Customs and Immigration in Europe (and C+I where it is not published - how?)

I was last year VFR in Portoroz via “Slovakia-Hungary Highway” a strip of the sky mostly G space. Promised my loved one to visit Venice.
Unfortunately there was a nasty cold front approaching so we had to escape Portoroz early in the morning and fly NE on the edge of the frontal weather.

If flying from central Pol to Cro there’s no overfly of Italy just jump to the side and back to e.g. Adria 1.
This year however I’d like to do Zell am See then back round the Alps to the east unless weather is good then Brenner and down to Portoroz, Lido, Losnij (Avgas), Zadar and Brac then back.
That’s why Austria and Italy is of my concern regarding regulations.

Plan A:

or plan B

That Slovakia-Hungary-Slovenia Highway looks like my way of “crossing” the Alps (as it has been put, recently). What are the waypoints? How high could one go, remaining OCAS (Outside Controlled Air Space)? What services/frequencies to talk to?

BTW it is much fun to see the city names spelled the Slavic way, that could almost make a quiz.
Brema-Brunszwik-Drezno I could manage but Lipsk needed putting on my oldest thinking cap!
Monachium-Marsylia-Szwjcaria-Wieden – all so very well known yet suddenly exotic.
Mediolan-Wenecja-Padwa bring a wholly new poetry to a country already so well-bestowed.
Lovely!

@Kristof : which plane and undet which flight rules are you flying? No special regulations for certified VFR (and of course IFR) in Austria. In Italy the only thing you may want to check out is this Zika desinfection nonsense. I haven’t heard that they enforce it in LIPV, though.

Jan_Olieslagers wrote:

Monachium-Marsylia-Szwjcaria-Wieden – all so very well known yet suddenly exotic.

Just a bit of trivia – a part of Vienna is actually called ‘Wieden’ in German (it’s the 4th district, to be precise) ;-)

I’m glad that you guys have fun

Using http://lecimy.org/route/ Polish graphic VFR planning website is the easiest way for me to show planned route. BTW if you ever fly to Poland it’s very handy, all airspaces are NOTAM updated so easy peasy to plan the route, it’s off course in polish though
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:

What are the waypoints? How high could one go, remaining OCAS (Outside Controlled Air Space)? What services/frequencies to talk to?

Waypoints? There’s wide strip from Polish border via Slovakia and Hungary then down to Slovenia without any restrictions except FL. Not sure what is SLO, HUN and Slovenia.
Poland G airspace is up to FL 95 (no flight plan needed) then file a flight plan and VFR up to FL 195. I was flying 2000 to 6000 in Slovenia due to turbulences caused by strong wind over the mountains.
I landed in Nitra Slovakia, just to stretch legs and having a coffee. It wasn’t planned stop, just we saw an airstrip so decided to land. Then overhead Hungary I realized that with 20-30kt of headwind and GS of 65-75kts will run dry of juice before reach Portoroz so decided to land in Murska Sobota Slovenia, another unplanned stop. That was a good choice, avgas, good food at the airfield plus few Extras 300 or 330 (not really familiar with them but look great) in the hangar. Then Portoroz.
BTW neither in Nitra nor in Murska Sobota we were charged for landing – cooool.
More or less Slovakia – Hungary Highway looks as below

Services: Poland – Krakow Information, Slovakia – Bratislava Information, Hungary – don’t remember but it was some “strange name” Radar (SkyDemon knows ) same about frequencies – 4 or 5 all the way down. Flowless.

blueline wrote:

which plane and undet which flight rules are you flying?

With my love I fly VFR low and slow sightseeing, alone IFR
This trip we did PA 28 Archer III.

Thanks for info!

Jan_Olieslagers wrote:

BTW it is much fun to see the city names spelled the Slavic way, that could almost make a quiz.

You might then enjoy looking up maps in other Slavic languages. They might be all Slavic, but the spelling will differ (and sometimes not just the spelling). E.g. Węgry would be in both Czech and Slovak Maďarsko. Or the old way from the times of the monarchy Uhry in Czech and Uhorsko in Slovak which I guess correspond to the Polish Węgry better, but in those two languages those’re historical names and Hungary of today is quite different.

Customs violation for intra-EU flight

Got a letter from Antwerpen customs office berating me for / asking me why I didn’t submit a general declaration before flying from Antwerpen to Switzerland. The flight was to Luxembourg.

I’m genuinely curious what kind of screw-up led to that mixup on their side. Did some airport clerk enter the wrong country code in some computer system? Was the confusion on the registration, rather than on the destination (there was a flight to Switzerland, but it was another plane)? I suppose we will never know.

What ticked me off is that they “expected” an answer within a certain number of days from the day they put in header of the letter. The postmark shows they posted the letter 6 days later, and it took a few more days to arrive.

Anyone got a similar experience, same country, another country, …?

Another forum member got the same letter but nothing came out of it. He actually did depart to Switzerland without a GenDec.

https://www.euroga.org/forums/trips-airports/5008-antwerp-ebaw-requires-a-gendec#post_85454