Airborne again.
We are in 2015, 1987 was 28 years ago!
I flew to Italy many times, down south to Firenze and Luca. If they ask for a PPR call, if they ask to write OK on a pile of forms then write OK, just make sure that there is fuel where you go and avoid the large airports. Do they want you in Stansted and Luton? They also don’t want you in Milan and Rome. Fly to GA airfields and you will have the best time ever. Great country and great people. Make sure that you know where you go and study the restrictions, don’t mess them up and they will leave you alone to fly as you want.
Easter time this year,my troubled flight to Roma Urbe under an approved VFR FPL.
A quick descend to 1000’ over Ponza VOR. Frequency change to Roma Info. A long dragging leg till the coastal town of Anzio.In the meantime,communications were nil due to distance,lack of repeaters and low altitude.
In the second leg from Anzio till Settebagni at 1000’ MSL,clearance from Pratica di Mare is needed continued with another possible clearance from Ciampino or talking to Roma Info following the famous VFR Routes.
Roma Info instead,started a frenzy issue saying that Urbe calls and says that I cannot park there ! Next they said ,I could not LAND there.I replied that I was on an approved FPL and I couldnt tolerate this behavior since I was exhausted after 9 hours of flying.Then they said the “pilot friendly” verdict :“…we’ll give you a phone number to call and discuss your problem with them !”. In the meanwhile they were screaming that I was annoying Ciampino (by flying VFR Routes at 200"AGL !!!
I replied that calling from phone is not a convenient method ,especialy inside the noisy 172,plus making circles over the roofs till the roaming process rearanges to new provider etc…After all,the phone was back and could not catch it. And finaly,my fuel is ending.
Sir,do you declare an emergency ? No,but if you keep me like that,I will have one. I am going to land Urbe ANYWAY and let the Polizia arrest me.Cant negotiate this with you any more.
When I appeared in Urbe frequency,the Tower said nothing in particular,let me land and park.The GA airport of Rome had no more than 10 aircraft at the apron.As soon as I killed the throttle,Polizia + Customs appeared asking me politely our passports .These I presented,had a quick look around and said good bye. But I asked them,what was the issue with my arrival,my presence anyway ? They said they knew nothing and maybe the guy up there had problems of his own.
My departure ,days later,was uneventful. Does anyone understand anything of this ?
" I replied that I was on an approved FPL and I couldnt tolerate this behavior "
This happend to me last year at Krakow, they refused my landing due to limited parking area. But in the consequence this was my fault since I forgot to check the notams. AIS or Euro Control do check the filed route, approve or reject. They do not care about airport policy.
In 2013 I have also been to Lucca, VFR to and IFR back, everything went straightforward and smooth.
There is no such thing as an “approved” VFR flight plan.
In general, nobody looks at VFR flight plans. They are just AFTN messages – like emails. And like emails, you cannot assume any acceptance or rejection, and like emails you cannot tell if anybody actually read it. Somebody at the destination airport usually sees it but, due to union driven job demarcation common at airports, the organisation ensures that nobody else at the airport is informed about the arriving aircraft even when this would be highly relevant e.g.
Handlers usually look at flight plans but if you are not going through a handler and handling is not mandatory, he won’t take any action either.
There are exceptions but they are rare. I know of only one from the past 10 years when somebody looked at a VFR flight plan of mine and had something to say about it (Montenegro).
A while ago, when my base had an option of out of hours ops with a prior-day PNR, I heard a sad event when a pilot arrived and was refused a landing because he had not done the PNR. He was desperate (attending some business meeting) and said his VFR flight plan was “accepted” so he must be allowed to land. I felt sorry for him and for the UK PPL training which gives people a PPL without teaching them the basics of flying from A to B. Today, there is no PPR/PNR there but also we lost the out of hours option…
Peter: Treviso and Oristano I would not touch with a bargepole.
Your issues with AVGAS aside, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Treviso. We have a regular customer who flies there quite often and there were never any problems at all. Additionally, they must have the lowest landing and handling fees anywhere in Europe as we only pay 140€ for a Citation including handling (similar sized airports like Exeter and Farnborough like to charge something like 1000€ and 2000€ respectively for the same service…).
As long as you can sort out the AVGAS problems somehow, Italy is a wonderful place for flying.
Filing thru the skyguide portal I always get approval/modification messages (by text and on the platform) for VFR flight plans. I even got a rejection when Menorca refused to receive my outbound flight plan (also filed thru skyguide) on customs grounds (no direct flight to Switzerland allowed). Skyguide phoned me up and informed me of the rejection, and gave me a local number to sort it out.
Similarly flying down to Zadar it was I think Pula radar who advised me enroute I didn’t file the proper Adria route.
So I wouldn’t quite say “nobody” looks at flight plans – depending on where you go they seem to be distributed quite well.
MedFlyer,
they said ,I could not LAND there.I replied that I was on an approved FPL and I couldnt tolerate this behavior since I was exhausted after 9 hours of flying
Sorry for you, but It sounds like your behaviour was quite unprofessional there. Quite possibly, you just missed a NOTAM or a subtle line in the AIP. Can’t tolerate this because you are tired??
Peter already said it, but I will say it also: from where comes the widespread notion among pilots that flightplans are somehow “approved”? I just don’t get it. It’s a myth that just doesn’t disappear.
Finally, if I were from Greece, I probably wouldn’t complain all too loud about pointless parking restrictions… 
Filing thru the skyguide portal I always get approval/modification messages (by text and on the platform) for VFR flight plans.
That only advises approval by the agency which picks up your flight plan and (possibly manually) re-enters it into the AFTN. I say “manually” because I believe the French Olivia system has a manual step within it.
The German DFS will probably perform a similar role, until Germany goes the “UK way” and decides to save the staff salaries.
I even got a rejection when Menorca refused to receive my outbound flight plan (also filed thru skyguide) on customs grounds (no direct flight to Switzerland allowed). Skyguide phoned me up and informed me of the rejection, and gave me a local number to sort it out.
That is very good of Menorca but it is very rare.
Similarly flying down to Zadar it was I think Pula radar who advised me enroute I didn’t file the proper Adria route.
My experience of flying down there, several times, is that Croatia didn’t care at all about the ADRIA route. Maybe they changed, or maybe you just got a new ATCO at Zadar… who knows? In Class G, you are entitled to fly anywhere (in the civilised world). These VFR routes go back to the days before GPS, though some of them are suggestions for routings on which a CAS transit is more likely to be approved.
So I wouldn’t quite say “nobody” looks at flight plans – depending on where you go they seem to be distributed quite well.
OK… maybe more people (than I suggested) physically / optically look at them, but they never constitute the permission for a flight A to B which many pilots believe them to be.
My point about Pula radar (nb – enroute not destination) is that they could see my flight plan and they suggested I fly the shorter one – not that they necessarily cared which Adria I flew. Similarly flying out of Figari – Ajaccio departures knew who I was and where I was going to, despite not taking off from Ajaccio.
Of course it doesn’t necessarily mean “route approval”; “flight approval” or “landing approval”.
Few days ago Czech guy was refused to land in Split and had to land in Zadar because he didn’t contact Split airport and ensured patking place. During conversation with ATC he was insisting that his IFR plan was accepted and that he didn’t understand where the problem was. He was blocking frequency discussing the issue several times and then I asked ACT to clarify to him: flight plan doesn’t have anything with airport’s acceptance of your operations, moreover Split is clearly defined in AIP and NOTAM as PPR from April to November.
Back to original topic, I’ve never had any serious issue flyinng or landing anywhere in Italy.
