On grass, one can tie-down their aircraft with their own kits?
On tarmac, yes UK/France just don’t have these, I recall Nantes ground controllers were laughing live on the mic between themselves when I asked for tie-downs 
, they replied to go check near Aeroclub or call handlers (we left C172 parked into wind on the hard with big chocks & rudder/wheel locks and tail attached to nearby grass, it was not an easy weekend sleep wise as strong winds were in the forecast)
I guess “strong winds” depends on the specific aircraft VS0 and VNE, but always amused when people attach their 1.5T aircraft to 15kg mass rather than parking it into wind 
I’m afraid to ever go near grass again after my prop strike. Would they typically allow you to shut down and walk the path to your parking spot before taxiing there? Thinking of buying one of the electric towbars either way.
I agree with you 100% and for the same reason.
And some get very upset if you try to do any “walking”; for example at Scilly Isles they go into a total panic mode if you walk from your plane, parked on the grass, to the edge of the grass area, to check for any holes for the departure taxi. Before you manage to walk the 20m, a van turns up, loaded up with yellow jackets, and bollocks you. Such a nice destination, one of the best places I know in the UK, and such anally retarded airport staff. But islands tend to be like that – except in Croatia
Of course you could not have checked the grass on the way to parking… not much one can do about that except the usual mitigation measures like crossing a grass/tarmac boundary at an angle.
This is shared by many, whether they talk about it or not. If we do a fly-in to grass, something like 50% drop out immediately. I think Venice was my last attempt…
On hangars, one can find them in places like Zell am See, Sion, etc, but it is always awfully complicated. You have to either hope that a “hangar space owner” is away, or you have to do a “very special arrangement” with some company and usually for a lot of €€€. Europe doesn’t seem to have a simple hangar thing where there is generally space and for say €30 you can book it.
Would they typically allow you to shut down and walk the path to your parking spot before taxiing there?
That depends on whether the piece of tarmac you shut down on is any way critical for other ops. But if you are quick, nobody usually complains. And if they do, just endure the bollocking. It‘s your aircraft after all.
At Beziers, it‘s actually forbidden to taxy onto the (rocky soil) parking area under power. Probably because they know it might cause a lot of damage…
I remember once at Muchamiel. We actually shut down on the runway to hand-tow it onto the visitors’ parking area which is just a field of rocks, with no paved taxiway leading up to it. But that airfield is uncontrolled, and was very quiet at the time.
Peter wrote:
Before you manage to walk the 20m, a van turns up, loaded up with yellow jackets, and bollocks you
Much easier if you call them and ask for help and their expertise/opinion on the matter
The more you involve “hi-viz jacket people” and ask them for help, the more they tend to leave you alone
The same applies to curious staff in some schools/aeroclubs, just get them some random work to do
boscomantico wrote:
I think most people don’t generally bother about hangarage when on a trip.
It’s probably because majority flies to destinations which have good weather
This winter I was deicing my plane in Sarajevo for more than one hour. After afternoon snow, followed by some meltdown in the evening and followed by overnight freezing, I was waiting for morning sun to increase the temperature just above zero to start spraying it with TKS and remove ice.
Digging up this thread again…
There must be several fuel price databases startups in the last year or two.
They face huge challenges because they have to create links to airports’ pricing. In most cases this won’t be electronic… even if you provide a website with a secure login for the airport accounts office, few airports will bother to visit it and update it. Or they will visit for a bit and then forget about it.
And then the server etc has to be funded somehow. It has to be advertising, or offering something like a payment service and skim a percentage off that (like e.g. this site is trying to do) but there will will again face lots of resistance from airports.
This one has just popped up in Germany, and it got the same “reaction” on the domestic forum there which our airport data base got The guy starting it up replied, predictably, with: I am happy to talk to other free platforms about exchange and also like to make the data freely available via API. BUT: it has to make sense in such a way that the offers are not allowed to cannibalize themselves. If the aim of the cooperation is that both benefit or the overall quality increases, then gladly. I am against a complete and uncontrolled opening because I do not want other providers to use the data to upgrade their commercial offers and that for free. Which does not mean that I would generally not make the data available to them. At the moment I pay the cost of the server privately and I donate my own time for a good cause. This is of course terrible. Surely everybody is supposed to do a lot of work for nothing!
But the bottom line is: how many people really make a go / no-go decision based on the fuel price? The vast majority of trips are local, say within 100nm, and you probably know pretty well what it will be. And on a longer trip you are burning a fair bit of money anyway.
What am I missing, when it comes to fuel price? Landing fees of €500 are a different proposition, of course.
Could it be that there are lots of people who are simply desperate to produce yet another app / yet another website, and hoping to strike gold? These projects are popping up on social media all the time. Almost as many as there are pilots doing youtube videos and trying to get 1k followers
Peter wrote:
Could it be that there are lots of people who are simply desperate to produce yet another app / yet another website, and hoping to strike gold? These projects are popping up on social media all the time. Almost as many as there are pilots doing youtube videos and trying to get 1k followers
Probably this.
Hard to imagine such an app ever becoming indispensable. Even if there was one that was reasonably useful, and for some reason the data really mattered for some particular purpose, then would you actually trust it when it’s usually not that difficult to just ask the airport?
I don’t make go/no-go decisions based on fuel prices but it informs planning – for instance I don’t usually plan to fill up at Oban if I can avoid it, and I don’t take more than I need for a trip to the Channel Islands.
The world is full of solutions looking for problems!
Landing fees is a bit variable in terms of affect on decision. If I’m going flying just for the purpose of getting airborne, with no particular need to land somewhere, then a high landing fee will be an off put. €50 just to land and sign in, before going and taking off again, probably isn’t worth it. With a particular destination in mind, for a purpose (even if it’s just lunch), then less so, and as part of a bigger trip with a particular desired destination then much less so.
Fuel is a different story. I don’t think I’ve ever enquired about fuel price before going to a location. As part of a big trip, the fuel price isn’t variable enough to be an issue. On shorter trips I usually have enough fuel to go to the next place if needed.
In fact thinking about it, I don’t think I’ve ever asked at an airport how much the fuel costs per litre before ordering the refuelling.
Having said that, there is one regional airport here that I don’t refuel at if I can avoid it, as their fuel cost is (at least was last time I was there) about 60-70 cent more than the average in the rest of the country.
Neither fuel price or landing fee (short of the landing fee being totally riduculous).
When you are spending as much as we do flying, why would either be a a factor? You should go where you need or want to go.
