70 Years LKRK Aeroclub (airshow)

Aviathor wrote:

From Germany you may not need a flight plan. But you cannot generalise that to all Schengen countries. From France you definitely need a flightplan, and I would think you need one flying from Belgium as well.

Flyer59’s information is correct from the Czech point of view: they require no flight plans for VFR flights to/from Schengen countries. Wether it is true for the other party, it depends. For example for the crossing of the Hungarian-Slovak border the Slovaks require no flight plan or transponder (for VFR flights), while the Hungarians require them – therefore you have to have them if you want to cross the border in either direction.

Flyer59 wrote:

Coming from a Schengen country no flightplan is necessary

no need for a flight plan has something to do with Schengen (introduced after CZ joined Schengen), but Aviathor is right. The rules for CZ in a nutshell – no flight plan required is you come from/to Germany. Flight plan is required is you are flying from/to Austria. Yes, you can fly with no flight plan from Austria to Germany and from Germany to CZ.
Flying to Poland/Slovakia requires no flight plan as long as you are not entering controlled airspace. To make it more complex, if you fly glider, you can fly into Austria with no flight plan as well.

No, I do not think I need to file a flight plan. Not even if I could fly direct: Belgium requires filing if and only if required by the other country or countries. Germany certainly doesn’t, I never file for flights BE < = > D. But I’ll be refuelling in Germany anyway so the point is moot, for me.

Thanks for all the info! I am sure visual navigation in Germany will be the hardest part of the flight, CZ seems to offer quite a lot of visual reference points. Reckon I’ll be doing my bit of an ultralighter’s IFR: “I Follow Roads”.

Flyer59 wrote:

rom the Czech VFR Manual:

5.1.1VFR flight plans shall be submitted exclusively by means of air traffic services reporting offices (ARO). All VFR flight plans shall include information on the phone contact of the submitter. VFR flight plans shall be submitted for all flights except for:

a) Domestic flights and flights within Schengen area, conducted in the airspace of “G” and “E” class, for which no alerting service is required by pilot.
b) Domestic flights and flights within Schengen area, conducted in the airspace of “G” and “E” class, to or from CTR/TMA of D class.

please copy also the next line after 5.1.1

Note: A pilot-in-command, intending to perform an international flight within Schengen area, shall consult AIPs of the appropriate states, whether the FPL submission is not established as obligatory.

so the summary is – Czech Republic is not requesting a flight plan from the Schengen area. but other countries might. The only country having no limitation is Germany.

Flyer59 wrote:

To me that means that you might need a FPL FROM CZ to a Schengen country, but not when you fly TO CZ … no?

These requirements normally work both ways. I.e. if at least one of the parties require a flight plan, it will be required for a crossing in either direction.

Here is what the Belgian AIP has to say in ENR1.10 (I think we discussed this before, actually):

That actually looks like making sense, which is not what we are used to see, here, from authorities
What I do wonder is why Schengen is made the norm; possibly the line had to be drawn somewhere and Schengen made as good a line as any.