As an Australian resident in Britain, one of the few places I can travel to freely now is Germany.
I am a huge fan of Patrick Leigh Fermor, an eccentric English author (and Cretan resistance fighter during WWII). In 1933, at the age of 18, he set off to walk the length of Europe, from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople with nothing but a few spare clothes, the Oxford Book of English Verse and Horace’s Odes. His astoundingly beautiful book, A Time of Gifts, describes the first part of this journey.
So, my wife and I are planning a late October aerial tribute to Paddy Fermor and Germany history and culture. General outline:
I have a couple of questions please:
Danke schon!
1. No. There is only the DFS-published AIP VFR, which isn’t available for free. Do you use Skydemon? If yes, you should get it via Skydemon. Essential if doing a lot of flying in Germany. It’s biligual. As an alternative, you can get some Jeppesen VFR terminal product for Germany. Same content, essentially.
EDKA is a special case; they have just changed runways, and there website still shows the old one (German airfields don’t tend to keep their website updated too well, since the information is usually taken from the AIP VFR by everybody). Anyway, the AIP VFR WILL be updated properly (possibly by SUP).
2. Don’t, if you don’t speak German fluently. Remember it’s not like France where you merely have to make a few blind calls. In Germany, you will have to engage in an exchange with the Flugleiter, and that won’t work with just a few words of German.
What you must therefore do is check if the Flugleiter is GE only or GE/EN. This is noted in the top right hand corner of each German visual operation chart. “Proper” airfields like Trier and Koblenz (and of course the even bigger ones) ARE GE/EN. But do check. A counterexample:
Thank you Bosmantico!
I will rely on the Skydemon plates then, along with calls ahead of time to check.
Looking on the Skydemon plates though, I cant see any language restrictions noted. Am I looking in the wrong place?
No. As I said, to get the full picture, you need to get the AIP VFR product, which you can buy THROUGH Skydemon.
Thanks v much guys.
I just purchased the add on subscription in Sky Demon for the German DFS VFR plates. Much better detail than the Sky Demon plates. Perfect. I see now that Aachen for example is noted as “Ge”, ie German only.
Does that mean that as a non German speaker I really can’t use this airfield? What do you think would be the best way of dealing with this 1) just turning up in the air and pleading ignorance, 2) calling ahead of time and asking for an exemption?
In practice, I guess both 1) and 2) work. If you look at the Skydemon pireps, you see that a lot of non-German speaking pilots regularly land there, and non have reported any problems. I would prefer to do 2) though, to be sure one is dealing with people with a proper mindset, and not possibly someone who wants to make a point and cause you trouble.
But I am sure a lot of 1) is being done, too, by foreign pilots who arrive totally unaware of these restrictions. Not a bog problem usually. After all, the Flugleiter does not have to say much than “zero seven in use” or “two five in use”.
Buckerfan wrote:
Does that mean that as a non German speaker I really can’t use this airfield? What do you think would be the best way of dealing with this 1) just turning up in the air and pleading ignorance, 2) calling ahead of time and asking for an exemption?Officially yes, but as bosco mentioned above, it will most likely work out somehow. I would also prefer doing practice 2, as not all Flugleiters can speak (broken) English or some just refuse to speak it, when they don’t have an English RTF.
The following areas of England (in addition to all of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) will henceforth be considered risk areas by Germany:
Region East Midlands (seit 17. Oktober)
Region North East (seit 2. Oktober)
Region North West (seit 2. Oktober)
Region West Midlands (seit 17. Oktober)
Region Yorkshire and the Humber (seit 2. Oktober)
Thank you Bosco. I am OK for now as I am in the South West (near Gloucester) and in reality really clean as we live on a farm (the plane included), very isolated from everyone!