Wow. That’s an early start, Emir!
The advantage of being based at a proper airport…
I wonder how to ensure hard parking…
I have been to AERO a number of times and sometimes we got it. Once we got it in a curious spot with very tall walls – like a hangar but with no roof.
But the last couple of times it was grass, and very bad grass, with a good chance of a prop strike. I was then able to do the only prudent thing which was to shut down and all three of us got out and pushed the plane maybe 50m on the grass. And off the grass, on departure.
I won’t be doing that this time because it will be just me, possibly with Justine, and we won’t have the strength to do that.
What is the protocol? One can’t really do it over the radio, it seems, because the frequency is too busy and anyway are the marshalls on the tower frequency?
Maybe those arriving early in the week get hard parking?
Last year, the fuel truck operater and his fellow helped us parking the plane. I guess if they can insist you to park a heavy plane on gravel/grass, you might be able to insist on a couple of helping hands…. “request pushback” of some sort :-)
Can you not just say unable when told where to park?
I did some investigation one week ago when I was at EDNY to pick up a few people. They told me that anybody coming in on the grass runway with a grass runway slot will get grass parking and direct access to the fair ground. Planes coming in on the hard runway get hard parking but this is the wrong side of the airport and I do not know yet how you get to the fair ground. They did however recommend the hard parking because on the grass the risk to somehow get stuck with lots of planes not ready to go ahead of you was reported to be high in previous years.
I will be at hall a5-515 exhibiting all days so anybody is welcome to stop by.
Also bring your noise certificate. They charged me only about half the normal rate because I had a “erhöhter Lärmschutz” certificate.
Planes coming in on the hard runway get hard parking
That was certainly not my experience, on occasions… we just ended up in the long queue of aircraft, being marshalled by a load of blokes waving their arms around.
However the heyday of AERO was years ago. In 2007 we waited for 45 mins at the departure hold… Haven’t seen that since. I think the visitor numbers are way down. Probably some of the other events like Tannheim have sucked away some numbers and people meet up there instead. There isn’t much new stuff in the show.
but this is the wrong side of the airport and I do not know yet how you get to the fair ground.
Yes – you have to wait for a bus.
There is a plus or a minus to both hard and soft parking.
With the hard parking you get, ahem, hard parking, but you have to wait for a bus to get to the show which is at the opposite side of the airport. And, if you depart on a Sunday (the day after the show closes) there may not be a bus so you are better off going to the main airport terminal. As usual with anally retarded airports you still get a bus from there to your plane but it’s very short. It would be good to know if there are buses from the show building to the opposite side on a Sunday because it is a lot less hassle than going through security in the main terminal.
With the soft parking you walk straight to the show, and same on the way back out. But you might get a prop strike 
For some reason there aren’t any slots for grass in the afternoon, although we would qualify (limit is 1000kg MTOM as I recall). Since we have to make a fuel stop (because of the lower MTOM) we had to take asphalt.
Last year we departed on sunday and had no problems to get to the planes. Stayed in the Airport hotel for the last night, though. This year we’ll depart on Friday and hope we get out early enough not to have to file VFR night…
However the heyday of AERO was years ago. In 2007 we waited for 45 mins at the departure hold… Haven’t seen that since. I think the visitor numbers are way down. Probably some of the other events like Tannheim have sucked away some numbers and people meet up there instead.
The show was only every 2nd year until two years ago. That had a big effect on the number of visitors and exhibitors.
Wow. That’s an early start, Emir!
It’s nothing compared to last year – I took off at 4 a.m. LT from Zagreb and landed before 7 a.m. at EDNY.
