A little like Stephan said, I tend to be in work mode or flying mode. Work is quite intense so I find the flying side relaxing. But I won’t be rushed and am fortunate that there are very few meeings I must be at. When I get to the plane I don’t take work calls.
But with a very capable plane things are easier for me than bombing all over Europe in a PA28 at 5k feet. The only weather I really need to worry about is departure and destination.
achimha wrote:
Jason is not on a tight schedule, he has time for plenty of beers with me in Straubinsk (well known Siberian GA hub, only reachable by air).
Yes, you never know who you will meet in remote regions of Europe. IT work obviously hard to find in Stuttgart, needs to work in Niederbayern on old American pistons.
I think Dublinpilot made one of the best points early on in this thread: there just aren’t the GA friendly, convenient airports everywhere that you have in the US….
AnthonyQ wrote:
I think Dublinpilot made one of the best points early on in this thread: there just aren’t the GA friendly, convenient airports everywhere that you have in the US….
I think that is not true in Germany.
I think that is not true in Germany.
Could you elaborate, Jason, because I don’t see where this comes from?
It may be true if you fly a jet and a 3-digit landing cost is OK but for light GA the picture is different. In the UK, London has no IFR-capable GA airports within a reasonable distance (Biggin is a long trek). Germany has similarly none in the case of Berlin, Frankfurt or Munich. I think the picture lower down the “city size” scale is similar e.g. Manchester, Birmingham have GA-usable airports whose prices are just-ok for the occassional visit (due to the usual handling cartels).
Perhaps Germany is better even further down the scale e.g. Dortmund is something like €20-30 and the bus stops right outside, and Germany has many “Dortmund” type airports where GA is doing well, whereas most of UK GA airfields are dumps in the middle of nowhere with a cafe selling this, with e.g. Popham being a real classic 
but the, to paraphrase the old saying about getting the politicians we deserve, we get the airfields we deserve… (or want to support / pay for).
OTOH, prominent German pilots have told me that GA is of little utility value in Germany due to the good road and train system, and Germans tend to like driving whereas Brits tend to hate it (and for a good reason).
Peter wrote:
Could you elaborate, Jason, because I don’t see where this comes from?It may be true if you fly a jet and a 3-digit landing cost is OK but for light GA the picture is different.
I disagree (and that last comment was not needed). The German network of excellent IFR airports and good VFR airports is fantastic. Yes around a few “big” cities it is harder but in Munich you can use Augsburg, Berlin Schönhagen and Frankfurt Egelsbach. Given how decentralised the German Mittelstand is you have good IFR options across the entire country.
Mönchengladbach, Dortmund, Munster, Hamburg, Hannover, Paderborn, Erfurt, Mannheim, Leipzig, Straubinsk, Mengen, Memmingen, etc etc.
Yes if you live in Germany sure take a train or drive but as someone who visits there every week from the UK by air, it is incredibly accessible.
The US big cities can sometimes be the same. Boston for example has good satellite airports but Logan is expensive. The difference there is that all the satellites will be IFR.
Some additional information: EDAZ, Schoenhagen, very close to Berlin will have LPV from March 1, 2018.
And Hamburg EDDH you can fly VFR without a slot, IFR slots are always granted and Fees are low (for such a big airport). Same for Bremen (no slot needs AFAIK). Also very good is Nürnberg (EDDN).
On the topic (maybe), I came across this article about an entrepreneur who seems to have taken his DA42 across the Atlantic:
http://www.businessinsider.com/youngest-self-made-billionaire-john-collison-travels-2017-6
Even when I was living in Germany I found flying of great utility value. But then I do value my time and comfort while others may look at the price first. It again changes once your company isn’t 100% yours and other opinions do exist.
and that last comment was not needed
Apologies; it was not an intended meaning. But there is a scale of acceptable costs which is massively evident across the spectrum of what we call “GA”. Ultralighters mostly avoid any place with a landing fee over €5. A large chunk of UK GA exists entirely within the farm strip scene. Then you get the “boycott any place over €10” crowd (an attitude which IMHO does the most damage to GA infrastructure). The “IFR SEP” crowd, whether flying IFR or not, will mostly happily pay €30 and up to €100 for the very occassional trip. Turboprop owners are normally OK with €200, and frankly once you are over 2T or so you tend to get hit with a bare landing fee of that size, never mind handling. Jets are even higher. I know a bizjet owner who happily diverts to EGKK and a £3500 bill So, what is a “usable” GA field means different things to different people.
Even when I was living in Germany I found flying of great utility value. But then I do value my time and comfort while others may look at the price first. It again changes once your company isn’t 100% yours and other opinions do exist.
Very much so.
For example I value not breathing the viruses of 150 others and facing a ~30% chance of getting ill after a single airline flight – probably so high because I work and live in the countryside so don’t get much occupational/social virus exposure. After the last flight, Verona-Gatwick, BA, both of us were ill (in bed) for over a week and had a chest infection for a month. How much is this one factor worth? €1000, I reckon. How many would pay €1000 to avoid a 30% chance of a hit like that?
Peter wrote:
Germany has similarly none in the case of Berlin, Frankfurt or Munich.
Peter wrote:
OTOH, prominent German pilots have told me that GA is of little utility value in Germany due to the good road and train system, and Germans tend to like driving whereas Brits tend to hate it (and for a good reason).
The fact that there are always “prominent” pilots who will prefer to take the car or train or find whatever reason not to use their planes for this is up to them first of all but has been irritating to me as well. For me, the fact that there are alternatives does not necessarily mean to use them, but to have them as plan B, which then takes away the pressure many have been complaining about.
Germany has probably one of the tightest nets of airports and airfields and if you can work around the numerous restrictions, then flying there is relatively painless. Most large cities have suitable airports or airfields nearby, others need to be reached by other means, but that is like that everywhere in Europe. Switzerland has GA accessible airfields and airports in all large cities, Zürich, Bern, Geneva, Basel, St.Gallen, Lausanne e.t.c. and so has Austria. Also France has a lot of them. I have been doing business related flights within Switzerland and to Salzburg (which is one of my business interests) on several occasions.
The major problem I see now for particularly UK based operators is that they do need AOE’s everywhere, which will get even worse once Brexit is done. Switzerland faces similar restrictions, if slightly lesser due to the fact that we are Schengen, which is helpful particularly in France, where you can use airports with customs only, instead of full blown AoE’s. Generally however, flights within the Schengen area are very much possible and quite hasslefree.
As Alexis points out, Berlin will have an IFR GA field rather soon and I do hope that several others will pop up rather quickly now with the possibilities of GPS based approaches. that should make the situation much better.
Right now, I see the worst conditions in places like Greece (Fraport problematic) and Portugal (AoE problem) as well as on certain Spanish airfields where GA is outpriced. That are the stories we need to work on, to get AOPA discounts at such places going and to make sure we can still use them. The important bit is to finally take the airports away from local interests and make them official and open infrastructure. That would be a massive game changer.
