Dear all,
I am an IR instructor and have a request from a club mate to do a flight with him to Schipol. We don’t want to land, just one approach, low pass and then back to our home base in Germany.
Does anybody know if that is at all possible ? A slot will be required, of course and there is this section in the AIP, that I copied below my post.
Has anyone tried this before ? And do you have any idea how much the cost for such an enterprise would be ?
Thanks for your advice,Thomas
7 TRAINING AND TEST FLIGHT REGULATIONS
7.1 General
Training flights and test flights from/to Schiphol Airport are only permitted MON-FRI daily 0600-2100 (0500-2000), but not on public holidays (see GEN 2.1). However, the following test flights are exempted from these restrictions:
urgent test flights related to corrective maintenance with the objective to restore airworthiness of aircraft;
test flights from/to Schiphol Airport that perform tests only outside the Schiphol CTR.
These two exemptions are also permitted on SAT, SUN and public holidays daily 0800-1800 (0700-1700), provided they have permission of the Operational Helpdesk (in conformity with the standard procedure, see ENR 1.3).
All training and test flights must be co-ordinated 24 HR in advance with:
Post:
LVNL
Operational Helpdesk
P.O. Box 75200
1117 ZT Luchthaven Schiphol
Tel: +31 (0)20 406 2201 (OPR HR: 0600-1600 (0500-1500))
Email: [email protected]
URL: http://www.lvnl-ohd.nl
Furthermore, all training and test flights must have obtained, in advance, the explicit permission of the Flow Manager Aircraft of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, tel: +31 (0)20 601 2115.
Hello Thomas!
Have you tried calling the airport directly and asking? I’m sure they’ll be able to tell you.
From the pilot’s notes on SkyDemon, it seems like approach, landing and handling with a light GA aircraft costs in the order of 300 EUR.
But they don’t say what it would coust for someone who simply wants to fly the approach and not land, presumably much less. I would also make sure to mention that it would be a TRAINING flight, it may be cheaper than if it was a general flight.
I’m not instrument rated, so I have no idea about IFR flights, but due to current events, Schiphol has been very relaxed lately for VFR flights wanting to cross the CTR and even do touch and go’s.
Give them a call, most CAT airports looking to survive (and ATC looking to keep job & currency) would welcome such flight these days….
I have done similar flights from France to Jersey & Ostend recently, low pass no landing, zero issues, 2*FPL and that’s it !
Any reason for EHAM in particular?
Other civil controlled airfields in NL (EHRD, EHGG, EHBK) are also open for IR training, are used to it and are reasonably priced. A typical training sortie out of EHRD would be an INKET1B departure, break-off around PS, direct to ROT for some holds/airwork, then the full procedure for a VOR24, straight out & procedure turn, RNP06 with circle-to-land 24, vectors for the ILS24. All in less than an hour, and with excellent assistance from Approach & Tower mixing you with anything from VFR circuit training traffic to commercial airliners. I have the same experience at EHGG and EHBK.
EHLE, as far as I know, doesn’t allow IFR flights (training or not) during the daytime, but you’d have to check that. I have not been there since they went controlled.
At EHAM you’ll likely need to use 04/22, but the approaches and departures from that runway interfere with the approaches and departures from 09/27 and 18L/36R. Combined with your relatively slow speed, this makes you a pain in the * for ATC. You can argue that that’s their problem – and it is – but it still means they’ve got to vector both you and other traffic around to line them up with proper spacing. Which equals to training time wasted.
On the other hand, with the reduced traffic numbers at EHAM due to covid-19, if there’s ever a time to do it, it’s now.
Lelystad is indeed VFR only during daylight hours
Thanks for your feedback. I will call all the numbers from the AIP and see what I can achieve. Yes, the reason is that traffic is low and they might actually let it happen. :-)
I will report back how it went.
So we did exactly as described in the AIP. Called the OPS help desk at LVNL, called the flow manager and both had no problems with us coming. Got arrival and departure slots from the dutch slot coordinating agency.
LVNL also called me back 30 min before the EOBT to say everything was set for out arrival. Got an ILS 22 and then a missed approach to the east.
No charges so far. I will let you know if I get a bill in the mail.
