mciholas wrote:
Just about everything. Charts, parking, fuel, routing, handling, customs, ground transport, equipment requirements. Have you read the Geneva airport document? 42 pages.
Even more than that, the AIP is 98 pages (including charts). But really, most of it doesn’t really need to be looked at during planning. I would concentrate on:
I almost never look at the textual procedure description, only if something is not clear from the chart. I do not study all procedures in detail, only the one I am assigned to in flight (just ask early enough). I never look at the pages of stand coordinates as I don’t have an INS to calibrate… So really it boils down to looking at maybe 5 pages out of those ~100.
But that’s what you get for wanting to go to airports with a lot of commercial traffic, most of the time you’re better off going to a smaller alternative, then the whole airport documentation is a few pages only.
Mike the MU-2 is the ultimate pressurised Super Cub as evidenced by this frequent visitor to Johnson Creek.
AeroPlus wrote:
Mike: would you be open to such a webcast? Would that help you?
Just chatting about things would help a lot. I get lots of offers to call people, but timing is always off due to time differences and my work schedule. So finding a good time to hold this will be the key.
Mike C.
AeroPlus wrote:
Mike: I am currently writing a book to specifically help pilots like you out.
Mike C.
C210_Flyer wrote:
Im not sure about the numbers but for my 210 <2 T with travel from US and touring when I got here it cost about 25K.
Mike C.
Peter wrote:
Which bits did you spend 30 hours on, Mike?
Granted a lot of it will be “one time” stuff that applies to all the trips.
While I have decided not to bring my airplane over, partly due to the difficulties I am having figuring all the logistics out, partly due to the concerns over the crossing (especially the return in the dark in mid Dec), I have not given up on flying in Europe.
I am proceeding on two wildly divergent paths.
First is to try and find a turboprop or jet to hire with pilot. I’d fly left seat, PIC would fly right, they would take care of the details, I would fly. An ideal scenario would be to find a Legacy Citation + Pilot to rent. I’d even get type rated before I show up. I don’t want to be a passenger, though, so that makes the situation more complex, so this is a search for the right connection.
Second is to find a very VFR slow airplane for just fun, like say a Cub or something totally not travel. This would be just something to tool around in the Midlands of UK for no particular reason. I’m willing to buy it when I arrive and sell it when I leave, or even perhaps ship it into country into a container and take it back.
The two plans are not exclusive, but likely I will do one or the other and not both. I doubt either one will cost more than bringing the MU2.
So while I am not bringing my plane, I am still interested is learning more about flying in Europe. Ultimately, this may lead to some future time when I bring my jet and fly myself. :-)
Mike C.
OK. Back home. I planned for 35 minutes in the car waiting for my wife somewhere on a parking lot the whole European trip. See the time stamp above the screenshots in the picture album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/terwelle/albums/72157665376952640/with/25688638162/
All the flightplans validate and are ready to fly. The estimated enroute time, alternate, valid IFR route etc. is all there. There are some open ends that I could not figure out in the car that fast. First of all the legs are quite long for the Cirrus and in some cases too long. I did the planning for the SR22T as that is what I had configured in the app at that time in the car. Of course I could add another aircraft and configure it including its performance and equipment settings and do the same thing at e.g. flight level 260. Also, I would not know where to land in Dublin or near Barcelona, so would have to spend some time researching that or calling around or asking on a forum like this one which airport you guys would select in such as case. And I would question the order in which the total trip is arranged, but that would depend on the person wishing to fly through Europe.
All the flightplans can with one push of a button be opened straight in SkyDemon on my iPad and/or iPhone. The filing, delaying and all the flightplan related messages would appear on my Apple Watch, iPhone and iPad while I would be on-the-go. SkyDemon would give me all the VFR and IFR mapping for Europe, plus all the state plates ready to go. If I would add the Jeppesen app plus subscription to my iPad, I would have the Jepp plates as well ready to go. There is the customs form to still fill in through a website like onlinegar.com for entry into the UK. And again, I skipped the trans-atlantic part for now. That was a little bit too much for the 35 minutes I had in the car.
Only thing still to do is book the hotels through Booking.com, Airbnb.com or other solutions, check for things to do and see and call the airports or handlers to arrange with them. But some of that could also be done while on the go as well.
Oh. Peter. It is true that the Eurocontrol routing-“engine” does not know how to move from one flight level to another and thus is not of use in a lot of cases. However, we also have our own routing engine, which can handle that quite well, but true, the Autorouter routing engine is best, so that is why we also support that one. Most of the time the best results come from Autorouter.
I added some comments to the images I uploaded to my Flickr photo-album. Those comments and the uploading were not done in the 35 minutes I mentioned above. :-) But the comments give you some more information on what I am doing. Could still organise a webinar/screencast for those interested, but of course, let’s see if our American friend would reconsider if he sees how easy it is to plan the whole trip.
So, I am ready to go on the trip. :-)
While a video conference is a great idea, it can take a bit of arranging to get everyone at the same time, then is internet quality dependent, and if you get all that to work, it’s of absolutely no use to someone with the same question a week later.
Why doesn’t @mciholas just post a hypothetical flight that they might like to do. Those experienced in IFR flight in Europe can describe the process that they do to prepare for such a flight, giving the appropriate links, and screenshots etc.
Mciholas then then follow through the process themselves, asking any questions they might have, and it will be useful for someone reading in a week/month/year later too! it also allows them to see the different processes that different pilots go through (I’m sure everyone has a slightly different varient that they think is best!)
If one flight isn’t enough, then when that’s done, they could always suggest another hypothetical flight until they finally get comfortable and confident with what needs to be done. It’s what happens among friends anyway, so why not just do the process on here 
we disclose the Eurocontrol routing engine to our users
Yes I should have mentioned that but, to be precise what Eurocontrol offer is a “route suggest” feature.
They construct a route which is all at one level, so if e.g. going UK to Croatia the route is forced to FL140+ which can produce sub-optimal routings.
Also IME the route suggest feature often fails to produce anything. I have used it many times over the years. FPP offers it as one of its options. But maybe they have improved it recently?
I guess it works fine for a TP or a jet, which will fly at FL250+ for fuel burn reasons alone.
OK. I am in the car and did the rough planning for the European Tour in 35 minutes for all flights. I took some screenshots and will post the planning back home. I excluded the transatlantic flights and started of in Wick and ended there as well.
