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Winston Churchill Jnr

Peter wrote:

Or which countries have a tax-compliant (or really wealthy) population which supports a heavy taxpayer subsidy to certain areas

At that time all aircraft in Sweden paid enroute charges, regardless of MTOM. For light aircraft it was a flat yearly fee.

And frankly, I prefer that system to the system in place in the UK at the time (1991). I made a stopover at Old Sarum. When it was time to go on, I asked how I could get in touch with MET and was directed to a phone booth. The MET phone number at the time was a “premium” number at extra high cost. That could have been ok from an ordinary phone, but not from a payphone. In fact it cost so much that it was physically impossible for me to insert even the largest domination coins fast enough to keep up. So I never got a weather briefing. I asked the locals how they did it and they said they called the destination and asked what the weather looked like. Then they listened to VOLMET in the air. I was completely aghast.

After returning home, I wrote a sour letter to the UK CAA, pointing out the safety implications. They wrote an apologetic reply but said that it was the only way they could recoup costs.

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 05 Jun 17:09
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

When I was young, I came with my dad to an office with an antique computer that printed notams and talked to a nice person giving us a weather chart. But the few words he/she told you were worth so much more than the chart. They knew the weather just by looking at it.

Now we have MB of data but frankly, I don’t really know what to expect when I depart in non-cavok conditions.
My dream would be a METAR chart with a METAR every 5 km everywhere

Flight training is really more weather-cautious than it was before.

LFOU, France

Flight training is weather cautious but there is literally no “unknown weather” while training: you know exactly what to expect in next 4 hours and even actual weather from previous guy, the only weather mayhem I recall at my school, they sent a student on his solo nav and he went back to land on cross short grass runway instead of the long tarmac runway he departed on

In long time/distance flying trips and tigh schdule one doea get exposed to unkown weather, it does not matter how much one is skilled or equipped, it will always bite simply because of the lack of planing, far more easier to fly in bad weather by choice rather than forced to

The weather scenario described in that trip is not even “unkown weather”, if you take 50kts winds against the Alps peaks at 12kft for sure you would get spots of waves & rotors with 100kts speed gain or speed loss and 10kfpm updrafts or downdrafts up to 24kft altitudes, no need to have sophisticated weather forcasts it is likely to be NoGo unless one can fly FL250 (even without adding warm fronts with low stratus and extended freezing IMC ), turns out they were far more lucky than one can expect on that trip what would have been the plan if one engine failed?

Last Edited by Ibra at 05 Jun 22:58
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

When I learned in 1981, the weather and notams were to be found pinned on a noticeboard in the tower, sheets torn off the teleprinter.

Took my Dad flying, and showed him the preflight preparations. He had been a “wireless operator” in the RAF in WW2 and told me how much of an improvement it was from having to get everything via morse code…

Flying into Gatwick in a light GA aircraft was easily done in the 1970’ties and I used to do it frequently. The landing fee was 25p or free if you were clearing customs or had a Red Card – where you paid a modest annual fee which covered all landings at most places except IIRC Heathrow. Ah for the old days ……..

EGNC, United Kingdom

In the days and age…. I flew my then Cessna 150 to Frankfurt Rhein Main…. lovely airport then, 7 DM landing fee and great experience.

On the way back I found myself face to face with a Pan Am 747 and thought I was in for a real telling off…. turns out that it was the Clipper who went wrong and stuck it’s nose into the passage to the then GAC. They needed a truck to push him back, but once his engines had been shut down, I was waved past under it’s wing. If memory serves it was Clipper Juan Trippe, N747PA, the first 747 to enter airline service, then under the name “America”

Fond memories.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Airborne_Again wrote:

After returning home, I wrote a sour letter to the UK CAA, pointing out the safety implications. They wrote an apologetic reply but said that it was the only way they could recoup costs.

Even then, that was pretty much inexcusable as fuel taxes (as now) for avgas were sky high, and we’ve already paid once for the Met Office through other taxes. Being asked to pay again is pretty galling.

Back when internet weather sources weren’t as good as they are now, the Isle of Man Met Office had a special free number for pilots. The USA still has 1-800-WXBRIEF.

Last Edited by alioth at 16 Jun 16:35
Andreas IOM
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