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Secrets of Greece?

spend your money where you're welcome, not where you're treated like sh*t.

I would really not use that phrase anywhere near in connection with Greece.

Justine and I have been there many times, both in the TB20 and by airline (we tend to do one of each, each year) and our "people experience" there, to date, is 100%.

There are very few countries I would say that about. In fact I can think of just one: Croatia.

As a pilot I've been treated badly at some places, but never Greece. In fact the UK, with its yellow jacket "can't do this" jobsworth culture can be pretty hard work.

Greece's problem, from the point of view of a visiting GA pilot, is that the setup is quite restrictive, but it is there in black and white and you plan around it.

Today I flew the plane for a "owner assisted service" to Biggin Hill - all of about 15 minutes' flying time. I phoned them up before the flight, to check there are no issues. Total time for the phone call... 30 seconds. Biggin is not PPR but why not phone? They might have just had a crash which closed the runway.

Two hours customs and immigration

I've never had that in Greece but you can potentially get that sort of thing anywhere if you turn up at the same time as the massive Ryanair queue is being processed.

Such as getting a VFR chart finally plus others.

There are VFR charts for Greece, sort of. My first two trips there (Sitia and Santorini) were done VFR. Basically Greece has a bit of CAS around each airport, and a big TMA around the Athens area.

I believe that there are relatively few places in Europe where the situation is such as Kerkira re alternates

You just need a decent long range plane. But let's face it - how many people will be flying a C152 from Germany or Switzerland, never mind from the UK, to Greece?

Belgrade, you are supposed to call ahead, which I did not see and therefore did not do. Nobody mentioned anything

I guessed that was probably true but I prefer to not bet against known odds, by ignoring an email from the airport saying I need the CAA permission.

Actually the permission was easy to get but on the last occassion we had enough fuel in the tanks to skip Macedonia and Serbia altogether, and avoiding landings is always a good thing

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter,

in Belgrade, landing with an aircraft with your tank volume is a pretty good idea, considering that the last price of Avgas I heard from there is € 1.20. And it might have changed anyhow, the restriction you mention was not in force in 2011 nor in 2012.

And no, I am NOT talking of a Cessna 150, but a Mooney M20C with 550-600 NM planning range. Any airport which has no alternate within about 1 flight hour becomes a problem here, as it limits the range dramatically.

Best regards Urs

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

This is what I have from 2012:

NO SLOTS REQUIRED FOR BEG
NO VHF FREQ FOR HANDLING
FOR OVERFLIGHT,  LANDING  PERMITS AND NAVIGATION FEES CONTACT 
FLIGHT  AUTHORITY  DEPARTMENT 
SITA:   BEGTC8X, BEGOMYA                        E-MAIL: [email protected];     
FAX  + 381 11 311 7518, +381  11  2286 198, +381  11  3104879  
TEL  + 381 11 292 7017, +381  11  209 7808, +381  11 3104851
ALL  CHARGES  HAVE  TO  BE  PAID  BY CREW IN  CASH
OR  BY VALID CREDIT CARD (DINERS,  VISA, MASTER, 
AMERICAN EXPRESS (AMEX)  OR  EURO  CARD).  
FOR  PAYMENT ON CREDIT (ADVANCE PAYMENT) PLEASE CONTACT OUR COMMERCIAL DEPARTMENT 
TO SEND YOU PRO FORMA INVOICE WITH EXPECTED CHARGES.
TEL/FAX + 381 11 2286125, + 381 11 2286 188, +381112094844   MR. M. VUJADINOVIC         
e-mail: [email protected];  [email protected]         
OVER COLLECTIONS WILL BE REFUNDED AND UNDER COLLECTIONS WILL BE INVOICED, 
ADDITIONALLY.
    THIS IS LINK FOR PRICE LISTS
     []() 
IN ARR/ DEP  YOUR PAX AND CREW WILL USE GENERAL AVIATION TERMINAL !
GENERAL AVIATION TERMINAL WORKING TIME:      07:00-21:00 LT  /  0500 - 1900 UTC
      FUEL SUPPLIER NAME :
        
   NIS JUGOPETROL   TEL +381 11 311 1426, +381 11 311 9488, + 381 11 209 7023
                                       FAX: + 381 11 2286 378,    PRICE IS    2, 26614   USDOL/ KG
                                    CARNETS:  Jeppesen World Fuel Services Card, Avcard,
                                                            US Government AIR card,  
OR CREDIT CARDS 

NB.                                                                           
APROX PRICE FOR HANDLING FOR 1 DAY PARKING AND 1 PX IN DEP  IS:
            Infrastructure: 18.00   EUR
    Handling:   30.00   EUR
    Landing:    12.00   EUR
    Parking:    3.60    EUR
    Lighting:       EUR
    Use of air bridge:      EUR
    PAX TAX:    16.50   EUR
    Security TAX:   3.30    EUR
    DCS:        EUR
    Cute:       EUR
    Royality PAX TAX:   0.98    EUR
    Royality Cargo TAX: 0.00    EUR
    GAT PAX TAX:    15.00   EUR
            
            
    Total:  99.38   EUR


Airport Nikola Tesla JSC Belgrade 
Flight Coordination   D  Mandic
Tel:  +381 11 209 7345
Fax: +381 11 2286 500
SITA: BEGOWXH; BEGAPXH
E-mail: [email protected]

So you still needed to get a permission to overfly or land.

What is the zero fuel range of the M20C? I know one pilot who had a Mooney M20-something which had a zero fuel range of 2000nm. Shortly before he sold it (and packed up flying totally, it seems) he flew from Plymouth to Corfu nonstop, which is about 1300nm.

Any airport which has no alternate within about 1 flight hour becomes a problem here, as it limits the range dramatically.

I think that must be quite common, if you exclude alternates which are a dump in which you would not want to end up unless it was going to save your life

(email addresses edited out)

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

@Urs: the Belgrade pirep was mine. :-) When I converted the amount that I had paid for the fuel into Euros, I couldn't believe it, and ran the numbers three more times. Yipeeh! (I however cannot exclude the possibility that the refuelling people messed up their calculations, though. Or, they might not have applied certain taxes for some reason. I just don't know.)

@Peter: why don't you just look things up in the AIP? GEN1.2 of the serbian AIP says it very clearly that private flights don't require any approvals (a flightplan is sufficient).

What probably happened it that the person you corresponded with just copied the AIP provisions for non-private flights. Maybe you didn't make it specifically clear that your flight was 100% private? Or maybe the person just didn't notice the specifics you had given (or: he didn't know the subtle differences). But again, a quick look into the AIP and the doubts wouldn't have come up in the first place. Nowadays, with the EAD site, these things merely take seconds to verify.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Dedicated to Mooney Driver, things you won't find in the Balkan destinations you mentioned ;-)





LGMG Megara, Greece

BTW, one additional good thing about Iraklion LGIR: the airport and fueling is H24, i.e. round the clock 7 days a week. So there are two GA friendly airports on Crete both offering AVGAS and immigration. Not much to complain about.

petakas, what is the current status of Megara airfield? Last time I tried it took me about one and a half months to get the permit, is it still like this?

LSZK, Switzerland

Peter,

what they did is give you the address for INQUIRIES for overflight e.t.c. permissions. AIP sais clearly, private flights need a flight plan only filed 2 hours before ETA if I remember right.

Zero Fuel range differs widely depending on altitude and power setting. A good figure for initial calculation is about 630 NM @ 75% or 670 NM @ long range cruise. With the 45' reserve this means a plannable range of 550 NM @ 75% or 580 NM @ LRC. Book TAS is 150 kt @ 75%, 130 kt @ LRC.

With High Speed Cruise (Max power), speed will increase to 160 kts (never seen that happen but that is what the book sais) but @ 12 GPH, therefore range decreases to about 600 NM absloute and 500 NM with reserves.

There is an ultra long range cruise available in the PHO (never tried it) which will increase range considerably but increase flight time massively. Power setting is 17" @ 1800 RPM which gives a fuel flow of 6 gph and about 105 kt TAS. The Range Mooney gives for this is 740 NM absolute and about 660 NM with reserve. Basically this reduces the M20 to the values of a Piper 28-140...

I did an excel sheet out of the mess of the POH reworking the reserves and ranges to include climb and descent. They are more conservative than the POH but work fine. Longest Trip I have done so far was Belgrade-Zürich which is 550 NM on that route with 4-22 flight time (headwind) and remaining fuel was 33 liters or about 1 hour.

I know one pilot who had a Mooney M20-something which had a zero fuel range of 2000nm. Shortly before he sold it (and packed up flying totally, it seems) he flew from Plymouth to Corfu nonstop, which is about 1300nm.

Well, the M20 series includes a LOT of different airplanes :) This one sounds like an Ovation or an Acclaim, both of which are VERY different animals than a 1965 "C" Model. Occasionally you do find Mooneys which have so called "Monroy Tanks" which adds 36 USG to your fuel capacity, one thing I'll do at some stage. With it, my airplane would get a range of 1000 NM to 1200 NM too.

The classic Mooneys today in use are mostly C and E models which differ by engine only. The C has a 180hp O360 A1D, the E a 200 hp IO360. Both have 52 USG capacity. The "C" is the most popular and has still the highest number flying. With Monroys they will have a capacity of 88 USG, but will then carry 2 folks plus nothing. The E is about 10-15 kts faster than the "C".

I do know of one "E" Model which has an endurance of 15 hours..... "slightly" modified and not for me... It has one thing in common with the Airbus 330-200: Fill the tanks on the empty airplane and it's over MTOW.

The "F" model has the same engine as the E, but longer fuselage and 64 USG. The F was then given into the capable hands of LoPresti which turned it into the "J" or 201. Same engine and fuel, 10 kts faster (160 kts average).

Top of the line and "current" models are the Ovation with a IO550 (270hp) which has a standard range of around 1880 NM and the turbo version of it, the Acclaim with a TSIO550 (280hp) has a standard range of 1440 NM. Both are available with long range tanks which boost their range to 2400/1800 NM respectively but reduce payload to 2 small children :) The Acclaim is still the fastest production single with 242 kts TAS.

Re the videos, I know Peter!!! I've been there, it is great. That is why I bother to calculate or look. Same range and other problems are eminent if I want to fly to Angola or Kinshasa but do I care that it's difficult to go there? Not quite.

Philip, yes, I thought it was. Took me a while to figure out your nick here and where it came from....

1.20 is good news, I did pay 1.50 and if it had not been a transit stop we'd have broken out the champaign!

Best regards Urs

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

what is the current status of Megara airfield? Last time I tried it took me about one and a half months to get the permit, is it still like this?

tomjnx I flew on Sunday from Megara LGMG. I spotted a group of 3~4 foreign aircraft at the apron who were on the move and the kind CAA lady was walking out there to accommodate them while I taxied by. In general I know (and see) that it is "kinda packed" but in the ethos that all aircraft must be at positions with available tie downs etc. so as to take care of CAA liabilities against any (wind) damages etc. If CAA would accept aircraft to park at any available spot (without tie downs) there would be double capacity. This is the reason they present some delays in allocating available spots.

I've heard of examples like yours but I've heard also about immediate response in providing space to visitors. I guess it is a matter of available space. Even in busy summer periods based aircraft leave for vacation destinations and available spaces turn up.

3 weeks ago a UK pilot asked me about similar information. He then contacted Megara and last weekend he was parked in Megara while on vacations to Hydra island. He left yesterday back for UK. So I can only guess he got a fast response. I pointed him to this thread, when back home to give some feedback.

RB when you're back give us some feedback on Megara responce please ;-)

LGMG Megara, Greece

Email from UK pilot I mentioned while stuck in Marseille from weather:

Hi, We had a very rough trip southbound being first caught in embedded cb over mountains of Albania!

Then at 12,000 ft inGreece getting severe down draught of 2,000 feet per min.

On arrival in Megara and again on departure everything was perfect. Excellent ATC and much help with finding parking space and general assistance. Your taxi driver was perfect and waited for us and again met the return ferry and brought us back to Megara. Great man.

Wonderful surprise on leaving to have again such a friendly reception at the office and NO landing fee and NO parking fee. My rocket route IFR flight plan was in the system and all OK

Only stupid drama came after start up when ATC told me no permission had been received from Lgkr and would I shut down and telephone ops at kerkyra?!

One mobile phone cal to them and again told them I had agreed handling with Olympic and all was well and I could come.

Nice IFR flight and landing at kerkyra....however very very slow and hot sitting on Tarmac waiting for fuel. Olympic agent very helpful and pushed for fuel but still a long wait.

From there direct to Bastia in Corsica. 5.35 mins.. A long flight for a Cessna 172

Now grounded in very bad weather near Marseilles.. Hoping to get home tomorrow.

Many thanks for all your great help and advice especially the taxi driver. I will look at those web sites.

Best wishes

LGMG Megara, Greece
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