Trip report: Island Adventures, Shoreham EGKA – Grenoble LFLJ – Elba Marina di Campo LIRJ – Alghero LIEA – Calvi LFKC – Orleans St Denis LFOZ

Boscomantico said:

re danger areas: in contrast to (some of them) in the UK, elsewhere you are entitled to cross any danger area at your own discretion. This is the ICAO rule. (Treating danger areas more like prohibited areas is a UK-specific airlaw quirk).

Can anyone point me to more information on this – it seems not worrying about such things is a major advantage of IFR over long distances, but for now I’m VFR only, beyond the UK whee I can use IR(R) so would like to understand better the rules.

Peter wrote:

What aircraft would you change to?

Guess? I have doubled my hours since I bought it so have more capacity to do engine/gear management etc.

The only aircraft I can find that can carry four with similar range, speed and short-field/grass capability is a Cessna 182

But a really tidy TB20 would fit the touring mission better than anything – I seem to remember a conversation at Shoreham where you advised me just that – looks like you were right!

boscomantico wrote:

Really nice cockpit on your DR401. Would you care to share what the price tag of this AC was, all included?

You need to budget over €400k with everything on it – G-ITOY was the demonstrator so they made a small reduction – main thing was saving a year on the waiting list- three years ago I got a quote for the same aircraft with minimum IFR equipment (round dials) for €327, including long range tanks. You can get a minimum equipment VFR machine as low as €260k – all with VAT -quite a range of prices for the same airframe!

If you’re actually interested in changing, it may soon crop up on :
http://www.mistralaviation.co.uk/pre-owned-robin-aircraft.html

Well spotted *boscomantico** the landing/parking at Calvi was only €32 Euro – I was looking at the fuel bill.

Thanks everyone for the kind comments – yes it IS a very capable aircraft and I chose it for reasons of safety and economy. The safety has been as expected, it’s simple to fly – one lever, no gear, mixture, cowl flaps, carb heat, prop pitch – so there’s very little you can do to harm the engine (so long as you give it two minutes to warm up and down on each flight). As to the economy -the fuel consumption is FRUGAL but I was expecting some of my friends to join me to fly it… yet life got in the way and it hasn’t done the hours I hoped for, so I’m thinking of selling soon, shouldn’t be too hard to find a new home since there are hardly any around.