I try to stay current as a VFR pilot. I don't want to end up like the senior airline captain I talked to the other day who admitted he would not be able to conduct a VFR flight...
I can fly VFR fine 
Most of my logbook time is VFR.
True comment about buses and trains etc - often the services are almost impossible to work out. But sometimes it is just a simple train.
Public transport from Mönchengladbach airfield to Bonn-Hangelar airfield is 2:20h. VFR distance is 37NM.
I have talked to EDLN and they offer customs/immigration without prior notice. You can just fly in from where ever you like.
Fees are moderate, only found the page in German. IFR approach costs an extra 3 € (enough reason for me to cancel IFR!) and you should have a noise certificate to get the lowest fee.
From Cologne main train station to Bonn-Hangelar (station Hangelar-Ost) it takes about 45 min and there is a service every 15-25 minutes.
True comment about buses and trains etc - often the services are almost impossible to work out.
How true. If I know that I will go somewhere by public transport (e.g. from a hotel near the airport to the city centre as the company only pays for our taxi rides to and from the hotel) I look it up on the internet while still at home. Once you are there it's too late. There are exceptions though, the UK generally has a very comprehensible public transport system. But try to get from one side of Berlin to the other side :-(
Quite a good tactic which Justine and I sometimes do on our holidays is to get public transport from the airport to the hotel. At that point one usually has time to play with.
On the way to the airport, a taxi is often the only practical way - and loads of €€€.
So we're narrowing the meeting point to Bonn-Hangelar?
Once there is some certainty, I will ask for insight as to a hotel close by, I will arrive from Cologne the night before, by train. If it would help me to have a bicycle, I can bring one, but would rather not carry it around if it is not needed....
... On the way to the airport ...
That reminds me of my colleagues who went downtown for lunch at Southampton last year. The train station is ideally located, even from the GA terminal you walk less than five minutes and the train ride takes less than ten. On the way back however, they made a mistake and took the train towards Weymouth. After some "that didn't take so long on the way in" and "lets wait for one more station, maybe that's the right one" they had to get off and take a 100-Pound taxi ride back to the airport in order to be there before the passengers :-) (not that similar things haven't happened to me also...)
It's only a 45 minute train ride from downtown Cologne and the connection is served every 20 minutes so you can also stay in Cologne which is a very nice town.
Yes, I'll stay in Cologne Thursday night, I stayed there in April, and walked all over. I like to see new places, so I'm happy to stay near our meeting place, once it is established....
we talk a lot about airfield and airports and VFR and IFR etc. Questions: what are we going to do there? Honestly speaking, Bonn-Hangelar, Moenchengladbach etc is all a bit ...sorry ....boaring I would even not recommend Dortmund ( with IFR and customs) since its not much better then the other two, even that I have my Acft there. If we look to a nice place, nice scenery, some good restaurant which offers space for ? people etc. we could look for Koblenz, the recent statement rgd. the greek restaurant there is true... Canceling IFR on the Cologne ILS and proceeding VFR from there to Koblenz along the Rhine-valley is a gourmet-flight:)
Or, yes, Bremerhaven! Very nice refurbished small harbour , different good museums ( I visited 3 of them) , I've been there often,good option and IFR - APCH.Airport with good service and for those who likes challenges: a lot of small airfields at the german north-sea-islands are very close..... However, whats the decision? Election? :)
