Moving to Porto, Portugal

That, however, is more the norm than the exception in most parts of southern Europe. A very inflexible appraoch to ATC handling of GA/VFR traffic.

But to be fair, they did allow me to do exactly what I had requested. I asked for low flight over all the coast with turn around on the Douro, and crossing to LPVL overhead OPO (very nice flight to do by the way). The wait was just a bit longer than at the London airports but they did allow it despite being well off the published VFR routes.

I also did flights spanning across the whole country vertically (down to Faro) and everyone was pretty accomodating.

I had to wait over the ocean, really far away from the actual airport, for a flight to have completely landed (even me being far away and claiming visual with the landing TAP didn’t help)

That, however, is more the norm than the exception in most parts of southern Europe. A very inflexible appraoch to ATC handling of GA/VFR traffic.

geekyflyer I am a Member of Porto’s Flying club based at Maia. (LPVL)

I don’t fly much there (I am based in London), but:

- Club is friendly (LPVL)
- A few people in the club are ATC (in OPO) or former ATC. I generally found ATC to accomodate requests pretty well (for instance deviating from published VFR corridors).
- That helps with ATC
- ATC will be helpful in English (Once I had a fellow (non portuguese) pilot and did all the ATC in English – you’ll be talking to the same channels as the commercial flights pretty much all the time)
- For some other stuff they seem to be less at ease (I usually fly the City and Gatwick overheads when going south, and they let me wait just over the terminal if needed, in the case of Porto I had to wait over the ocean, really far away from the actual airport, for a flight to have completely landed (even me being far away and claiming visual with the landing TAP didn’t help)
- If you fly there you’ll miss flat ground when looking for emergency diversions
- There is not a lot of other GA traffic except around lisbon.
- You file a flight plan for every flight. But it’s normally pretty simple, you’ll lose <5min if filing paper. Skydemon ETC is complete, and will file for you.

I am happy to give you the contact of one of the persons running the club by PM.

geekyflyer

I know portugal.
I live on the border NW Spain “Galicia” – N of Portugal. about to 90 km of oporto.
I have flown in Portugal, is 100% better than Spain.

This is a map of the aerodroms
http://roteiro.apau.org/zmapa.html
http://roteiro.apau.org/zpistas_texto.html

some workers in twr Oporto are instructors ULM in you free time.

careful driving style Portuguese and mainly women drivers with sunglasses

If flying is cheap in Portugal it’s not due to low utility prices, water and electricity are ridiculously expensive for example. IVA (VAT) is 23% in Portugal compared to 20% in the UK.

Rip off Britain I would imagine. I cannot see subsidies to European flying clubs, schools, especially Portugal..

The clubs are not making money, so it must be the ever deepening taxation/utilities issue.

This is total thread drift, but, the fundamental financial issues of this country have not been touched. We are in a worse state than 2007/8. So………..

The hire rates do appear very attractive. I paid for one hour, including instructor, 150.00 euro.very good condition Cessna 172S

These are compelling prices, and a nice range of aircraft. Combine this with job, quality of life and good weather… Let me know if they need a lawyer

What intrigues me is that the rental cost and general condition of aircraft in some parts of Europe are much cheaper and better respectively. For example:

Denham UK: PA-28 @ £135/€170 ph
Dreux (near Paris): DR400 @ €118 ph / PA-28 @ €150 ph
Bastia: PA-28 @ €149 ph / Arrow @ €159 ph (!)

I trained on a 40 year old 152 (my friend looked inside and exclaimed "you learned to fly in that?!?) and excluding instructor that was £115/€150 ph.

Is this due to government subsidies or something else? It can’t just be the exchange rate. I know England is more expensive but still…

Geeky, you have a PM

100/90 is very very low and sounds like a total no-brainer. Do it!

Certainly, a club which charges high yearly fees will tend to have lower hourly charges, so at the end of the year, things more or less equal out. The problem is usually more with those high one-off fees which are real turn offs (unless one intends to spend many years in that club and not move).