Purely academic question of course …
The N coast of Germany is lined with bird sanctuaries up to 2000’. They are virtually impenetrable coming from Denmark and go way out to sea. Once you reach the Dutch border they come down to 1500’ and stick to the coastline which is much more manageable, although the Dutch are known for being ferocious toward infringers.
Is there any dispensation in the event of cloud below 2000’ for bird sanctuaries in Germany? Some of the airspace is class E, so even 2100’ cloudbase won’t cut it. BTW, I’ve read that x country below 2000’ is discouraged in Germany.
Any local knowledge appreciated! Thanks.
You should avoid them if possible, but if necessary, it’s not prohibited to penetrate them. Like when landing on the German north sea island, you have no choice but to fly through them.
Aveling wrote:
BTW, I’ve read that x country below 2000’ is discouraged in Germany.
That’s superseded by SERA. However, Germans are noise sensitive, so overflying of cities and towns should be avoided while flying low. But that’s basic airmenship anyway.
A lot of the bird areas also have dates. If you click on them in SkyDemon for example, it will say september-April or december-February or something.
So depends when you are planning to fly through there.
My former homebase EDWF is inside one of these areas. It didn’t matter much for our training, as during the departure and landing phases you have to cross them anyways and otherwise we usually flew at 2000 to 3000 ft. We also trained emergency landing nearby. In practice the areas don’t play much of a role in flight planning but you can occasionally run into very large flocks of birds, especially near aerodromes inside the sanctuary zones.
Thanks for the replies! The ones I have in mind always seem to be 01-12 or continuous. But now I’m less concerned about flying far out to sea to avoid them.
Aveling wrote:
the Dutch are known for being ferocious toward infringers.
Are they?
Sorry, didn’t mean to offend anyone! And the story about one of their own Police helicopter crews being prosecuted over this may well be apocryphal. Happy to be corrected that it’s OK to fly through these areas if circumstances require it. Is it OK?
