boscomantico wrote:
On an aviosuperficie, you just rock up at the airfield, pull your aircraft out of the hangar, start up and head off to Losinj, whenever you want.
In the light of this
is going to one of those airfields really an option? It does not look like ENAC is going to relent, so if I understood you correctly, most aviosuperfici will be no longer available?
I am going to visit a couple today and see what I can learn about how the people on the ground are reacting to this.
Surely, every Superficie has a hangar or two and a clutch of aircraft in the hangars, What are all these aircraft owners supposed to do??
You’ll see that at most aviosuperfici, out of 10 aircraft based, roughly 9 are ultralight. That’s what Italian GA is essentially made of, these days. The latter don’t care about the status of the field as an aviosuperficie. Certified aircraft are rare in Italy, and even more rare at the aviosuperfici. And that’s the threat here. Many airfield owners will not bother to comply with all the new rules, just to maintain the luxury of the status of an aviosuperficie. The only ones who will are those owners that happen to be PPL-type pilots. Rare.
But, once you DO have the status as aviosuperficie, from the pilot’s side, it really is (and will remain) as easy as
you just rock up at the airfield, pull your aircraft out of the hangar, start up and head off to Losinj, whenever you want.
So, we visited two airfields today.
The first is a true aviosuperficie, Sansepolcro, LIQF. The place was deserted. Nobody around. In a hangar large enough for 10 aircraft there was one. As reported, the grass strip is very flat and indeed long (800m+). It has been raining for a few days in Tuscany. I would probably land a piper cub there delicately in current conditions, but certainly not a larger aircraft. They also seem to be having a wildlife problem – you guessed it, wild boar.
On the way back to the hotel we dropped in to Arezzo Airport, LIQB. This is a true airport, not an aviosuperficie. 600m tarmac. Even tho it was after sunset on a wet day there were half a dozen pilots around, aircraft being worked on in the hangar and what looked like an active little flight school and aeroclub. The unanimous opinion of the pilots was that the aviosuperficie ‘problem’ would be easily solved.
LIQB looks like a nice field. 660 m, right on your limit. Looks like very clear appch areas too. Temps can be very high, but you have factored that in your calculation no doubt.
Near Milan, Bresso is great. Long runway, hangars, and easy deviation to Linate if you can’t make it VFR. Main issue might be spending time low level with the turbine, on departure that has been my experience…
Thread drift – ON:
@Buckerfan, you probably have done so already, but if not I’d strongly suggest discussing your proposed Italian residency with a tax specialist. Hint: it’s not a pretty picture. @Bosco probably knows a thing or two about that also.
Thread drift – OFF
Hi 172driver. You are absolutely right. We interviewed several people in London and Florence and hired someone on Monday. Found a great guy.
My wife and I are perpetual migrants. So far in my life I have emigrated from Australia to the UK, to the US, to Hong Kong, to Switzerland, back to the UK and now to Italy we hope. It keeps you on your toes.
Hey Buckerfan, that sounds pretty similar to my life! Glad you’re getting it sorted.
Good luck with your prospect Buckerfan! Exciting new chapter!!!
One thing to consider about Italy: given you will fly a JetProp, I would expect you’ll want to fly high and IFR most of the time.
Picking up IFR in Italy on a Z flight plan (your normal case if your base will be a small field) can often be a nightmare: you first have to contact the FIS to request opening the flight plan and IFR pick up. They will coordinate with radar and come back to you with a squawk code. This can sometimes take time, and you will be listening to a lot of people talking and talking and keeping the controller busy while you are waiting for him to come back to you with the code. This all happens while you have to stay low in uncontrolled airspace and burn fuel.
When you finally get the squawk code, if you are lucky they hand you over quickly to radar, some other times you still have to wait for a bit, as they are still coordinating.
Guess this was the experience denopa mentioned near Milano Bresso.
Then once you are with radar, depending on the radar minimum altitude of the area you are in, you will be asked to climb maintaining VMC until you reach that minimum altitude, after which they will notify you that IFR has just started.
On a day with low ceiling you might find it difficult to climb maintaining VMC to reach the radar minimum altitude. Italian terrain is not flat, especially in the area of Tuscany, which often translates into high radar minimum altitudes.
As an example, once I departed from Bresso towards the north to cross the Alps IFR on a Z flight plan. First I have been entertaining myself inventing holding patterns around DESIP point to draw a flower on the ForeFlight track, while they were coordinating for my squawk code, then when I was finally handed over to radar I got direct ABESI and a request to “climb maintaining VMC” up to FL130, where they finally activated IFR. On an overcast day I would have probably had to be ready with a plan to request an initial routing towards the south in an area with lower radar minimum altitude, climb there to get to IFR and then resume navigation towards the north, if no other negotiation would have worked. Bit of a hassle.
But I’m probably spoilt as in the Netherlands if I depart on a Z flight plan I can just go straight to radar after departure and get switched to IFR in no time. No cumbersome coordination. And yes it’s all flat so that can happen even at low altitudes just below clouds.
