have set up a cartel which keeps the the pricing structure at uniform silly levels?
You can fly to these airports today, in a C152, no problem at all. You just get charged somewhere upwards of €500. Same at Frankfurt, Munich, and many others. I think they are 24hrs PPR but I am sure the handler will take care of that.
I think it is a common scenario where an airport manager gets approached by a wide boy who promises the earth in terms of traffic and fuel sales, sometimes even promising fuel sales to traffic which the runway is too short for, and wants exclusive handling rights for a large chunk of the traffic. I have seen that not a million miles away from where I am based. The “experiment” was only recently terminated but not before it almost totally killed all traffic between 2499kg and a TBM and, given the way the UK internet airport-lynching rumour mill works, that traffic isn’t going to come back for years.
I have no idea if UK AOPA tried to stop the rot at these previously accessible airports, but they would not have had any power to prevent such a deal being done. AOPA has no control over pricing set by privately owned airports. Nor would the CAA – supporting aviation in such a direct sense is not their remit.
That has happened at a lot of places, not just Luton. It seems that once the customs requirements changed, GA started getting pushed out. Not so long ago landing fees at some major airports were waived if it was just a customs stop. Nowadays, GA is unwelcome at those same airports.
What’s weird is how GA silently moved away from Luton without much fuss when they started hiking their prices.
A complete lack of representation and forward thinking.
A very enjoyable read. Also being a pilot at Panshanger, and agreeably not being able to afford a flight into Luton myself in 2014, it made interesting reading. Nowadays you have multiple means of getting weather information (some reliable, some unrealiable, some conflicting at times), but back in ‘86, on the whole the weather was largely what you saw with your own eyes at the time. Making the go or no-go decision these days you would think would be a lot easier, but you still have your PROB30’s and PROB40’s, and its still a bit of a gamble.
