Did some nice outings to some private fields recently in mainland Spain. The state-owned fields vary in their ‘GA-friendliness’ but I have to say that none of them compare to these privately-owned or privately-run fields.
LEAP Ampuriabrava, on the coast of Catalonia, just across the border from France. Very lively field, a lot of parajumping. The ARO was being rebuilt, so had no idea where to pay my fees and walked into a nearby hangar. A mechanic lay under a plane, his head into a landing gear well, out of sight. Me: ‘hi there, any idea where to pay my fee’? He: ‘just pay me, I’m the jack of all trades here, and btw I just called to close your flight plan because surely you ****** foreigner forgot, like all of them. And should you be interested, the canteen has a great daily menu, if you can wait a few minutes I’ll join you’. Well, that is the kind of encounters I like, rather than being dissed by some Operations department officer at an AENA airfield to not have called in advance to reserve a parking spot on a platform as big as Heathrow without any plane in sight.
Today, LERE Requena, west of Valencia. A nice restaurant right next to the runway. Closed on tuesdays! You know, my life is one big sequence of misfortunes.. The airport operator: ’Don’t worry, I’ll drive you to a place to get some food’.
I’ve been to quite a few private fields (LECD And LECI in the Pyrenees are great) but plan on discovering all of them..
Approach to LERE today:
And back home:
Very nice. We should talk about those other fields without ICAO code. I’m wondering what their status is. Those that show up on http://aterriza.org
Stephan,
90% or more of these are UL fields.
Note the listing ( in order of priority) :
-Aerodromes with bar
-Aerodromes with fuel
Hello Aart,
Thank you for these infos !
So far I have landed in LERS, LESL, LESO, LEST, and LESB in Spain.
LECD And LECI could be interesting places for those flying to Carcassonne in May
LECD – La Cerdanya – just about two weeks ago,
Beautiful photos…
Here, the wx has been unflyable except for short breaks once a week.
Spain is a spectacular place to fly to. I had some great flights down to Granada, La Axarquia, Barcelona, Valencia, San Sebastian… Zaragoza (in November 08) was cold but with a deep blue sky. Salamanca (Oct 14) was the last one and that was just amazing. All done nonstop from the UK.
I planned Mallorca for late March but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea at this time of the year with so many fronts passing … Headwinds can easily turn 4.5 hours flight to 6 hours and my passengers are not quite ready for this.
Tell ‘m they’ll get a tailwind on the return flight 
Hard to predict the weather, but assuming one front after another passing through may be a little too pessimistic.
Would be nice to meet you here Emir!
Peter, as far as horrible weather goes, think I can safely cancel my IFR training flight for Friday according to this GRAMET…
Stephan thank you for that link, quite a few Super Cub friendly strips.
La Cerdunya is the only grass roots airfield in Spain I have in the logbook. Need to add a few more. My visits log the usual suspect so: San Sebastián, Bilbao, Barajas, Cuatro Vientos, Girona and Sabadell. For Barajas had filed Torrejon but got diverted, this was some years ago. Handling wasn’t too painful.
