It may be useful to post the detail of how to obtain specific charges.
The recurrent issue in GA is that an airport has a handling agent which uses every trick in the book to "swing" you into his control, and then a €10 charge can easily become €100.
Unfortunately there is no easy way to establish this pre-landing, unless one knows a local pilot. If you contact the airport (which can itself be difficult, because many airports are disorganised, have duff phone/fax/email details, take 2 days to reply, etc) they might just tell you about the handler and omit the other option. If you contact the handler (who will be very organised and have very current phone/fax/email info - YOU BET) he will definitely not tell you about the other option.
That is why a lot of "higher-up" pilots just use the handler, and pay, because it is easy...
Any news on the Italian €3000 tax after 45 days on Italian soil, unless booked into an Italian company for maintenance?
AfricanEagle has guessed correctly, we are a group of RVs going very loosely to Castiglione del Lago and Sansepolcro.
Oh boy that sounds like so much fun for the group... At RV speeds you'll get there fast too.
I'll be in Toscana on the weekend of 1/2 June and into the following week. If I've missed an event worth seeing from the ground, please make it known! :-)
Ciao e grazie
Norman,
Sansepolcro has avgas and customs can be organized (the officers will come to the airstrip all day specifically). The cost is 150 euro, regardless of number of airplanes and passengers. If you are more than three airplanes requiring the service it works out the same as landing and paying landing/handling fees at Ancona for customs if headed to Croatia. (Hopefully I'll fly up on Friday to Castiglione to say hello).
Elba: prices have been reduced in general thanks to AOPA Italy. If you are an AOPA member you have an extra discount. If you intend going in a group let me know and I'll try and negotiate.
Italian Tax: don't worry about it if you are not an Italian citizen.
Silvaire, maybe we will get to fly again.
Italian Tax: don't worry about it if you are not an Italian citizen.
How does that work?
Silvaire, maybe we will get to fly again.
I would sure love it! If not there, then here! I'm sad that won't be in so far south this time but instead Riva del Garda, Firenze, Casole D'elsa, Lucca, Mandello del Lario (CO). Its a sort of ummmm... honeymoon trip :-)
Ciao amico
Low priority message, I just ned to share my smile - the wifi at hotel at losinj is not working at higher floors, so I went to lobby to submit the flight plan for tomorrow and check the weather. Met office UK was already in cookies on that computer as well as other sites useful for pilots. But not gramet and avbrief ;-). No wonder, there was only a single slot available for tie down when we arrived - and we needed to wait 10 minutes before a piston twin grumman (never seen such bird before) made the space for us.
And to add valuable information now - we used Portoroz LJPZ as point of departure from Schengen area. Quick, smooth, 24 euro paid (for m20) in less than two minutes. Quite heavy traffic - waited nearly 10 minutes at the holding point on departure. But still much shorter than all the cars we had seen underneath us at the road border check point....
That sounds great.
I looked into doing another flight down there but couldn't do it this weekend, for several reasons, one of which is that it would take the engine too far past 50hrs and I could not organise a service in time.
LJPZ is a good choice because the flight LDLO-LJPZ is so short it can be done in almost any conditions.
It's also good to see LDLO busy... with all the rumours of closure of these lovely island airports.
I vaguely recall that Socata bought the rights to that twin and were going to sell it as a Socata, but then dropped the project. But I might have that completely wrong...
Very funny about the aviation sites on the hotel PC 
One problem with Croatia, pre-EU, was that the "EU data packs" were not available, so mobile data was very expensive (typ. €10/MB), so one tried to use the hotel wifi at all costs. There is a procedure for getting a locally bought SIM card to work but you needed to be a masochist to sort it out, and obviously it was not worth doing unless you were staying for some time.
Peter, that link for the SIM card locally is very useful to me, thanks. Although I have a place down there it's virtually impossible for me to get a telephone line installed so I can get internet access due to being non-resident. of course, this might change now that they've joined the "advanced" world of Europe but in the mean time that link is going to save me a fortune! Colin
