Skydemon EU heatmap

Anybody noticed the extremely sharp border between Poland and Ukraine? It’s like a difference between day and night. While it’s totally understandable due to the ongoing war, the Skydemon heatmap has been generated from all Skydemon logs, including many years of pre-war data. There seems a bit of activity around Lviv however.

Peter wrote:

I am sure that is true for every country – to at least 95% – except possibly Luxembourg

And San Marino not to forget, where every single flight leads to another country. Even flying traffic circuits.

Clipperstorch wrote:

It seems that Germans like to stay in Germany.

Indeed. The Swiss-German border looks less like a “border”, but I think that ~ 70% are Swiss planes going abroad, ~ 29% EU citizens just overflying Switzerland and only ~ 1% actually landing in Switzerland itself. I’m still wondering how seldom I see German planes visiting Swiss airfields, even though it’s so close. Same for all other neighboring countries. Even though Switzerland is an expensive country, I think the main reason that prevents people from coming here, is the hassle with customs. Plus the Swiss have more or less created a ban in 2022 on ultralights. (Except when you’re willing to pay a silly 260 CHF fee for an entry permit, which almost nobody does.)

To be honest, I’m also not leaving Switzerland much due to customs procedures. It remains a hassle, even with 2-3 hrs PNR possibilities. At least Switzerland is a small, yet extremely varying country. Flying from my home base to e.g. Lausanne, Samedan, or Locarno, feels already like traveling to another world, while flying from Meschede (my old homebase) to Mainbullau or Trier doesn’t change so much.

On the other side, when I’m leaving Switzerland, I don’t have to pay VAT anymore on top of the charter fees. That does encourage to fly abroad a bit, plus it compensates the fees for the customs forms.

Patrick wrote:

One of my first flights post PPL check ride was from Germany into NL

Me too! Actually, my very first flight as a licensed pilot was to EHBK.

Clipperstorch wrote:

It seems that Germans like to stay in Germany.

This can possibly be extended to every large country – France, for one.

Depends on the pilot I guess, and there are always exceptions. I’d expect many pilots would not go through the hassle of filing a flight plan for the Sunday’s burger run? What do you think?

Language proficiency is possibly a bigger barrier: how many get an ICAO English certificate?
I learned to fly in Colmar, 10 miles from the German border, lived for a while there and am still in touch with many persons in the local aviation scene. In my experience 99% of the pilots flying there do not feel comfortable crossing the border; many do not have an ICAO English. It limits their flying to the West, basically eliminating half of their possible “flying playgrounds”. This despite the FI in my former aeroclub putting a big emphasis on teaching aeronautical English to most (if not all) of his PPL students!

As posted by someone e.g. here around 7% of French pilots have ELP.

I would say close to 100% of people posting on EuroGA would trivially get ELP4 and most would get ELP6.

So there are a number of factors involved. The picture collects a lot of European history, where the money is, where there was personal freedom (which correlates heavily with GA) pre- and post-WW2. Remember Spain had “military” rule until recently, like Greece. And where there was old history of aviation (France, Germany, UK, the Czech part of Czechoslovakia).

I planned to fly via Ukraine in 2008, via Odessa, but for unrelated reasons it didn’t work out. There was no avgas, officially, between Constanta and Kosice, so none in Ukraine. One guy here had a plane stuck in a hangar here when Pootin invaded; I could not find the post and heard no more. He would have known more.

There was a stage in time after the QRI/QRRI and before ELP FCL 1.025 and then 055 or whatever the numbers are now, when there was no language qualification needed. If you left France you were simply on your honour that you spoke enough English to make the trip safely. I don’t know whether or not more French pilots flew across borders in much greater numbers than they do now. But from my recollection they did not, although maybe places like San Sébastien benfitted.🙂

I guess I’m the lucky (only?) one who can see his own flights Going to make an effort to paint that stretch of sea between the islands and Catalonia into a solid orange one..

There was a stage in time after the QRI/QRRI and before ELP FCL 1.025 and then 055 or whatever the numbers are now, when there was no language qualification needed

I believe before JAR/ELP etc, that our aeroclub would fly out to Belgium to visit the twinned town there every few years. It was before I joined the club so I have only seen archive pictures, but I know that of the aircraft and pilots pictured, perhaps one or two could speak English. IIRC one of our aeroclub pilots has flown to the French speaking part of Switzerland, but right now I’m the only aeroclub member that flies abroad.

Regards, SD..

I still fail to see anything really unexpected or surprising, even upon closer inspection. If anything:

• The amount of activity in Czech Republic. Now it is known that there is some healthy GA there, but it still surprises a bit

• Even Budepest seems to have much more activitiy than then Madrid area. But again, it might be skewed by the different degrees of utilization of the SD product, so in the end, little can be deducted from the map.

As I said, selling into different countries presents different challenges. This is well known old marketing. I’ve been doing that since 1978…

A number of countries are impenetrable unless you have a local distributor. One would think that in aviation, and particularly with a mail order product like software, one cuts through these cultural aspects, but only to a limited extent. I’ve written about this before.

CZ has a lot of GA. Even I had a flight, c. 1963, in a Morava 200, belonging to the head of the uranium mines, out of LKPM.

boscomantico wrote:

The amount of activity in Czech Republic. Now it is known that there is some healthy GA there, but it still surprises a bit

Not at all surprising, Czech GA traditions date back to 1920s. As Czechoslovakia was a landlocked country, local aviators adopted a motto: “Air is our sea”. In the communist era, Czechoslovakia was the leader in the design and production of sport aircraft among the Warsaw pact countries.

Frans wrote:

I’m still wondering how seldom I see German planes visiting Swiss airfields, even though it’s so close. Same for all other neighboring countries

I disagree. When flying in France, and also when checking on FlightRadar occasionally, I feel that a large share of traffic participants are D-registered. Much more so than F-registered in German airspace.

On the other hand, considering NL being a rather small country, I find that a noteworthy share of PH-registered planes can be seen/heard within German airspace. This corresponds to my non-aviation observation that wherever you travel in the world, you will easily meet some travel junkies from the Netherlands there as well – a spirit to be much admired.