Likely people trying to get home from abroad.
I think the airworthiness argument is fully supportable for doing GA flights to prevent engine corrosion, or to comply with requirements following maintenance procedures.
After all, must of us can’t fly anywhere useful anyway.
Maybe everyone should add a mandatory flight or ground run every 2 weeks in his maintenance programme ? Then everyone would have a reason to look after his bird.
My home base is quite close to my house. All the operations have ceased but I could go for ground run if it would help the engine., which I am not sure about. Here is what I see in Lycoming Operator’s Manual:
“Corrosion can occur, especially in new or overhauled engines, on cylinder walls of engines that will be inoperative for periods as brief as two days. Therefore, the following preservation procedure is recommended for inactive engines and will be effective in minimizing the corrosion condition for a period up to thirty days.
NOTE
Ground running the engine for brief periods of time is not a substitute for the following procedure; in fact, the practice of ground running will tend to aggravate rather than minimize this corrosion condition.”
I think – see above – that a ground run is ok, but it needs to be a lot longer than most people think.
It is also possible that if the aircraft doesn’t have full engine instrumentation (CHT on each cylinder) it may overheat when on the ground. I don’t know of any GA type which would overheat on the ground at say +25C OAT, at say 1500rpm, leaned for peak EGT, but there may be one.
Rwy20 wrote:
Likely people trying to get home from abroad.
Ive been noticing just how many biz-jets and larger twins have been flying about this last 3 weeks here in and across France. There are loads.
Now, they could argue that they are travelling on “essential business” but yes, the very rich really dont live by the same rules as everybody else.
Just accept it.
Those business jets are being used to repatriate Europeans abroad.
SD, I thought the same at the beginning, but it seems not to be the case :
https://www.aerobuzz.fr/aviation-generale/les-piaggio-doyonnair-en-renfort-dans-le-combat-contre-le-covid-19/ (in french, no national news spread this)
https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2020/04/03/confinement-des-jets-prives-continuent-ils-a-circuler-en-france_1783972 (in french, from a source beyond any suspicion of defending the rich)
I don’t have any issue with people flying, provided they are not doing stuff to pass on the virus.
Obviously airline transport is not possible to do safely. But one-person GA, and bizjets where the crew sits behind a door, is fine.
The problem is the “provocative” angle. I am sure we are able to fly – where not banned by law – for obvious aircraft airworthiness reasons, especially if you had say cylinder work done and are running on straight oil with no Camguard, but you can’t sell that to the public which is being asked to stay at home. And with social media packed with self appointed policemen watching FR24… when I see one of those posts on FB I normally drop this in
and advise that this shop is running a special half price offer 
The govt message has to be aimed at truly thick people – the lowest common denominator in any population. It isn’t possible to put out a message which is clearly aimed at the actual objective because it would be too complicated.
There are quite a lot of flights across Europe – between countries which have not banned flying. These are quite hard to do without Mode S, unless you pull out the Mode S and push in a Mode C, but few want to do that, apart from it being illegal… and the flight itself is not illegal anyway.
@Peter I agree 100% with your last post. I have a friend who, at the moment flies off in his old Mooney to visit one or other of his 3 factories he has around France. The factories produce cleansing and disinfecting products such as hand gel.He goes by plane because it allows him to get there and back during a working day. To go by car would take 3 or 4 times as long and there are no hotels to book into because of the lockdown. Interestingly he’s also found that going by plane is cheaper to some of his locations.
In the UK my sister is an occpational therapist in a care home for young adults with various problems and are often violent. She needs to go to a local supermarket to get supplies for the care home.As you can imagine her trolley is usually full.
Finally, reported on UK television last night was the case of a nurse who moved into a holiday home, away from her family to isolate herself away from them.
All 3 have suffered abuse, not from the authorities, but from other members of the general public who think they are getting away with something.
In the last case the nurse got the tyres on her car slashed and couldn’t get to work at the hospital. My sister has been yelled at by women in the supermarket accusing her ofmpanic buying. And my pilot friend took to the plane after his car was attacked. Fortunately, at airports there is no one around to abuse him, but his transponder is mode S and his aircraft probably shows up regularly on FR24 so perhaps he is one of the so called rich getting some stick on this forum.
