Trip report UK to Sardinia, Italy
- Thread starter peter-h
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Everskyward
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Everskyward
You take such interesting trips!
AdamZ
Touchdown! Greaser!
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Adam Zucker
Great trip
bbchien
Touchdown! Greaser!
NICE writeup! 
Gosh, Peter, you make me want to cross the pond just to fly with you.
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My trip report goes something like this:
Last Saturday, at around 3:00 pm, Tommy and I decided we'd fly to Austin to see the football game, so I logged into DUATS and got a legal weather briefing, called the two FBOs at the airport to find out who had the better weekend fuel discounts (both $0.50/gallon, ramp fee waived with fuel purchase).
We were wheels-up at around 4:20 PM, and got cleared on course right away, cruising at 6500. I was a little worried about the weather to the west, but the XM showed it remained comfortably distant. I landed long on 17L, took Lima to the FBO, and from wheels-down to in the car on our way to the game was, maybe, 5 minutes.
After the game and dinner, we returned to the airport, preflighted and launched for home at around 11:30 P.M. Cleared on course, GPS direct right away, and heard exactly 3 other planes on frequency until I got to DFW Regional Approach, who on initial call-up said, Cleared into the Bravo, proceed direct Addison, altitude pilot's discretion to 2500."
We have it so good here!
---
Still - Sardinia!
Keep 'em coming, Peter.
---
My trip report goes something like this:
Last Saturday, at around 3:00 pm, Tommy and I decided we'd fly to Austin to see the football game, so I logged into DUATS and got a legal weather briefing, called the two FBOs at the airport to find out who had the better weekend fuel discounts (both $0.50/gallon, ramp fee waived with fuel purchase).
We were wheels-up at around 4:20 PM, and got cleared on course right away, cruising at 6500. I was a little worried about the weather to the west, but the XM showed it remained comfortably distant. I landed long on 17L, took Lima to the FBO, and from wheels-down to in the car on our way to the game was, maybe, 5 minutes.
After the game and dinner, we returned to the airport, preflighted and launched for home at around 11:30 P.M. Cleared on course, GPS direct right away, and heard exactly 3 other planes on frequency until I got to DFW Regional Approach, who on initial call-up said, Cleared into the Bravo, proceed direct Addison, altitude pilot's discretion to 2500."
We have it so good here!
---
Still - Sardinia!
Keep 'em coming, Peter.
peter-h
Line Up and Wait
I must admit that the trip to Sardinia was an illustration of just about how difficult things can get in Europe. If you want things to be harder than Italy then you need to go to N Africa
Well... there are people who say that Spain and Italy etc are a lot closer to N Africa than to Europe and they would certainly be right in terms of transparency of corporate behaviour
In Europe, one can avoid a lot of the nonsense by simply flying between major (H24) airports. These will have H24 Customs and most of them have Avgas - even in Italy. You just want (or perhaps not?) to avoid those which charge $500-$800 to land there: London Gatwick, Luton, Stansted, Frankfurt, Munich, etc. All of them have mandatory handling which is usually done by someone like Signature and they think of a number and treble it, and jet operators pay it instantly because they want fresh croissants for the client sitting in the back and $800 is nothing to them.
The harder type of planning is where you are trying to "self handle" (pardon the expression ) and avoid these "mandatory handling" places. Most GA pilots do that.
Well... there are people who say that Spain and Italy etc are a lot closer to N Africa than to Europe and they would certainly be right in terms of transparency of corporate behaviour
In Europe, one can avoid a lot of the nonsense by simply flying between major (H24) airports. These will have H24 Customs and most of them have Avgas - even in Italy. You just want (or perhaps not?) to avoid those which charge $500-$800 to land there: London Gatwick, Luton, Stansted, Frankfurt, Munich, etc. All of them have mandatory handling which is usually done by someone like Signature and they think of a number and treble it, and jet operators pay it instantly because they want fresh croissants for the client sitting in the back and $800 is nothing to them.
The harder type of planning is where you are trying to "self handle" (pardon the expression
) and avoid these "mandatory handling" places. Most GA pilots do that.