Remotely controlled airport towers

Alexis wrote:

Also many German airfields have the possibility to take off or land outside the opening hours, sometimes for a fee.

Strangely enough, they have an obligation to put the flights afterwards in the List of Flights and can get apparently into trouble for failing to do so.
That is why you still have to fill the details somewhere…

Should all not be necessary – unless someone wants to make sure he can monitor movements ;-)

The bloke barely spoke English,

I checked beforehand that it was not “nur DE”. I called and tried to get a PPR for IFR because the weather was uncertain, but couldn’t.

That is why these airfields want you to ask for prior permit when using the place without Flugleiter before or after official working hours. So you fill in these forms shown in the third PDF in my link. Places like that live from landing fees etc. so the operator will want to keep things as they are. No reason to blame authorities or governments for keeping the Flugleiter – who among other duties also sells you fuel . How else would you get that when no credit card pumps were available, unlikely on smaller airfields. In case of EDME I am not at all amused that all income is spent on TWO full time staff when basically one should cope with that traffic, IFR or not.

http://www.flugplatz-eggenfelden.de/index.php/flugplatz-edme/download-formulare

There are a number of airstrips here without any “tower” available on special permission because these are private and not all of them are UL only. So there is some flying without Fugleiter – who does not control flying in any way – but you are not allowed to land anywhere “offroad” and have to use some sort of airfield. After all , there is no open public land for aircraft use so all landings will require at least permission from the owner of the place. Vic

vic wrote:

Places like that live from landing fees etc. so the operator will want to keep things as they are. No reason to blame authorities or governments for keeping the Flugleiter – who among other duties also sells you fuel

Well, if the Flugleiter is so important for the actual operation of small airfields, how come small airfields other countries can do without them?

At most uncontrolled airfields on France they go through the tapes to determine the aircraft movements for billing purposes.

Thinking about all that PPR nuisance that seems to be a big thing in UK, is there anybody there when you arrive at the airfield ? And is it OK and accepted you land there if nobody is at the place ? That contact person could be called a Flugleiter as well , having the same function and authority. Another fact in my country is the problem with noise abatement and detailed traffic circuits – again, reason is densely populated areas here and people no more willing to accept certain noise levels on Sundays or after 8 o´clock PM . Consquence: The operator of the airfield wants the Flugleiter to have an eye on aircraft tracks , who will tell you at once when you veer off the published track to much. Again, this is only to get no protests from neighbours by angry phone calls to the tower. Massive protests could lead to closing the place in time. In Bonn-Hangelar they installed laser-measuring telescope equipment for tracking aircraft in the circuit in order to fine pilots for not keeping to established routes. As predicted this cost a load of money and did not work as hoped and was later stopped by the court. At big but uncontrolled airfields the Flugleiter get fulltime paid by the town/county and at smaller places usually some persons of the local club do the job for free more or less. And at the smallest places you will contact somebody the day before or early enough for permit to land as most likely it is a private strip. So in fact you may call him a Flugleiter if you will but that is just a name. Vic

Peter wrote:

Video tapes?

Audio recordings of A/A. So if you do not broadcast your position and intentions, you won’t get on the tape.

@vic, you have given some arguments why an airfield operator might want to have a person on site, but no argument for why it should be required by law.