American who moved to Europe here. IFR will be way easier, because there’s not much difference flying IFR in Europe vs North America. As others have said, use the Autorouter to generate a route, then paste it into ForeFlight. VFR requires you to learn a bunch of extra local stuff everywhere you plan to fly and land, and I would argue that it’s nontrivial. It can certainly be done, but it will complicate your planning. You’re flying a twin across the Atlantic and through Europe, where €4/L avgas is common. The Eurocontrol charges are insignificant in comparison.
What you do need to put your attention to are the customs and immigration procedures, PPR requirements, and avgas availability for the various countries/airports. Understand which countries are part of Schengen (free movement of people) vs the customs union (free movement of goods) and the requirements for the countries where you enter/exit these areas. The UK has its own requirements as well. Then check the AIP (included in a European FF subscription) for prior notification/permission requirements for the airports you intend to fly. Also make sure the field has avgas, and that you’re able to pay for it using a US credit card.
Feel free to PM me if you want some help with any of this!
lionel wrote:
The “common belief” around here is that it is the MTOW of the individual planes. That’s why we have STCs to reduce MTOW to 1999kg, why some planes can be bought with MTOW 1999kg or with higher MTOW, etc. If you have contrary information, please quote it exactly and show a reference.
I looked it up again after your post, and looks like you’re mainly right and I’m mainly wrong. Not sure, I could have sworn it was different when I looked it up a few months ago.
https://www.eurocontrol.int/sites/default/files/2021-10/2021-10-21-customer-guide-to-charges.pdf
end of page 6, top of page 7
They use your individual MTOW if so entered on your fleet declaration. If not, they’ll use the MTOW of the heaviest aircraft of the same type known to exist.
Maybe I should look into that fleet declaration thing…
@digits, IFR is going to be much simpler.
VFR might be mostly a little bit cheaper (depends on route – it could be shorter VFR or IFR plus in some places you pay terminal charges no matter what), if you keep in mind the costs of fuel, but there is a caveat:
- when you fly IFR, you should normally be OK, if the route validated and the flight plan submitted succesfully;
- when you fly VFR, you are responsible for avoiding all the controlled airspace, danger zones, restricted & prohibited areas.
Please keep in mind that if you are unfamiliar with the rules and if you bust the wrong airspace/prohibited area, in some countries you’ll pay a fine of a few thousand Euros – that will pay all your Eurocontrol charges many times over.
I think in your case paying the charges is going to be like an insurance and also a fee for convinience.
So as others have mentioned, try Autorouter (it is free) – this would show you the actual costs you are likely to incur. It is not going to be that bad, believe me.
Your handling fees at Signature-infested airports (or Fraport for that matter) will make you think twice about going to big places through…
looks like you’re mainly right and I’m mainly wrong
I don’t suppose Eurocontrol will be exactly advertising the existence of the <2000kg STCs 
Some European CAAs have refused to accept some of them. Some previous threads here, but IIRC the Meridian one makes the plane illegal with full fuel and nobody inside, so it is “arguable”. On N-reg it was accepted though.
IIRC, the Extra 500 one forbids the use of one of the fuel tanks (on each side) in order not to have the same flaw… but doesn’t physically obstruct the filling hole nor disable the fuel system taking fuel from these tanks in any way.
I personally avoid coordinates; only database waypoints, even if that makes the route around some airspace a tiny bit longer. That assures that the avionics understand the route and also that no ARO or ATC unit will ever complain about the route.
That’s a good point you raise there. I didn’t file this yet and change it for 5 letter waypoints.
There’s a VFR filing guide in FF which ARO/AFTN accepts which waypoint format.
Could you post the text?
I just checked and I was mistaken. The guide only says which countries support VFR filing.
FF support explained some time back that
At this time, ForeFlight does not support VFR waypoints in Europe. The “E” in the route is causing the error, “Estimated flight time exceeds the given fuel endurance”. Our engineers have an open case to correct this and I’ve added your ticket to it. We don’t have a timeline for its completion but know that we are working to fix this issue. We will let our customers know as soon as this feature is available. As a workaround, you can select the nearest IFR waypoint in the route or use a LAT/LONG and then file VFR.
