Flying in Luxembourg?

Remember that Luxembourg is a small country. Depending upon which part of the country you live in, you might like to consider a drive across the border to France. French aeroclubs are usually VERY friendly and flying in France (VFR or IFR) is very relaxed with good ATC en-route services not unlike the US. I think Villerupt is closest? Might be worth considering? Similarly Belgium & Gemany, but I cant comment on what airfield are close to the border, though flying costs are likely to be similar to Luxembourg, as I know Belgians who fly from France for this reason.

Regards, SD..

jpower wrote:

The regulation says “…minimum experience of at least 50 hours of flight time under IFR as PIC on aeroplanes”, but I’ve heard both sides and can’t be sure. If it’s 50 hours on an IFR plan, we track Hobbs time here in the US, from startup to shutdown. Obviously even on IFR flights there will be some taxi time that’s neither IFR nor VFR; do I have to apply some assumption across the board that I have 0.2 hours of taxi time per flight, for example?

What regulation are you (and others) referring to? I can’t find this in part-FCL.

Anyway, EASA always counts IFR time — not instrument time — so taxi time is included. This is clear from the log book example in the AMC to FCL.050 where — for a given flight — the total flight time and the IFR time are the same. The definitions in FCL.010 make clear that flight time is block time — i.e. taxi time should be included.

But Hobbs time will be slightly too high as you don’t begin to taxi the moment the engine starts and you don’t shutdown the moment you park the aircraft.

Frankly, jpower, if you are used to GA and the freedom in the US, it must be hell of a good job for you to forego that. Europe is VERY different and a lot more expensive to fly in than the US. If you read in this forum a bit, then you will see some of the pitfalls.

Quite some people would love to emigrate to the US if they could for the sake of GA flying. I don’t think anyone in the US would remotly consider coming to Europe to fly instead.

Hey thats not completely true. When you fly your own plane into Venice Lido or Saanen in Switzerland you are having an experience that you will not have anywhere in N America.

Buckerfan wrote:

Hey thats not completely true. When you fly your own plane into Venice Lido or Saanen in Switzerland you are having an experience that you will not have anywhere in N America.

I agree. The history, food and culture you can access here is amazing. Yes the flying is more hassle but it isn’t that bad.

Europe certainly has plenty of great scenery but there is vastly more hassle when it comes to accessing airports. The variations in culture also often don’t work in one’s favour.

BTW, I would have thought that Luxembourg would have the same exemptions in PPL training as Hawaii – you can’t do any “cross country” flights

Welcome to EuroGA, jpower

Buckerfan wrote:

When you fly your own plane into Venice Lido or Saanen in Switzerland you are having an experience that you will not have anywhere in N America.

America is quite big… last time I looked they got fantastic mountain ranges as well and lots of very nice airports close to the sea.

Sure Europe has a lot of history and other things to offer, but GA flying as opposed to America is a lot more hassle and there are countless pitfalls e.t.c. which for someone who has lived in aviation freedom will be hard to stomach. If I have one regret in life, and generally I have very few, it is that I did not take the chance to emigrate to the US when I had it. From the aviation point of view, I do not think I would have any of the issues I have here today. I may be wrong and there are other things to consider and yes, the grass is always greener e.t.c. but every time I am in the US I take note how different life can be from the constraints of overcrowded and overregulated Europe.

Europe bashing is quite common these days, not only for GA among pilots, but also within the civilization. The EU can’t do anything right, other countries only annoying with their needs, we’re overregulated, expensive etc. etc. You name it. I’m sure the US has some advantages against Europe, but so do we have against the US. The grass on the other side is always greener. I just want to avoid further Europe bashing here, let’s motivate @jpower instead, so he can enjoy his stay with us in Europe and I’m sure he can do great GA-flying here as well. Luxembourg is a very enjoyable little country.

Let’s see the good way round: We have lots of very different destinations to offer, which the US simply cannot compete with. You can have your breakfast in the UK, lunch in France and dinner in Spain or Italy. You can experience different food, cultures and history, visit beautiful historic cities, see lots of different landscapes within relatively short distances and last but not least, we’ve some very nice and unique airfields out there. I have my PPL now for 2 years and visited 14 different countries by GA so far. If you’re a bit adventurous, but also precisely with your preparations (PPR, customs/immigration, country habits, checking fees etc.), you can have a great time here. I think this forum is a great way to learn and prepare yourself for your European GA travels. Looking forward to see your experiences here @jpower!

Peter wrote:

BTW, I would have thought that Luxembourg would have the same exemptions in PPL training as Hawaii – you can’t do any “cross country” flights

Well, there are at least two small airfields besides ELLX, so you can fly your cross country with three landings on different airfields within Luxembourg, but I’m also afraid this will not lead to at least 150 nm in total distance. It really gets interesting in San Marino, where every flight leads towards Italy, even the traffic pattern.

Hi! Welcome to Luxembourg. I’d be happy to meet one day.

There are definitely at least a few privately N-regs around, and they need a BFR sometimes :)

I’m not aware of any N-reg openly for rent in Luxembourg, but I know that some people have running arrangements with an owner, and group-owned airplanes. (If you have turboprop experience, I know of an LX-reg openly for rent.)

For pilots regulations, EASA defines “flight time” as block time, which means from the moment the airplane first starts to move with the intention of eventually taking off until the moment it comes to final rest after the flight. So taxi time is included, but not any time spent with engine running before or after taxi. My advice: don’t sweat the small stuff, nobody will check you to that level of detail. Many pilots fill time approximately from memory and/or round to the nearest 5 minutes, or tenth-of-an-hour.

I won’t make a detailed comparison of the clubs as “social” clubs or the quality of their functioning publicly. Get me in front of a pot of tea and we can talk. I’m a member of Aérosport, they have a “full” school where you can do your IR, FI, … ratings, and they take themselves seriously as a “professional grade” school with instructor standardisation [all instructors teach the same thing and obey the sylalbus], etc. Aviasport does only PPL and night rating, and keeps more of what is described as a “club” spirit in their teaching.

Do you know about AviaLux, too? They have two Robin DR400, which are French-built (popular in France and UK) wood-and-fabric-wing planes (the cabin, landing gear, etc is metal, I believe). They are light (lower landing tax at some places), go faster on less fuel and are very smooth to fly (they use a centre stick). But they ain’t IFR tourers (which I wouldn’t really say any club plane in Luxembourg is). They are not a school.

skydriller wrote:

you might like to consider a drive across the border to France.

Yes. If you live in the south of the country, or are willing to swallow the driving time before flying, that is definitely something you can do. Will
be cheaper, too. You can also consider the German clubs: Trier and Bitburg are the closest.

Berto wrote:

Lux ATC is very protective of commercial traffic (Luxair and Cargolux) so you may be asked to hold short for quite a while.

While commercial traffic has a very clear priority over [small plane] VFR traffic (in rush hour, you can easily get something like 20min waiting time on the ground [at the runway holding point] or in the air [doing 360s]).

For IFR flights, this is all coordinated by a Europe-wide central computer system, and if the capacity of any enroute sector or arrival aerodrome is exceeded, you get a “CTOT”, a slot window (your requested EOBT + estimated taxi time or later) within which you must depart, to manage that capacity. Theoretically it can be much later than your EOBT, in practice it often is not that much later. AFAIK that system does not have the ability to discriminate between different kinds of traffic, so you get equal treatment with big iron. The only discrimination I know it does is between “late filers” (FPL filed less than 3h in advance; gets the worst – latest – CTOTs) and those that filed 3h in advance. ELLX anyway has fairly slow-in-the-approach commercial traffic, in the form of regional turboprop airliners so a “higher end” small GA plane is not that much of a bother, if you fly the glideslope “fast” and loose speed in the last 2 nmi or so. I never get any significant delay vectors when arriving IFR.

Frans wrote:

Well, there are at least two small airfields besides ELLX, so you can fly your cross country with three landings on different airfields within Luxembourg

Hu? I know of only one, ELNT Noertrange. It is not considered appropriate for a student solo, and club rules require a specific checkout for licensed pilots. AFAIK Useldange ELUS is not open to motor aviation, it is used only by gliders.

We do our cross-country into France, Germany or (as I did for my PPL) both.