Peter wrote:
If he is a US citizen who is temporarily in Europe, then he has/had no need for European papers, so his opening phrase doesn’t apply,
He’s resident near Frankfurt. He apparently believes that means he needs EASA qualifications in addition to his ATP. That is obviously a result of the ambiguous EASA regulation that applies in relation to where the “operator” is “based”.
ch.ess wrote:
One of the fundamental misunderstandings of US folks in Europe is the existence of countries with independent legal/regulatory structures.
It is not like flying across states within one country (size aside, like flying from Bavaria to Berlin, or Barcelona to Madrid).
I’m not sure that’s a very common misunderstanding, but regardless it’s a bit pointless for light aircraft when you can drive a car or truck across the entire landscape with zero hassle, just like driving between US states.
How can a public airport refuse you when you filed a flightplan? Does that happen?
Depends on whether it really is “public”. That is very much a US concept, aligned with FAA funding etc. Most European airports are privately owned, and these, plus the State owned ones, can ask for PNR or PPR. For example Gatwick EGKK is 24hrs PNR (last I heard).
when you can drive a car or truck across the entire landscape with zero hassle, just like driving between US states.
To be fair, IFR flying hardly differs between the USA and Europe. The flying (with ATC interaction etc) is pretty well identical.
But everywhere in the world you have to do some due diligence on the airport you are going to. It so happens that the US has a very open network and avgas is nearly everywhere. This is not the case in most of the world, and Europe is no special case here. In fact Europe is really easy, compared to Africa, Middle East, etc. Still, the pilot has to be prepared.
And there is so much in aviation training which isn’t taught. Probably a higher % of required knowledge is taught in the US than anywhere else, with a poor % in Europe (especially in the IFR courses at FTOs).
His biggest mistake is to not be on EuroGA 
Clearly we need to spread those leaflets around some more 
His 2nd mistake was to rely on some “Ipad app” for flight planning, in parts of the world where almost nobody is flying GA. Even European apps cannot be relied on in these places – simply because so few people test them there and far fewer will bother to feed back mistakes, and anyway mistakes fed back cannot really be incorporated if the fix conflicts with what the AIP contains.
Peter wrote:
Or fly within Europe from/to countries where these heavily taxpayer funded (and very expensive – of the order of millions per year just for the one briefing office) still exist
IPPC works in the entire Scandinavia + Finland + UK (I have no idea if it actually works in the UK, but i see no reason why it shouldn’t). I think IPPC also use the Eurocontrol system as a base for IFR, but it also includes VFR. Helicopter traffic is really dense here, compared with the rest of Europe, and most of it is VFR. During the NATO exercise Trident Juncture 2018 the last weeks, it was literally crowded with helicopters from the US Marines at ENVA. ENVA is civilian, so the normal ATC had to handle it in a “civilian” way. The way they solved it was for everyone to file flight plans through IPPC for every single flight, no matter what. I flew mostly acro during the exercise, and filed it through IPPC, no problems whatsoever, fast and easy, and the ATC were happy.
I read a document from the Air Force where they did an assessment of this whole Euro-ting, single sky, Eurocontrol or whatever it’s called. They used nice words and were polite, but they weren’t exactly impressed. It was the complete lack of flexibility, and ATC being changed from an active participant to do simple monitoring tasks that got most pepper. The result, according to them, was that the entire ATC system would become useless in everything that smelled of a “hot” situation. Even the task of handling military aircraft in peace time would become hard to impossible for them.
IPPC and briefing offices being shut down on the basis that Eurocontrol can handle air traffic. It will never happen in Norway for sure. For IFR traffic, that 99.9% consists of scheduled airlines in peace time, no problem. For anything else – useless.
Silvaire wrote:
it’s a bit pointless for light aircraft when you can drive a car or truck across the entire landscape with zero hassle, just like driving between US states.
You can do that within the Schengen Area, nowhere else. He was not within that for most of the trip and obviously had no idea. Even within Schengen there are places like Greece or the special case of Switzerland, which is Schengen but not in the Customs union, where borderless travel does not apply. There is no excuse for not knowing.
Actually, the guy was very lucky when he landed on the military base in Serbia, that he got folks who were PRO GA most obviously and reckognized him for what he was and considered him not worth the effort of a law suit. It could have been very different, even in Germany or Switzerland, where the military is not usually so lenitent for folks who don’t do their homework. Likewise, not checking his fuel availability e.t.c. is simply stupid.
As for the app, I wonder whether he might have used Skyvector (not sure if it is an app) but it is one of those free tools we use at work sometimes to find out very basic stuff like distance between two airports… They do have information on fuel e.t.c. but I would not touch it with a barge pole.
Clearly, there is a massive difference and if the aim of his post was to show the Americans how blessed they are, so be it, but he could have done that even when talking about correct stuff, like the outpricing in Greece and other things. There is enough problems to talk about if one wants to, one does not have to be totally ignorant for that.
IPPC works in the entire Scandinavia + Finland + UK (I have no idea if it actually works in the UK, but i see no reason why it shouldn’t).
The various “phone based” services, with the French Olivia being perhaps the best known, work only if at least one end of the flight is in the respective country. There are sporadic unconfirmed reports to the contrary, usually accompanied by reports of the flight plan having gone missing.
However this is fine only for little VFR flights – more or less what the UK flight briefing units were mostly handling before they got shut down. It is simply not suitable for IFR. Here is a flight I did a few weeks ago
(FPL-N113AC-IG
-TB20/L
-SYLDFGOR/S
-EGKA0600
-N0144F170 BOGNA DCT ANGLO DCT IBUMO DCT BULOX DCT ARDOD DCT LP DCT TUPAR DCT RY DCT TEMPU DCT BRS DCT OSGOT DCT URUNA R10 SSN B190 DGO G52 UNOVI B42 TLD/N0145F160 G7 CCS CCS1A
-LEBZ0630 LEZL LESA
It is simply not practical to pass that route string over the phone. There is too much interaction involved. For example you might route via a fly-by waypoint to avoid some bad wx. And that’s before you get onto weather and notam briefings, etc. Accordingly, most European pilots have moved on (to software tools) long ago, and most American pilots have too.
How this US pilot managed to have a plane in Europe (for any length of time), have a valid IR (and the FAA IR needs either 6 approaches in past 6 months, or a flight with a CFII), yet somehow escape the accretion of even the most basic knowledge about flying in Europe, is a mystery to me.
I know instructors working at FTOs are mostly not up on this but that is because they train pilots to fly the same old local routes; they don’t earn enough to fly themselves and they have no need to. If this guy is an FAA CFI then the most he will be doing is PPL instruction in the USA, so not useful for IFR anywhere.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
There is no excuse for not knowing.
Obviously the exceptions are the rule, and the rule is as a result chaos. Yes, it’s necessary to conduct a completely anal analysis of all the exceptions, wrinkles and other unnecessary GA silliness just to fly a 700 nm route. That’s the main point of the article, along with the unwritten message that without care a rational system could devolve to a similar chaotic situation.
Peter wrote:
How this US pilot managed to have a plane in Europe (for any length of time), have a valid IR (and the FAA IR needs either 6 approaches in past 6 months, or a flight with a CFII), yet somehow escape the accretion of even the most basic knowledge about flying in Europe, is a mystery to me.
I’d guess this fellow has done and continues to do most of his VFR and IFR flying in the US (he apparently has a house on a busy US residential airport) and that he bought the EU-based plane mainly to fly VFR within the combined area of Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic where the border hassles are less… just for fun and to keep in flying practice while living in Germany. I’ve known several others like him, hence my guess. I’d also guess this flight was not something he does often, or would want to do at all given the hassles if he hadn’t felt the need to complete some training in Greece.
Peter wrote:
Or fly within Europe from/to countries where these heavily taxpayer funded
ATC and AIS in Sweden are not taxpayer funded. I’ve told you that before. And even if they were, it would be a good thing, not a bad thing. (Witness the US.)
Dimme wrote:
Also, for local IFR flights within the DK-SE FAB (AIP ENR 2.2-4 4) almost anything will validate.
I looked at the Swedish part of the RAD and I believe the only restrictions within Sweden are that some airports have mandatory arrival/departure points. That is indeed a blessing.
I’ve told you that before. And even if they were, it would be a good thing, not a bad thing.
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I am entitled to not remember everything.
(Witness the US.)
The US does aviation transport infrastructure funding pretty well – much better than Europe – despite recent attempts to wreck it.
I looked at the Swedish part of the RAD and I believe the only restrictions within Sweden are that some airports have mandatory arrival/departure points. That is indeed a blessing.
However, this guy was not flying in Sweden.
or would want to do at all given the hassles if he hadn’t felt the need to complete some training in Greece.
It was a strange trip down to Kavala, especially as (a) he didn’t need it and (b) he could have got his (not needed) EASA papers in Germany, using the 100hr PPL conversion route for the PPL and the CB IR conversion route for the IR.
Looking at when the plane was sold, that trip was 2+ years ago so he only just got around to writing it up.
