Peter wrote:
flying at a decent height
whatever “decent” means… there is, once more, some difference in people using the aircraft as a tool to get someplace to see and do something, and the other ones using the airborne time to see and do something… and then there are those in between 
It could be that a lot of people fly short sectors, smaller than 1 hour, then why climb? Others like myself like to pop down and check some castle/mountain ridge/nudist beach/abandoned strip or other interesting ground feature out. Not sure we all enjoy sucking O2 in the higher FLs watching clouds slide past…
Aircraft efficiency at altitude would be another interesting topic which I’ll leave aside… for the moment…
Peter wrote:
Class E routes (what UK PPLs call “French airways”) which run mostly between VORs and in the FL065-115 range
never heard of that… VORs, are those still around? Oh my…
My international trips are made using SkyDemon and the route planing usually takes 3 minutes… type in 4LC for the departure airfield, another 4LC for the destination and a quick alternate. If necessary insert 1 or 2 doglegs for VFR resistant airspace, Paris, Nice, London, Frankfurt, Milan, etc. come to mind… and that’s it. Check Weather/Notams, file flight plan and go enjoy yourself. Today’s GPS based VFR aviation has become sooo easy 
Peter wrote:
pop into some of the GA sections on FB and get a bit horrified at the level of ignorance
don’t do the FB stuff, but share your feeling. People nowadays like to be spoon fed, and this presentation will go in the same direction. Most PPLs are sooo afraid of going foreign (as in cross-country ), many causes I guess.
One may be found on this very forum, as in don’t make things more complicated than they are, don’t go looking for problems. Just go out, fly and enjoy yourself
I hope your VFR talk emphasizes and recommends the use of Skydemon/EasyVFR (others also available) type integrated EFP/Nav apps on a tablet, and the benifits of having literally everything available realtime for flight planning and Navigation with “one map” across many countries. These tools were not about 10-15 years ago and they have totally revolutionized how to fly abroad VFR.
Regards, SD..
never heard of that… VORs, are those still around? Oh my…
Those VOR-VOR Echo airways (flown on GPS) allow one to fly “VFR easily” (ahem, without checking NOTAMS), everything gets taken care of by “IFR ATC” but let’s not forget as VFR you are talking “VFR to FIS”
People love them as they feel like RVSM, “G-AB, with you” and can punch through Delta/Charlie TMA with these
I hope your VFR talk emphasizes and recommends the use of Skydemon/EasyVFR (others also available) type integrated EFP/Nav apps on a tablet, and the benifits of having literally everything available realtime for flight planning and Navigation with “one map” across many countries
VFR with SkyDemon and IFR with AutoRouter makes it a matter of 15min to plan & execute these flights
I hope your VFR talk emphasizes and recommends the use of Skydemon/EasyVFR (others also available)
Of course; this is the major change.
I would be interested too, but I can’t say yet if I can participate because of my work. would it be possible to make a recording of the zoom meeting or post the slide show?
Slides, yes, recording no, otherwise almost nobody would participate. We had loads of trouble setting up the Zoom thing originally, with various posts claiming the KGB and everybody else can hack Zoom, etc Then when we set the rule that everyone must have their webcam on (because we got ridiculous cases where somebody ended up doing a presentation to a sea of black rectangles) most people dropped out.
Re France, the country is covered in military airspace at low levels. Most non-French pilots find this really daunting and just don’t fly there. Especially with the stories about €10k fines / aircraft confiscation if you bust the nuclear power station prohibited zones… And I know from many many flights that French ATC almost never interacts with their military, so you can’t just ask them to coordinate. Probably can if you speak French. Also much of the maps – the traditional VFR planning method – is unreadable (look N of Cannes for example). So my advice to people who are new to international flying is to make their life simple and use these Class E routes which are almost never affected by anything (military or otherwise) and in which ATC are very relaxed. You still have to, as a VFR pilot, get enroute notams, just in case…
A lot of GA is rather culturally constrained and it can be difficult to get people out of these self imposed constraints.
Ibra wrote:
People love them as they feel like RVSM, “G-AB, with you” and can punch through Delta/Charlie TMA with these
sure can do the same without “them”, as I’ve done for >40 years now… thanx for the explanation anyway
Peter wrote:
UK PPLs have been trained to fly at 2000ft and my feeling is that much of the mainland community is not all that different. (…) For Germany, I have less data but again see very little traffic higher up.Very true. Most GA traffic in Germany intend to stay between 2.000 to 4.000 ft. However, it is not so uncommon to go up into the flight levels, compared with Italy or UK for example, which have huge airspace Alpha zones. Nonetheless, even in Germany, many pilots never try to ask permission for airspace Charlie either.
I will then join the ongoing Zoom meeting on Tuesday.
The “VFR in Europe” topic is scheduled for next Tuesday, right? I look forward to participating
Not scheduled yet.
I am finding the audience very demanding so will need more time to prepare the slides :smile
If the topic “VFR in Europe” is postponed, that suits me very well and I don’t have to work at full throttle all day. How long does it takes you to prepare the slides Peter? Approximately…
I tell people to read the AIP and Notams and then of course I get beaten up for offering arrogant advice.
On the webinar that LT had about long distance flying in Norway and elsewhere in Europe, emphasis was put on good/bad data. There’s lots of data around, and lots of it is bad. It was one of the main reasons LT started giving out VFR Norway in its time.
