A well-written report with great pictures, as usual by @boscomantico ! Many thanks!
My family used to own an apartment in the area. It really is a great holiday region: Lots of activities possible, great food, fantastic views. In summer you can go hiking, in winter skiing. Certainly worth a visit.
As a consequence planned trips usually need to go to a Verkehrslandeplatz or airport.
How sad though. These tend to be the most boring ones. Radolfzell, Traben-Trabach, Suhl, Gotha, Sonnen, Bad Endorf are the interesting ones to go to in southern Germany.
You are partially right though. The PPR experience can certainly be variable in Germany. But in Switzerland, most small airfields are PPR, too, making spontaneous decisionsp more diffifult. I would have gone to Switzerland yesterday, but dur to the hassle, I went to France, where all the CAP airfields are „just go“.
On topic: yes, let‘s hope that at least the „familar pilots only“ gets lifted for next year. Otherwise it is indeed closed for most pilots.
Clipperstorch wrote:
Usually they are owned and/or operated by the local gliding club and open on weekends when the weather is nice and on top of that they are PPR. You can’t email them in advance to obtain permission because either they won’t respond in time or their answer will be don’t know yet, let’s see what the weather will be like and call us next Saturday. In cases where I could reach someone by telephone (unlikely) I mostly got the same answer sometimes they tell me to just land and look if they are there when I’m on the ground. For that I’m clearly not bold enough. As a consequence planned trips usually need to go to a Verkehrslandeplatz or airport.Yes, that is indeed pretty sad. I haven’t flown to a lot of nice small German PPR airfields, because they either say:
But in Switzerland, most small airfields are PPR, too, making spontaneous decisionsp more diffifult.Switzerland has the big advantage of not requiring a person (e.g. Flugleiter) on-site, so PPR is mostly only a legal act. Some airfields even have answering machines, telling you on tape that “the airfield is open”. Other airfields have an online PPR form, which sometimes gets approved automatically upon submission. In the end, the airfield doesn’t have to make sure somebody is on-site, which allows a lot more freedom and spontaneous PPR approvals.
Now that we‘re past the 1st of March, and thus the reopening date of the airport after its usual hibernation, a brief update.
For some reason, the opening of the airport for non-based pilots has been postponed to 1st of April. Also, the runway restrictions (landings only on 04, takeoffs only on 22) seem to have been made permanent. And: non-based pilots can now only operate on weekends. But at the very least, that stupid restriction about operations being allowed only to pilots that have been there previously has been cancelled.
Their website has the infos, albeit only in German.
Great news, now it’s only PPR, weekend only, no takeoff during lunch time and a potential tailwind landing or takeoff. Can’t be much worse but it’s still an improvement.
Great report, and nice news.
Interesting land configuration for TO and landing. When wind blows, that promise to be funky. It looks a bit like Barcelonnette, a kind of airfield where all margins are reduced and planes should be flown close to the numbers. I understand these precautions actually.
Good and bad news at the same time. I actually don’t get this “weekend-only” restriction. Is this due staff shortage during the week, as somebody needs to be on-site?
It remains strange to me that LOIR has so many restrictions, while many other mountainous airfields – even within Austria – don’t have them. Only the midday break for take-offs seems somehow reasonable to me, as many other airfields have them too.
Lovely report, thanks a lot!
It’s a crying shame that an airfield like LOIR is so massively restricted, which basically kills it for most purposes.
Frans wrote:
It remains strange to me that LOIR has so many restrictions, while many other mountainous airfields – even within Austria – don’t have them. Only the midday break for take-offs seems somehow reasonable to me, as many other airfields have them too.
Probably a consequence of that unfortunate accident. CYA and “oh, well, look we are doing something”. Even if the logic behind it would mean any road would have to be closed or made 20 km/h limit after any car crash… not that this doesn’t happen in some places.
PPR and this kind of CYA restrictions are poison for GA… loads of very convenient and useful airfields become unusable or massively restricted without any good reason. See Munich Oberschleissheim for starters, this one and many others. Shows once more that for too many local and federal governments airfields are not considered as infrastructure but as playgrounds for the rich.
Thanks for the great report and inspirational pictures!
boscomantico wrote:
Also, the runway restrictions (landings only on 04, takeoffs only on 22) seem to have been made permanent
With that configuration, there is opposing ARR/DEP traffic on the downwind leg of the circuit in what seems to be a pretty narrow corridor, correct? Can you use the circuit in both directions regardless? The airfield info mentions ARR/DEP via W as the preferred route but that looks like an even more “interesting” trajectory for humble pilots and humble planes, especially for departure. The approach chart you posted shows a shortcut to H (dotted lines) on departure from 22. Is that what you’d recommend? Or can you circle in the valley (eg at W) to get higher first?
I have used the H departure in the past. But if you don‘t like it, you can use the November routing anytime. I wouldn‘t use LOIR in a low-performance aircraft if you are unfamiliar. For all the rest, I suggest you enquire with the airfield operator.
But in general, you raise an interesting point. By Austrian classification, LOIR is a private aerodrome. There are no charts published for these aerodromes in the Austrian AIP. Just a little box of text and that‘s it. No mention of these routes and reporting points anywhere.
Makes you wonder on what the Jeppesen chart (and the info in Skydemon) are based on. And makes you doubt how official these things are. The Jeppesen chart is indeed slightly confusing. The altitudes indicated don‘t make too much sense.
Anyone understand the source of this information? @snoopy?
