I would love to go to LESO (San Sebastian) again and spend the night, rather than as fuel stop, so will give the above a go and see what happens!
I also found this recent information from another group discussion:
Request for a 6 months to one year authorization must be sent by regular mail. No scans by email. I suggest you also indicate date of first intended trip to speed up response. Request must include copies of the following documents :
Permit to fly certificate (Certificado de Aeronavigabilidad)
Tail number certificate – must check mine to give it a proper name (Matricula)
Insurance certificate and proof that it has been paid for (Certificado de Seguro y prueba de pago)
Pilot Licence and Medical certificate (Licencia de Piloto y Certificado Medico)
Contact : Javier Asenjo – Head of Departamento Trabajos Aereos – +34 91 396 8000 – jasenjo@… – Señorita Avei person I talked with
Address :
Señor Javier Asenjo
AESA – Servicio Trabajos Aereos y Aviacion Deportiva
Avenida General Peron N° 40
Portal B primera Planta
28020 Madrid – España
What was the nature of the permission from Spain?
That was in 2007 and I don’t have the paperwork handy.
I believe they simply validated the permit for it’s remaining validity period for use in Spanish airspace, but I would need to check and confirm. And the procedure may have changed since then.
I have had permission from Spain. Although having applied 6 weeks in advance, the permission only arrived in the week before departure and Portugal wasn’t much better
What was the nature of the permission from Spain? Is it suitably long that given the enormous lead time you can apply for one speculatively because you’re thinking of going there some time in the next 4 months, for example, rather than having a concrete itinery already laid out?
Our insurance now excludes Iceland, the Faeroes, Greenland, and Svalbard.
I found it to be no problem to ask the insurance for coverage for a one-off trip. A request to the broker with some details on the itinerary and they were happy, at no cost. Also went to Egypt in the middle of the revolution (there was no airline service so had to use GA, hehe). They wanted a detailed log, copies of the flight plans and daily updates.
European policies extend to Iceland,
Our insurance now excludes Iceland, the Faeroes, Greenland, and Svalbard. The company is Danish, the Broker is UK. This restricts our bacon butty trips to just Jan Mayen, which isn’t excluded. 
I have had permission from Spain. Although having applied 6 weeks in advance, the permission only arrived in the week before departure and Portugal wasn’t much better.
I believe they now insist on a written postal application for obscure bureaucratic reasons!
In principal, you should find the requirements in Gen 1.2 of the AIP, but there seems to be no consistency in obtaining the information.
Flying a US ‘experimental’ to Europe, I got all the information from the AIPs and AICs for each country.
Unfortunately a US homebuilt isn’t covered by the ECAC agreement and the fees charged for permissions varied considerably. i.e.:
Canada – No charge, simply print and carry the general exemption form
Greenland (and Faeroes) – 3,170 DKK (£350) plus evidence of EC785 insurance and search & rescue coverage
Iceland – 19,960 ISK (£105)
UK – £64
The other major expense was getting EC785 level insurance coverage for Greenland. US annual policies cover US and Canada territory and European policies extend to Iceland, so you need to negotiate single trip coverage for approximately the 700 NM gap between those territories
In the latter case, the ICAO aircraft type designator on the flight plan could get them into trouble – if any country implemented some software to check it.
Currently, the only software implemented to to this is in the brains of the ramp inspectors For example, these days France will send quite a few of those to Le Mans as the 24hr race in ten days will attract loads of business traffic into a shortish runway. A good opportunity to generate some W&B and performance related findings. Lots of shuttle flights several times per day with possible duty time violations and of cause quite a few illegal/semilegal/whoknowshowlegal commercial transports – people and spare parts. An El-Dorado for every ramp inspector who takes his job seriously. So they sit in their office on a hot mid-June afternoon, looking at their screen with the CFMU data of the arriving aeroplanes and decide which ones to harrass: “That one is French, we leave him alone”, “No way that German CJ 1 with five passengers can land here legally, let’s give him a hard time!” “Did you ever see the type designator of that Brit? I think we’re going to have a lot of fun with him – I bet a box of red Bordeaux that we can hold him here for at least two weeks!”
I asked someone who has an aircraft in Spain what I ought to do. He suggested just fly there and don’t worry about it.
I think the “Spain: who never reply” means Spain has never sent anything official to the LAA (did the LAA send their enquiry in Spanish? According to some surveys I’ve read conducted by the Spanish themselves, they are even worse at learning foreign languages than the English – and a few of my friends who were growing up while Franco was still alive only had French as a foreign language option – so it’s quite possible the LAA haven’t had a reply because there wasn’t an English speaker handy at the time).
They might reply to an actual pilot who writes to them in Spanish. I probably ought to try it.
I’d be interested to hear what people do for Spain. Do you just fly, or never go there? What about Czech Republic? Since most of the aircraft of this type come from there I guess it isn’t much of an issue?
