Lee, as well as Bournemouth, are still under consideration, but in terms of convenience, Southampton is the best option. I have asked my contact there whether any of the others could work, but I’m still awaiting a reply.
Good afternoon Nick P95:
I saw your post only today, so please excuse the tardy response, I use S Coast airfields regularly inbound from Cannes, Guernsey and Norwich (I have a nephew at Warsash whom I regularly ferry to the destinations above), for what it is worth, and from my experience, I recommend the following:
1. Use Lee on Solent: reasonable price, plenty of parking and receptive.
2. If you need an instrument approach (to break cloud) Southampton are ‘happy’ to assist you in this if not helpful in parking – use the facility,
3. Operations out of hours at Lee are possible on provision of insurance documentation, most likely do-able via e-mail / telephone,
4. If you need public transport Lee – Southampton £15.00 and trains to most locations from there,
5. In the UK with so much Class G airspace, VFR is a non-event: speak to London Info and anyone they suggest, they are very helpful,
6. As said previously, file your flight plan and GAR and stay below the London TMA.
If you want to use Southampton, no issue, gonrightvahead but be prepared for the bill, they know how to invoice and, despite their avowed intention to ‘woo’ light GA, this information does not seems to get disseminated to the people at the coal-face.
If you want to talk it through, PM me and I’ll be happy to exchange e-nails or give you my telephone number.
So, the trip was completed last Friday.
We flew into Southampton as we needed to be in Nursling, and I think the added taxi costs from Lee vs Southampton somewhat offset the difference in landing fees and so on. For future reference, we were charged the following for a C172 (1089kg MTOW):
Landing charge: £27.15
Handling charge: £27.50
Parking charge: £14.40 (1115Z to 1615Z)
Fuel (100 liters AVGAS): £169.07
All these prices are excluding 20% VAT
It was a great trip, and when I get the pictures, I’ll make a little trip report.
