Neal, I used to be based at Sion and it’s really not a problem to turn in the valley, assuming you are flying an SEP of some sort. The mountains are either side of you and go way higher (the MSA is something like 16,000 ft), which is a bit intimidating if you are not used to seeing the ground out of both side windows at the same time! A few tips to get you started – this all assumes you are VFR (IFR is a whole special case at Sion):
I have been flying between Sion and the UK once a month or so for the last 15 years. Great airport.
In addition to all the great advice above, keep close tabs on the official Swiss weather service https://www.meteosuisse.admin.ch/home.html?tab=overview
If you search weather for Sion they include also a webcam from Ravoire. This sits at 1300m and looks along the valley to Sion in one direction and the lake in the other.
Sion has the best weather in Switzwerland so it is accessibly by air VFR 9 days out of 10.
Raiz and others have said it. Sion has some of the best weather in all of Switzerland with over 300 days of good weather per year. The valley is wide and not a problem at all to navigate in. There is no reason to go to a place outside and find rental cars, Sion is quite easy to fly to. Go for it, you won’t regret it.
Just digged out an older video from 2014 or so after the Euroga fly-in to Lausanne. Conditions were superb, so instead of continuing direct to Bern, I chose to discover the Rhone valley from Lac Leman, so it has some pretty ok impressions from the dimensions of the valley at its beginning and around Sion as well.
Are there any updates on Sion for this winter e.g. new restrictions or other stuff worth knowing?
Is there still potential hangarage, just to warm the plane up to get ice off it?
I am looking at this weekend.
I emailed the airport asking about any special restrictions etc and got a fast reply:
Peter is totally right. I live in Montreux and has my baby hangared at LSGL. Trust me, LSGS is walk in park. Very wide valley, usually good weather in Sion and very long runway. Feel free to message me if you need further assistance.
Monday we flew to Sion LSGS for a one day trip.
We took off at 08:30 LT from EBST (Sint-Truiden) IFR to LFSP (Pontarlier) for a customs stop before entering Switzerland. I had sent a PR for the customs with our scheduled landing and take-off times but when we landed there everything was closed. We just logged our flight in the registry book.
We cancelled IFR on arrival but we were locked at FL090 because of an activated military zone and we had to spiral down when arriving at Pontarlier.
On the way back we landed there again for customs and filling the tanks at the Total Automate. All military zones where shut, so we could fly back home following a straight line at FL065. The Aeroclub was open but we didn’t see anybody again, so we logged and left. The runway is 1000 m long at 2700 ft. With 33°C, full fuel and 3 POB it was just enough to take off but not too much !
LSGS is very friendly to GA. We parked at I2 and walked to the terminal nearby. No control whatsoever. Same at the return we just payed the landing fees and walked directly to the plane. Very straight forward and nice. We paid 59.75 CHF 25 for landing, 14 for PAX and 16.50 for Skyguide plus VAT 7.70% (a dream).
We took a taxi to Nandaz and then the cabin to climd at Tracouet where we had lunch on the sunny terrace.
We were back home at 19:48 LT.
Very pleasant trip though a little bit long for a one day. The weather was perfect.
Jean wrote:
Very pleasant trip though a little bit long for a one day. The weather was perfect.
Nice trip Jean, with super weather and looks you managed a full day out of it, I went Paris-Sion via Annemasse recently, I did not even make it out of the airports to see what’s around, let alone climb in a cabin