Another harrisonfordesque occurrence

Last night (26/05/20) around 21:00 LT, an M-20J, registration OE-DSF, entered the Prague CTR without communicating with ATC, then proceeded to land on a runway closed for maintenance. The pilot did not respond to repeated calls by the tower, nor to light gun signals. Allegedly, the pilot is a 79-year-old German citizen. He is currently in police custody.

Another near miss

This one is doing the social media right now

No idea of the origin or location or even age.

I posted it because it illustrates really well the principle that a target on a genuine collision course is a stationary point in your field of view.

Petition to save Berlin-Tegel from total closing

This is an effort to raise awareness as to the irreversible long-term consequences of the planned complete shut down of flight operations at Tegel with the opening of the new BER terminals.

This is continued over from this thread

The proposal is to keep it open for use by GA and emergency services. While resulting in a huge decrease in environmental impact, it remains available for any longer-term potential use in the coming decades with new eco-friendly aero-transportation systems.

In the meantime, GA use is still compatible with some of the current planned development.

Its importance is beyond Berlin due to the iconic and terrible trend-setting of such a main EU capital resulting with one single accessible airport for GA and, worse still, emergency services and disaster relief, if Tegel shuts-down.

Please read and sign the petition here

Thanks!

Would you depart with a probably faulty alternator?

This UK rag has a report on someone with a Saratoga who departed Calvi (Corsica) for the UK. He had to divert when it packed up properly enroute, and come back later with a mechanic and a new alternator.

He is asking: Should I ever have departed Calvi? Should I have diverted to
the nearest airfield? Should I have switched off the autopilot to preserve the battery? Should I have
also switched off the GPS 430 – and stay with map and compass? And should it have been wheels
down or not?

It’s a good Q. I suspect, given it was Calvi, that most people would get out of there to somewhere, anywhere, with some facilities and transport home.

EASA non commercial fractional ownership

Apparently it is perfectly legal to sell shares in an aircraft (or company owning an aircraft) which makes the buyer of those an owner and thus he can hire a pilot and fly as a passenger in „his“ aircraft. Taking for instance a typical SEP, this would equate to non-aoc required flights according NCO.

Some companies have multiple aircraft and through some sort of management contract the part share (fractional) owner of one aircraft can utilize all aircraft in the fleet.

What is the minimum % of ownership that is required for the law to accept it as „fractional“? Which law mandates this (national or EASA/EU)?

Any pointers to somebody who really knows this? Any experiences? Thanks!

EuroGA Airports Database

Finally, after many requests over the years, and discussed previously, here it is, and is ready for your contributions

Initially, please take a quick look at the FAQ.

Then if you go to the Search Database tab, and press Search you will find all airports with reports.

The objective behind this project is to produce an airport database with lots of quality reports on good destinations and a nice user interface. Multiple reports on the same airport are very much encouraged.

It specifically does not carry stuff which a pilot needs to get from proper sources e.g. runway dimensions.

There are some style related issues which are being worked on, but right now we need you to submit some reports on great, and not so great, places you have been to. Do feel free to report on your home base (enter “based” where shown) too.

While stocks last, there will be a free EuroGA t-shirt, mailed anywhere in Europe, to each person contributing 10 reports with photos. We have M L XL and XXL. These are good quality t-shirts.

And finally do feel free to email back if you have any feedback or encounter any difficulties.