Aero Friedrichshafen EDNY 19-22 April 2023

We just had a really great dinner. 29 people turned up, which was absolutely everybody who said they would turn up a few days ago.

It was commented that the show was a lot less busy than on previous years, and I agree. To be honest only a certified sado masochist with a latex and whip fetish would have flown in, after last year’s AeroPS slot cockup and this year’s post-6th-May slot cockup which – it was immediately apparent – was just a repeat of last year’s. European GA involves a really high hassle level (compared to any other hobby) – unless done at a very low level like the aeroclub next door on a sunny Sunday – and the Aero slot system takes this hassle level and elevates it to a height which a Greek working at a fraported airport which struggle to achieve.

So it isn’t hard to see why attendance might be dropping.

The airport itself is working better than in the past:

• no examples of nasty arrogant tower staff (they once told me that I got so slow on final it was only due to his diligence that I didn’t crash; the ATCO probably didn’t know his radar was showing GS not IAS)
• no forcing of people onto grass (they tried to park me where the main wheels would have been but when I said I will get stuck in the wet grass they immediately agreed to fully hard parking)
• much faster avgas (I gather this was not universal but I got it right away)
• no stupid minibus driver saying “you left the EU” (in 2019!) and not just refusing to mix Brits with anybody else in the same bus but also dumping us behind 100+ Russians (admittedly the Russians are gone now)

So apart from the slot system it was pretty good. But if Aerops get the contract again, I think Aero will become a joke.

I went to the famous Hanover Trade show only once, in 1992. Spent 3 days fast walking just to get around it, so only a small bit of the venue would be used. My impression was that if your name was “Siemens” you just had to be there to show you existed; the staff were all rented monkeys or a full time exhibition team monkeys. But marketing has changed since then, with the virtual death of printed magazines, so exhibitions are where everybody has to be.

The airport process for the return flight was well streamlined. The slot booking pays for everything, so nothing to pay at the airport GA office (unless you stayed longer than the parking time implied by the originally booked arrival and departure slots, etc, and EDNY will email you an invoice for that) which was now deserted whereas previously there might be a queue.

In the Departures hall, one follows the C signs – all very simple and actually quite unusual at airline type airports where you normally have to harrass the woman in Tourist Info and she calls somebody who escorts you.

There is no GA path so one goes via the airline passenger route (there are shortcuts). Security was super tight, with me (being a lone male and therefore a terrorist, and a stupid one who is going to blow up his own plane) getting everything short of an “intimate” search

The return wx was extra fun – more here and here. However I was pretty happy with the way it was done, though I would not have done it in a non full TKS aircraft, and would not have done it if the TB20 could not have done EDNY-EGKA on half a tank, thus enabling a diversion all the way to Biarritz

Thanks to all those who came long!

Some pics:

One can find reasonably healthy food there (you can also get a whole pig belly if you want that)

The Blackshape is there every year; in fact they have tons of these sorts of planes there, same shape, same engine, but the seat colour differs!

Turboprop. Not sure if this was actually running or a mockup

Lake Konstantz

Boat trip to Konstantz; this is a stop at Meersburg which is also really nice

Not sure I would argue with her! Especially as her boyfriend would be even bigger

Departure wx ok, though it has been raining all night

Base about 6k, tops about 12k, a little bit of ice on the way up, and aiming for VMC on top as far as possible

In some hazy cloud and slowly collecting ~2mm of ice without TKS. You can first see ice on the light cluster

Elevator looked OK

The wx got worse nearer the UK and the thin cloud got less and less thin, and then I started the descent. EGKA wx was just ok

And then got quite a bit worse, with rain and hail.
EGKA
Metar
EGKA 231150Z 22007KT 7000 FEW008 BKN040 12/11 Q0999
TAF
EGKA 231058Z 2312/2318 24009KT 9999 BKN030
PROB30
TEMPO 2312/2318 6000 SHRA
PROB30
TEMPO 2312/2314 BKN008
TEMPO 2315/2318 26015G25KT

Plan B was an ILS into Biggin, or Lydd. At Lydd one has to either fly back same day, or stay the night and fly back A taxi must be well north of £200.

Yes; not seen anything like it for years

It would be great if someone can organise these fly-ins. Friedrichshafen is to a large degree self-organising because so many people go there anyway so “the job” is to do the dinner. I believe @aart will try another one to Spain in October.

Adding some random notes:

The return flight was also done to avoid French airspace, due to the ATC strikes. This worked well, with no CTOTs either way, which is unusual

Max altitude was FL130 on the way back. It was mostly between layers. There was no need to fudge the EET (to hit an arrival slot) so it was simply filed with the AR. The outbound was routed with the AR and filed with EuroFPL because I wanted an earlier departure to get better wx so needed to file with an EET of some 5hrs+ which is well within Eurocontrol margins but the AR won’t let you do it because it calculated something like 3.5hrs, IIRC.

Does anyone know how much a basic small stand costs? Back when I used to do this, 1980s, it would be about 5k for 5 days. One comment made was how many stands there were with 1 person sitting there and nothing being exhibited. No product, just a non-obvious poster or something.

The cost is not trivial. I paid €197 for the slot (€40), landing (€87), 2 days’ parking (I was parked for 3 actually so an invoice will turn up on email) at €35/day.

The weather was worse than usual – these are for the 20th

EuroGA airport database report