boscomantico wrote:
Some people nowadays call every airfield before their flight and ask all these things, since they don’t have the AIP, which is really annoying.
Don’t entirely agree with this. The AIP is not a legal document in many countries and in some countries not particularly current. If one has learned by experience that the AIP is often not correct, then calling the airfield is not a bad choice for most types of info.
I don’t really agree. In reality, when people get e.g. some opening time info wrong, it is mostly likely because
-they don’t understand how to read AIP entries
-they get local times vs. UTC wrong
-they fail to read NOTAMs in addition to the AIP
There are some very rare cases (France, very ocasionally) where the info (ATS operating hours) in the AIP/NOTAMs are in fact erroneous, but it’s very exceptional.
Anyway, I didn’t say one shouldn’t call the airfield operator if there is a doubt (or for example when intending to land towards the end of the operating day). What I said is that some people nowadays generally call the airfield to get all this data because they never bother to get the official information.
in some countries not particularly current.
Historically, across Europe’s 30 or so countries, the AIPs have been mostly garbage. Or inaccessible e.g. Greece publishing only the book (which was itself mostly garbage and out of date). It is only in recent years that things have improved and one can trust it to a large extent.
Also PPL training has not taught looking at AIPs at all. Maybe nowadays it does but say 5-10 years ago it wasn’t generally taught.
I would phone or email an airport to check really crucial stuff like avgas, even if the AIP says they have it and nothing is notamed.
Does Germany really make a lot of money out of charging for the VACs?
Peter wrote:
Has anyone tried the non-publication of this essential data as a defence? Laws should not be enforceable if the law is not accessible
[Not reflecting my personal opinion but only the legal situation ion Germany]
Has been tried but not successfully. There is no law whatsoever, that a rule is not applicable if you do not have access to a free personal copy of that rule. “Accessibility” in legal terms is sufficiently ensured by the fact that most airfields need to have an up to date copy of the AIP that is available for pilots to do their preflight.
This is by the way not only the situation in aviation with the VACs: In many other areas the same rules apply. Many industry norms and standards are binding for manufacturers although there is no way to obtain a free personal copy. As long as there are enough public libraries where one can get access to these norms for free, courts have no problems with that – even though this might be very inconvenient for the user from a practical standpoint.
Generally on VACs in Germany: Although there are huge discussions it is absolutely clear that if a VAC is published for a given airfield and this VAC contains a traffic pattern, it is mandatory to follow this traffic pattern. And as the “Flugleiter” on an uncontrolled airfield in Germany is not a controller, there is also no way that the “Flugleiter” can authorize you to deviate from this pattern. (There is a certain tendency in German aviation forums that a “Flugleiter” can under no circumstances tell you something you don’t want but in case he tells you something you want his word is worth more than that of the pope ;-)).
Despite popular belief the infamous “Hangelar-Case” already mentioned here never questioned the basic fact that the pattern on the VAC is mandatory – it was solely on the question, what that “mandatory” exactly means, esp. what are acceptable tolerances for VFR pilots to follow such a line on the chart.
Therefore as advice to al foreign pilots visiting Germany: Make yourself familiar with the VACs and stick to the published patterns – even though you might not need to get help on how to land on a 1000m strip …
Peter wrote:
Sounds like there is a case for having georeferenced VACs, as a GPS moving map. How would one obtain that?
Garmin Pilot is offering these in it’s latest releases (at no additional subscription costs if you do not want the original VACs but only the flightpaths of the patterns). From the ones I have looked at (as I have been flying there) they seem to be quite accurate.
Would be awesome if they also found a way to show them in there TXI/GTN avionics…
Peter wrote:
Sounds like there is a case for having georeferenced VACs, as a GPS moving map. How would one obtain that?
SkyDemon has that.
SkyDemon offers georeferenced VACs as well (though one needs to pay for access for these countries that require a VAC subscription).
The VAC automatically superimposes itself on the standard map when approaching destination so it is easy to follow convoluted patterns at unfamiliar airports.
When operating in offline mode one needs to download the VACs for the planned airports prior to flight (however once downloaded they are stored – no need to repeat the process).
I have always found when flying to German fields that polite correspondence with either the Airport or the local Flying Club has always resulted in my getting a copy of their local plates without recourse to ‘Annual’ subscriptions.
As far as Hangelar Bonn EDKB is concerned they publish a "Photographic Circuit Diagram ": https://www.edkb.de/ and willingly will send you their plates in response to an email request clearly shown on their Web site.
In addition, as already mentioned, their circuit is clearly geo-referenced on SD.
According to some pilots, German airfields who put the VACs on their website got pursued by the DFS (or LBA?) to remove them.
