I live in the US and it’s a big dream of mine to fly my plane (An N-registered, IFR and TKS equipped Mooney M20K Encore) to Europe via the North Atlantic route. I’d like to relocate semi-permanently to somewhere GA-friendly and spend 6 months or a year flying around from my new European base (I’m an Italian citizen so length of stay is not a concern). I love traveling in Europe and this will be a great way to do it.
I’m finishing up my instrument rating and plan to do a lot of instrument flying to gain experience before attempting this. I know it’s a big undertaking and I’m not taking it lightly, but planning for the future. I’m guessing spending some time with an instructor or two once I arrive will be good to get me oriented to the differences in airspace and ATC procedures.
I’ve done a lot of research and I’ve been able to understand how to get my plane equipped with the correct equipment (radios, transponder, etc). But I have a few concerns developed from reading a lot about flying in Europe. I’d love any feedback anyone can provide!
Cost and convenience of aircraft tiedown
Here in the US, tiedown rental is very inexpensive. $50-$150 per month in my area, or free on some small rural fields. There are also tons of little airports around, so no matter where you live, there’s often one close by. Do I have a hope of finding a relatively inexpensive place to keep my plane relatively near (within 45-minute drive) somewhere I’d like to live? Barcelona is my first choice (does anyone know if I can rent at Sabadell LELL?) but really I’m very open. Yes, a very broad question :)
Access to complete (preferably electronic) charts and restricted areas
I’m spoiled in that I have Foreflight, which keeps itself up to date on all restricted areas, TFRs, etc, in the US so I never worry about flying somewhere I’m not supposed to be. The XM Weather display in my plane even shows most TFRs as well. I’ve heard horror stories of huge fines for accidentally busting restricted areas in Europe and want to avoid being escorted to a military field by a Mirage and fined thousands of Euros if possible. SkyDemon seems to be a good Euro-friendly Foreflight replacement but I’m not sure how complete the databases are.
Finding GA-friendly (i.e. low cost) airports near my destinations
Landing fees in the US are pretty darn low and often nonexistant at small fields. I’ve heard in contrast that landing and handling fees can get very high in Europe and I’m concerned that it will be difficult to find the less expensive ones. Is there a database of some kind with this information?
As two of these concerns are about cost, I should note that I realize flying in Europe is going to be much more expensive overall. I do ok financially but I’m not rich enough to not worry about the costs. I bought a very fuel efficient airplane for that reason, after all.
I’d very much appreciate any advice and feedback!
Cheers,
Nicholas
Nicholas,
I can’t answer on tie down parking in Spain.
On electronic charts with SkyDemon, JeppVFR and the soon to be released Garmin Pilot, it is available here but will not be as good as Foreflight you are used ti.here are some good inflight weather options like the Golze ADL120 but no equivalent to XM.
There are lots of GA friendly fields. You will pay landing fees. It isn’t quite as convenient as the US but you have France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Switz in easy flying distance. The UK is also nice to fly around but go back to mainland Europe for food.
What us your current avionics spec? Yes, if you want to fly IFR, you’ll need Mode-S and 8.33, but otherwise I wouldn’t do anything with it.
Encores are great. I have flown N20VR and it was totally awesome.
Nicholas, I’ll be meeting up with a Spanish friend based in Barcellona with a PA34 in a couple of weeks time. Will ask and get back to you.
In Italy tiedown parking on airports for < 2 tonnes is roughly 120 euro month.
Ciao
What languages do you speak?
If you are totally free and want to get the most out if it, base yourself in (southern) France. It’s the closest you’ll come to GA paradise in Europe. Hundreds of airports, virtually no restrictions on operating hours, PCL very widespread, no landing fees at the smaller airfields, good enroute ATC, half reasonbly priced Avgas. As close as it can get to flying in your home country. More central than Spain, too.
Spain has rather few airports that are suitable for a Mooney.
Nick – Europe is very managable for GA. I have a load of trip writeups here which hopefully show the general idea. I have a writeup there of a trip to Barcelona/Sabadell, a couple of years ago.
There are a few silly-price airports (e.g. London Gatwick at something like $1000) but you simply avoid those.
There isn’t really an airport price database. We looked at doing something here, and some databases do already exist but they are mostly out of date. Also many bigger airports have mandatory handling whose cost ranges from barely relevant on the scale of how much you spend on fuel (say $30) to silly figures (most of the above $1000 is actually the handling charge) and these are imposed by companies which are separate from the airport itself. But if you just post under Trips/Airports you will get plenty of feedback, and nowadays most airports have a website which has good contact details so you can just phone/email them.
The rental scene varies a lot around Europe. In many countries you simply cannot just rent like you can in say the UK.
Spain is a nice place to see from the air. Some of it is really scenic. But as a base to live at and fly from to the rest of Europe it may not be the best. S France is good but if you want to speak your language freely then the south coast of the UK is great because N Europe is easily reachable. I pay about $8k/year for hangarage and this reflects the higher UK property prices, but hangarage is worth having if you have a nice aircraft.
The language aspect is important, and might be decisive. The southern countries are the most enjoyable both for climate and for the flying environment, but most do all R/T in local language except at the bigger airports. But these you wish to avoid because of cost: even a modest airport* like Antwerpen EBAW charges some 40 or 50 € landing fees. I have no experience there, but perhaps some of the Balkan countries might suit you best.
*be aware of differences in vocabulary: unlike in North America, “airport” in Europe means an aerodrome with facilities for commercial air transport, i.e. a terminal, and likely a customs/immigrations office. A smaller field is an “airfield” here. There are more such subtle differences.
Even more surprising to you might be that we have no such thing as an FBO here, or only very rarely.
If living in Barcelona is that important to you, then you may opt for LELL. I am pretty sure that you’ll find a hangar spot at a reasonable price, because there are quite some hangars and the crisis here has decimated GA activity. But, Spain is definitively not GA-oriented. I wish it was different. Prices of Avgas are high, obligatory handling at major airports, VFR restrictions at major airports in summer, and relatively few airports/airfields in the country to start with.
Although I am happy living in Spain, I actually have asked myself the very (luxurious!) question you are faced with, just for the fun of it. After having lived in (and flying from) Holland, the UK and Spain, and flying regularly to countries like France, Germany, Switzerland I am with Boscomantico: France..
A wild thought: There are a few airparks in Europe, in France and Sweden AFAIK, btw quite a contrast to North America, 500+… They may not be suitable for a Mooney and not very central, but if you are really going to be flying that much, you might as well live with your plane 
First of all, a huge thanks to everyone for the thoughtful answers so far! Just feeling like there area knowledgeable people to connect to is a big help.
Great points so far… let me respond to some of them:
Avoid food in UK… noted :)
Avionics: I plan to install an 8.33 radio and already have Mode S (GTX 33). I will probably also get a 406MHz ELT. Aside from that, I have a GNS 480 GPS and GMX 200 MFD, both of which I love. The GNS 480 will never do 8.33 khz spacing but I will swap out my King KX 155 (NAV/COM 2) for a new radio that does and use it as primary. I can’t bear to part with the GNS 480.
AfricanEagle: I’d very much appreciate specific info on the Barcelona area. Many thanks if you can get back to me!
Languages: I should have mentioned this… it won’t be a problem. I’m conversational in Spanish, almost so in French, and can get by in German and Portuguese. I love language and learning the aviation lingo will be fun for me.
boscomantico: Thanks for the tip on Southern France. I had been getting the feeling it was GA friendly by reading posts here. And it’s not too far from Barcelona. I can think of worse places to spend time…
Peter: Your trip reports look great. I’ll be reading those for a while, I’m sure. I scanned the Barcelona report and found we have the same pulse oximeter, of all things :)
Jan Olieslagers: Thanks for the vocab tips. I know I’ll have a lot to learn here as I’m sure I’ll need to do R/T in local languages for the type of flying I’d like to do. I’ve picked that up elsewhere on the forums.
So it sounds like my 3 biggest concerns are relatively manageable. It’s clearly going to require a lot more interaction with other pilots and airfield personell (which is a good thing) than the US. When I take friends for a flight they’re usually incredulous that I can take off, fly up the Hudson River past New York City at 1200ft, and land without getting permission from anyone. :)
Curious why a couple people noted that not many airfields would be suitable for a Mooney… runway length or soft surfaces?
Spain simply doesn’t have that many civil “airports” with hard runways. Then deduct the ten or so airports where one landing will set you back by 100+ Euros, and the number gets really low.
The reason is that most “GA” in Spain is ultralights, and these mostly operate from what we call “unlicensed airstrips”, usually with a soft surface and about 500 meters of runway length or less. Similar in Italy.
France, UK and also Germany have more GA, hard surface airports which are suitable for M20Ks.
Obviously, if you merely want to base yourself at Sabadell and then want to do most of your flights towards other countries, then Spain having few airports will not be a big problem for you. You definitely ought to get in touch with Fiore (the mentioned Seneca owner in LELL) and I guess AfricanEagle will take care of that.
However, being based there would still have its drawbacks. They have strict airport opening hours in Spain. In France, you just come and go whenever you want. Also, LELL does not allow departures on IFR flightplans in anything but good VFR weather (sounds weird, but is true). They’re terribly bureaucratic, too.
