Let's just stick to agreeing or disagreeing with somebody's views.
As soon as we go down the road of questioning why somebody has an empty profile, etc, we end up playing the man rather than playing the ball.
If I see an obvious troll I will ban the profile immediately. We are not going to have the sort of windup characters here which exist freely elsewhere - often under multiple profiles - and do so with full knowledge of their admins/mods.
Before my 2004 VFR trip to Crete I heard many more and much stronger "you cannot do this" views than the above, with some coming from self proclaimed sky-gods who had collected every piece of paper possible right up to a (claimed) ATPL.
This is what is so good about a community of experienced pilots like we have here. Back in 2004, 2 years after getting the PPL, nobody I knew had a clue about going to places for real.
As regards an empty profile, many people can't be bothered. In the same way as a few people do little more than throw in one-liners.
nobody I knew had a clue about going to places for real.
Don't be that harsh on flying clubs here. They always do their fly-out, some only to an airfield 15NM away for dinner. :-)
FYI, the french SIA VFR charts are downloadable for free. Not sure why but it may help someone.
https://www.sia.aviation-civile.gouv.fr/produits-numeriques-en-libre-disposition.html
Recommendation VFR Charts France + Spain
Planning a VFR trip from Germany to Spain. Which Aeronautical charts would you recommend?
ICAO Visual 500 (e.g. for Spain) and IGN for France?
@boscomantico: Did the V500 charts for France become more useful nowadays? Thought it would work to do the trip VFR with the latest charts, IVAC as a backup and my KLN94. What do the experienced guys here think?
I really don‘t keep up much with how these paper charts evolve across Europe. I have not used such paper charts for over 10 years myself.
I you do really want to have „the latest charts“, please don‘t use paper charts. They are outdated by the time they are printed, and even more outdated by the time they get used. For VFR in Europe, do use Skydemon.
Paper charts… real paper charts? Haven’t seen one of those for the last 20 years or so 😉
If you.really want a VFR chart for France; There are 4 IGN 500,000:1 2 × SIA 1, 1,000,000:; which is also the scale of Cartabossy.Then there are the glider and ULM charts which I have seen for the first time this year. There are also several others.
Most French VFR pilots would use the IGN 500,000:1 and possibly every few years buy the VFR Complimentaire which also contains the 1: to a million. The advantage of these is that they have the class E airways. The Complimentaire is also useful if you are going to do Night VFR.
Nowadays though most French pilots use SDVFR and Airmate. They are free. If travelling to other parts of Europe we would probably buy Skydemon.
OK, thank you very much – It seems that I strongly have to adapt my flight preparation to the digital age as much as possible
Chris wrote:
Planning a VFR trip from Germany to Spain. Which Aeronautical charts would you recommend?
You mean with a TB20? I would stick to an electronic device. I have used paper charts for half of my flying life and never would I turn back to them (however I do like planning boat trips on paper charts 
)
I’d use Skydemon.
If you’re flying with something else like a Gyrocopter or a powered parachute or something real slow then things might be different. However again no option to use paper charts in flight. You might need other chart data, but still I’d stick to electronic displays.
Or perhaps you could download SDVFR or Airmate and buy the “Complément aux cartes aéronautiques”, which would give you the best of both worlds a and more.
