I suspect there is a thread this could be appended to, but couldn’t find anything obvious.
Thanks very largely to help I’ve received here on EuroGA, I now finally have my plane at its new home in France, all fully box-ticked for flying in Europe – ownership via trust, insured, European nav data, etc.
I flew it yesterday from Toussus le Noble (LFPN), where it was reassembled and fixed up after the shipment, to Cannes (LFMD), its new home. My first serious cross-country in Europe, which I approached with great trepidation, to put it politely. In the event the flight was straightforward, though planning an XC in France is quite an exercise in avoiding military airspace.
I hope to find the time to write a blog about the whole experience in a week or two.
Thanks to everyone for all your help,
John (N5296S)
Glad all sorted and you managed to fly it in one piece 
Great to hear!
Here’s to many nice flights in Europe!
Congratulations, am I right that the container route from the USA, ex assembly charges and duties, is around USD10k? If correct, much cheaper than a ferry flight.
RobertL18C wrote:
Congratulations, am I right that the container route from the USA, ex assembly charges and duties, is around USD10k? If correct, much cheaper than a ferry flight.
Disassembly, preservation, fabrication of transport jigs, crating/padding/wrapping, reassembly and rigging can easily add a few thousand, too.
am I right that the container route from the USA, ex assembly charges and duties, is around USD10k
Came to about $17K in the end – $9K on the US end for disassembly and shipping, $2K for customs clearance and internal shipping in France, $6K for reassembly and fixing various resulting squawks (for example, the disassembly people cut through a couple of cables).
It would have been $1K cheaper if it had been shipped to the right port – a story in itself, which will have to wait for my blog article. On the positive side, my plane is one of the very few to have been for a ride on a train.
Hello John, glad to hear that we have one more plane in Cannes. Airspaces here are a bit challenging but we can easily sort this out at the radio in most cases (except the Canjuers one ;). Don’t hesitate to ask in private/mail if you have any question about specifics here, i’d be happy to help.
9k dollars and they cut through cables – par for the course in aviation I suppose
They also half-retracted the gear then put the plane straight onto a wooden pallet with no padding, doing surprisingly little damage. They somehow messed up the switches that detect the gear is fully retracted. The worst problem was that they went completely MIA – neither I nor the mechanic in France could get any kind of response from them about what they had done. Luckily he has lots of experience and just got on with the job anyway.
Congrats John!
I am so glad you managed to bring your own airplane and hence stay with your tried and true R182. Not many around, but a very capable airplane.
I don’t see anything extraordinary in that a couple of wires went damaged in an airplane disassembly. I am more worried about the careless berthing for transport and, above all, the MIA situation. Fortunately you found someone knowledgeable and willing to help. Reassembly is also a big job so it is surprising it all turned out flawlessly. If there is any of the understandable minor issues in the first few flights at least you now know where to find help.
There is a R182 sister to your airplane based in Ibiza. Let me know if you want me to put you in touch!
Lots of interesting places within 2 hours of your base, so I wish you a lot of happy flying!
