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A weekend in Coventry, landing at Birmingham EGBB

I spent last weekend in Coventry with my kids who study in UK. The initial plan was to land at Coventry EGBE but due to weather worsening and no instrument approach there I decided to land at Birmingham. Filing EGBE with EGBB as alternate didn’t make much sense because forecast was clear IFR and trying to somehow dive below the clouds and land VFR would be pretty hard and would cause unnecessary stress. At the end, it was good decision because we became visual below 2000 ft on ILS to EGBB which is lower than minimum holding altitude at MAPLE (2500 ft). So I filed the plan for EGBB with EGNX East Midlands as alternate and contacted Blue City handling at EGBB because of mandatory handling for visiting GA aircrafts. Although EGBB is bit more expensive than EGNX, it’s much closer to Coventry and the cost of ground transportation from EGNX would be much higher than total fees.

Because of the forecasted headwind on the way to EGBB, we decided to make a fuel stop at Antwerp EBAW while tailwind on the way back enabled us to make easy and fast direct flight back home.

For this first post I’ll just summarize the cost of the fees and fuel:
- EBAW (fast and efficient fuel stop) 40€ airport fees and 1.07€ for a liter of Jet A1 (hey Germany, Italy, Spain and France, look how it can be cheap!)
- EGBB (very smooth and professional) 80£ airport fees, 75£ handling fee and (surprise!!!) 0.61£ for a liter of Jet A1 (how about this, almost matching Bosnia or Serbia!)

The only surprise was that after landing we ended at cargo part of the airport and couldn’t easily reach main terminal where the train station is. However, Uber from there to Coventry was under 20£ which is totally acceptable.

In the next post, I’ll provide few more details about the flights and Coventry itself.

Last Edited by Emir at 29 Oct 19:28
LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Since the forecasted winds were mainly from the west and weather at Birmingham wasn’t the best, we decided to make refueling stop at Antwerp EBAW to avoid low fuel situation in case of flying to alternate. Unfortunately, EBAW web site is not accessible from Croatia for some technical reason and I had rather long correspondence to find out what I have to do and who to notify regarding GENDEC, refueling and handling. Finally, I submitted GENDEC online, got confirmation from police, got confirmation on refueling and got confirmation that handling was not needed for under 3-ton aircrafts. For final destination Birmingham EGBB, I submitted GAR online and forwarded its details to handler Blue City Aviation. They were very fast and informative in every response, so all details were easily clarified.

Our first leg was approximately 570 NM and the weather was clear skies at least at FL160 and we covered it for 3:15 and it turned out that on average the wind didn’t influence the flight.

EBAW is small airport, nice and easy, and even active runway was 11, we got visual approach to runway 29 which saved us some 10-15 minutes of flying around. When we parked, bowser arrived literarily in 2 minutes, we refueled with surprisingly cheap fuel (€1.07 for liter of Jet A1) and walked to main building. Our GENDEC was ready, police checked us and we went out to stretch the legs.

If we had wanted to continue immediately, the stop would’ve lasted less than 30 minutes. After a break, we paid the fees (€40), passed the check and walked to the aircraft. After quickly checking the weather on our route weather, we departed for our first GA visit of the UK.

Our second leg was quite shorter (290 NM) but due to strong headwind, it took us 1:55 to reach EGBB. It was additionally prolonged because of departing from runway 11 at EBAW and landing at runway 15 at EGBB – classical example of different wind directions in different layers – headwind en route followed by opposite wind direction on landing.

We gave the advantage to some airliner on arrival; the approach was easy, a bit of icing but followed with fast descent and we broke the clouds just below 2000 ft on ILS runway 33.

Blue City Aviation greeted us at parking spot, called a taxi and drove us with van outside of the airport. At that moment we found at that we were on “wrong” side of the airport and that taxi ride to train station on main terminal (some 3-4 km) would be £10, so we decided to continue to Coventry by taxi for £30. Later on, we realized that Uber covers the same distance for the half of the price.

Coventry itself is rather small city, especially “downtown” area which you can cover in 30 minutes of walking. However, it’s nice with rich history and some very nice buildings. The first thing you notice is a lot of young people which is no surprise having in mind huge student population. The second thing is a lot of construction work and advertising for student accommodation.

The old Coventry Cathedral was heavily damaged in bombing campaign in 1940 and only outer walls survived. However, the place in nice and it’s used as exhibition space. Additionally, the tower is preserved and you can climb it if you’re interested in city view.


All in all, we had one cloudy day (on arrival), two rainy freezing cold days and lovely clear skies Sunday. I guess it’s not bad for this time of the year in the UK.

Clock tower

Coventry canal

Another clock tower combined with church

Kids probably always stay kids

To avoid early wake up on Monday and make some room for easy morning coffee, we chose to depart at noon, flying directly to Zagreb without fuel stop and with planned flight time 4:45 thanks to forecasted strong tailwind. Also, some icing was forecasted in the last hour of flight and GRAMET was consistent with clouds forecasted on Windy, so icing looked very likely although not over wide area. The major surprise before departure was the price of Jet A1 – I somehow forgot to check it in advance and £0.61 for liter of Jet A1 came as nice present.

Forecasted layer at FL180 and above didn’t exist in reality; it was clear skies all the way to ESEGA and tail wind was blowing well above 30 kts. Total flight time was 4:30 covering 870 NM which is some 30-45 min shorter than in zero wind conditions.

Regarding the icing, it surprised me a bit. I was lazy to turn the TKS on few minutes before hitting visible moist and obvious icing area and the ice instantly stuck to leading edge at temperature of -16 degrees. Regardless turning TKS first to normal then to high then to max setting the majority of leading edge remained covered until reaching higher temperatures when the ice fell off in normal TKS mode and whole wings were covered with the fluid. But before that at one moment I got warning on low deicing fluid pressure while the quantity was still sufficient and needed to switch to another pump and prime it to resolve the issue. I still have to measure how much of fluid I spilled but I guess it was few gallons and it was quite inefficient way to spend it.

The picture shows TKS clearing only small portion of wing and flowing uselessly. So, the conclusion is: do as you have always done – turn it on before hitting the ice. Obviously, under some conditions the system can’t get rid of the ice regardless how thin it is.

Foreflight was nice to have for flight tracking and showing geo-referenced plates although it still suffers from some routing problems.



Although the trip was nice and purpose was fulfilled, next time we’ll try to choose better weather at destination as we always do on our trips.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Thanks a lot Emir. Overall very interesting. I always particularly like trip reports from the continent to the UK, and reading up on the experiences people make.

Yes, jetfuel is very cheap, all over the UK. Part of the reason is that it is delivered to you net of duty. AFAIK, in theory, as a private flight you would have to pay duty afterwards, but no occasional visitor from the continent does that.

I am not questioning your decisions, but with cloud clover at just under 2000 feet, why didn‘t you fly into Coventry? Do you have Garmin visual approaches? Even without, I would have just descended to 1000 feet AGL and proceded to Coventry visually.

Anyway, yes, Birmingham is not outrageously expensive, which is a good thing.

Last Edited by boscomantico at 31 Oct 19:08
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

boscomantico wrote:

AFAIK, in theory, as a private flight you would have to pay duty afterwards, but no occasional visitor from the continent does that.

If you fill-up in the UK and fly international, you can reclaim back the same tax amount via fuel duty drawback concession (two separate sets of paperwork with no money payment involved, probably no one with make a story if you don’t fill-up these )

For internal flights in the UK, I guess it applies but you will struggle to fill-up those forms and pay if you are not based in the UK…

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

I am not questioning your decisions, but with cloud clover at just under 2000 feet, why didn‘t you fly into Coventry?

Latest METAR and TAF were showing BKN018 but I wasn’t sure if ATC will allow me descending below minimum holding altitude (2500 ft) at MAPLE (last IFR point if Y plan is filed) and what will happen if I’m not able to visually descend to EGBE. Simply when flying to unfamiliar places, I tend to choose least complicated solutions.

I don’t have Garmin visual approaches – legacy G1000.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

If you come again you might try my home base Wellesbourne EGBW. It is VFR but I fly IFR out and back to Europe regularly with no problems. Ask for a descent before DTY and London Control will probably transfer you to Birmingham who will give you a service until you change to EGBW. A 2000ft ceiling is no problem and it is only about 25 mins to Coventry from there by taxi.

EGBW, United Kingdom

Brilliant trip and perfectly executed

The last leg must have been especially satisfying, with all that tailwind. For UK pilots, returning home is usually difficult because (a) it is against headwind and (b) any bad wx is moving towards you. It is usually a long boring leg.

I would not be doing DIY approaches in unfamiliar places. I have designed a few of these; they need to be test flown in VMC beforehand. For 200 quid, EGBB is a good solution.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Whatever reason is behind cheap fuel in the UK, it’s great but it might be explained with different laws and policy than in rest of Europe.

However, cheap fuel in Belgium is even more surprising, having in mind the prices in neighboring countries.

What is the calculation behind €2.20 for liter of Jet A1 at EDNY while diesel fuel in Germany is €1.50 at gas station? Currently in Croatia Jet A1 is €1.10 (with all taxes for private flying) and diesel at gas station is €1.30.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

I suspect it is both duty free and (for export) VAT free. In the good old days, I paid £0.50 for avgas at LDLO

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Again I spent 4 days in Coventry and, due to limited working hours at EGBE (they don’t work on Sundays and Mondays), I landed to EGBB again. This time handling was provided by XLR who upgraded me from apron parking to hangarage for free and gave 50% of discount for handling. Great pilot’s lounge with free refreshments from water to champaign and crew rooms with comfortable sofas, all for 50 GPB. On top of that they delivered fuel for GBP 0.97 (EUR 1.14) which is much cheaper than in Croatia (EUR 1.80) of Belgium (2.45) which I used as refuelling stop on my way to EGBB.

Our return flight was non-stop 4:40 from EGBB to LDVA, pretty much non-eventful in clear skies with some IMC on departure and light icing briefly at FL130.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia
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