I could just call up my local regional airport off the cuff and ask for an ILS and i can’t ever remember getting refused.
Now I can be single pilot IFR OCAS and I rarely get a transit.
GA was welcome at some large airports and in some cases (i.e. EIDW Dublin) landings were free if only landing to clear customs.
I think the biggest difference – at least in Europe – is the separation of CAT from GA. Large international airports were totally accessible 20-30 years ago, with minimal or no landing fees. This separation appears to rest on two pillars of real and perceived dangers:
- increased CYA attitude along the lines of ‘but something could happen’ (extremely prevalent in the UK, not only in aviation)
- increase in CAT via the arrival of LoCos and general increase in air traffic
Of course the increasing security threats don’t help, so expect a further tightening of the screw :-(
what_next wrote:
Real living people will explain the weather sitauation for you and work out the best course to fly through or around it.My best weather briefing ever was on a flight from Germany to Sweden sometime around 1990. The MET guy made a hand drawing of the cloud layers on the back of a flight plan form…
All that came free of charge (of course!).
Except in the UK. I was on a holiday trip to the UK with my pilot wife and first son in 1991. One of the stops we made was at Old Sarum. When departing we had to call the MET Office for a weather briefing. The only available telephone was a coin box. The MET Office used “premium” phone numbers which cost so much that it was not physically possible to insert coins at the speed the box demanded them. I asked local pilots how they did it and they said they called the destination airfield and asked what the weather looked like and then listened to VOLMET in the air… I was so p*ssed that I wrote a letter (real, paper) of complaint to the British authorities. I actually got a very nice and apologetic reply, unfortunately without any hint of wanting to improve the situation.
172driver wrote:
Large international airports were totally accessible 20-30 years ago, with minimal or no landing fees.
On my first long-distance international trip I flew to Frankfurt, VFR. No problem at all.
Just a PPL course, and a little post PPL local flying from Perth Scone.
I learned on a no-electrics, swing start DH82 modification, the Thruxton Jackeroo biplane. No brakes. 4 seats, but instructor sat behind. No radio, and a Gosport tube intercom. Speak into a funnel, with rubber tube to ear covers. No ATC, and I think 12 trainers on the grass field.
For weather, telephone, and on my Qualifying XC the met guy at first refused to give me met for what he regarded as an unnecessary long time for Thruxton-Shoreham-Portsmouth-Thruxton. Some only did 65 mph.
On another cross-country, I got lost, and infringed Farnborough and Lynham, but wasn’t caught. A huge thunderstorm over Wimbledon had twisted the winds. I was shocked to read the court case of an Air Vice Martial in a DH82 who had also, same afternoon, got lost and landed at Farnborough. He was fined over £600, which I could never have afforded.
£135 + £2.50 for PPL, including accommodation and meals.
Airborne_Again wrote:
On my first long-distance international trip I flew to Frankfurt, VFR. No problem at all.
On the cross-country flight for my night rating (ca. 1988) from Stuttgart to Cologne and back we did a touch-and-go landing in Frankfurt. With an airliner in front of us and another one on the parallel runway to the left, an unforgettable experience. They did not even bother to send an invoice. And they only had two runways then, now they have four and flying there with a C172 is absolutely off limits. But air traffic has triplicated since then.
I got my PPL in 1983 so I just about qualify for 30 years…
Agree with a lot of stuff said here.
Most prominent: GA acceptance at large airports. At the time I used to fly into Frankfurt with a C150, Zürich had no slots, no handling, generally nothing adverse and actually very attractive landing fees, I recall flying into Bern without PPR, Stuttgart, Munich Riem, wherever…just call up and land. All history today. Airport managers see GA as something akin to the relationship between a summer outdoor party and flies: Ga needs to be swatted, eradicated and terminated, yet they can’t quite manage despite all the aroma candles, fly swatters and other instruments to reach their goal…
Controlled Airspace: Not really where I live, it was different, a bit easier, but not necessarily more. Flightplans were done by hand, easy done, if ATC did not like something they sorted it out in the air or told you on the phone what to change. No CFMU, no “Reject/Ack/Susp” messages and no need for computerized routing databases.
Flying was certainly more carefree than today, the attitude was lax, reports and fines were the extraordinary, not the every day stuff.
Doing a PPL was much more affordable then today too. Mine at the time cost about 5000 CHF, all included. Today, it has gone up to about 4 times that.
Cost generally has increased a lot. Maintenance (Camo anyone?) , landing fees at larger airports, handling compulsory, e.t.c The only thing which has become cheaper is to actually buy an airplane. FAA STC’s were universally accepted in Switzerland.
On the up side: GPS has made enroute flight much more enjoyable and less stressful. Used airplane purchase prices have come down massively, allowing more “pedestrian” folks to take part in airplane ownership. High Tech cockpits have become affordable, it’s rather simple today to have a flightdeck with the same or close to capabilities than the average airliner.
In balance, was it a better time? I think it was. Aviation in Europe has developed quite negatively all in all, even though there is light at the end of some tunnels. Some of those lights might be oncoming trains however.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Doing a PPL was much more affordable then today too. Mine at the time cost about 5000 CHF, all included. Today, it has gone up to about 4 times that.
Not that much. The amount is around 8000 CHF in today’s alpine dollars, around 7300 €. You can get a PPL(A) for that money. For four times that money you’ll get an airplane with your license, or a CPL/IR if you like.
