The rules are a bit more relaxed in the UK, I think.
Same in Finland, I think, where the CEO of one of our suppliers uses this contraption to clatter between his constellation of factories. Saving time and money…
The rules are a bit more relaxed in the UK, I think. A friend of mine had a neighbour at one time who kept an R22 in his back garden and flew it two or three times a week. He was a property developer or something of that ilk and used it to get to the job sites.
Jacko wrote:
I wonder what your neighbours would think of our local military and private small arms ranges, or even the fast jets at 200 ft AGL which use isolated farms as hypothetical targets. Folks here love to see and hear them – they bring variety to our peaceful enjoyment of country life
My wife calls all jet fighters “Starfighters” because of her fond memories of watching Erding (Germany) based examples as a child, as they flew over her home every day. She still loves similar aircraft to this day, but I don’t think her childhood friends would often see it her way now. There was however a reason I married her and many reasons she likes our area, where coincidentally we have a lot of military and civilian aircraft over us 
neighbours not even tolerating if you haven’t mowed your lawn for five days
Yes, but no mowing on a Sunday morning? That’s perhaps a cultural issue, rather than a political one. In some respects it must seem an attractive state of affairs. It wouldn’t work in a country where it seems to rain solidly for weeks on end.
I wonder what your neighbours would think of our local military and private small arms ranges, or even the fast jets at 200 ft AGL which use isolated farms as hypothetical targets. Folks here love to see and hear them – they bring variety to our peaceful enjoyment of country life…
I doubt the part of Scotland where Jacko lives is anywhere near 266/km²
That’s a very fair point. The population density in the former feuhold of Glenswinton is closer to 0.15 per km².
Although our nearest neighbours are only a few km away, it is perhaps no accident that the inmates of this dreary part of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbrightshire are chiefly concerned with minding their own business and are somewhat tolerant of each other’s mildly eccentric behaviour.
Jacko wrote:
It just seems to me that a diktat such that people can park as many cars as they want at home but not a single aircraft, even if the latter causes no offence to neighbours, is beyond nonsense
Parking the aircraft is not a problem, but operating it will result in a degree of noise over a comparably wide area that – in central Europe at least – is deemed intolerable for the population at large. I agree that any “safety” angle to this is largely construed.
Personally I’d love to have a runway for private use next to my home, and, to get back on topic, that’s certainly something about my flying which I would want to change, if I could. So yeah, I understand your sentiment very well, but I also understand the social construct of my fatherland and why it isn’t permissive towards this option. The “doesn’t cause offence to the neighbours” part would be damn near impossible here, with some neighbours not even tolerating if you haven’t mowed your lawn for five days…
There is really no need to politicise everything, Jacko.
Sorry, I don’t mean to cause offence. I’m certainly not offended if there’s a democratic mandate among fellow pilots in Europe for a level of social authoritarianism which would be unacceptable in most common law jurisdictions (the USA, Commonwealth, etc.). I just wouldn’t want to live under such a regimen – though I can well imagine that feeling may be mutual.
I don’t think it’s a matter of politics. It just seems to me that a diktat such that people can park as many cars as they want at home but not a single aircraft, even if the latter causes no offence to neighbours, is beyond nonsense.
Live closer from an airfield.
Then probably owning a plane would make sense.
We see more and more people willing to leave the metropolises to medium-size towns. That could help GA in the medium-term.
Airborne_Again wrote:
67.5/m² according to Wikipedia.
We can counter with Mecklenburg Vorpommern: 69. Or 85 in Brandenburg where you can build a farm strip if your pockets are deep enough (like 7 billion quid deep). But population density is probably not the factor that makes a difference as Ibra wrote. It is more likely the level of remoteness. Northern Germany is totally flat and was well connected with railway lines all over the place (today not so much) and nowadays motorways get you to the capital in less than an hour if you have a car. There was never a need for an aviation culture. Also, people who could afford to have an airplane don’t live there. They may have got a cabin and a boat at the Havel but they are going to leave by Sunday afternoon because they can’t get broadband internet or cellphone coverage there.
It has nothing to do with population density, worth getting a look at the number of public airports and private strips in LA, TX or FL…
