On the topic of GA access to Berlin in general: for those going to the northern parts of Berlin, the airfield of Fehrbellin EDBF might still be a half-decent alternative.
It used to have a poor reputation in the past, but it looks like a lot has changed for the better there.
Website here, albeit in German only. The runway is 900 meters and paved. Note they advertise the fact that they are ALWAYS open, no PPR required (although this is not the official information). Avgas and Jet available, as well as hangarage.
Would be great if they got an App2Drive car there or similar. The airfield is right next to the motorway leading to Berlin (40km).
Of course, it doesn’t have IFR approaches (but the countryside is very flat, there) and no customs/immgration. But otherwise,it looks good. I have never landed there yet, but might give it a try some time in the future.
boscomantico wrote:
On the topic of GA access to Berlin in general: for those going to the northern parts of Berlin, the airfield of Fehrbellin EDBF might still be a half-decent alternative.
It used to have a poor reputation in the past, but it looks like a lot has changed for the better there.
Website here, albeit in German only. The runway is 900 meters and paved. Note they advertise the fact that they are ALWAYS open, no PPR required (although this is not the official information). Avgas and Jet available, as well as hangarage.
I like the website. Very nice, refreshing design. Worth giving it a try, I guess.
I agree that a rental car there would greatly enhance their usefulness.
boscomantico wrote:
Website here, albeit in German only. The runway is 900 meters and paved. Note they advertise the fact that they are ALWAYS open, no PPR required
Well, “SUM: Mon-Fri 0800-1700, 1700-SS+30 PPR, Sat,Sun,HOL 0700-1700, 1700+30 O/R. WIN: 0900-SS+30 OT: O/R.” doesn’t sound like “always open, no PPR” to me. Also, no published fees. But of course it can be a nice place anyway.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Well, “SUM: Mon-Fri 0800-1700, 1700-SS+30 PPR, Sat,Sun,HOL 0700-1700, 1700+30 O/R. WIN: 0900-SS+30 OT: O/R.” doesn’t sound like “always open, no PPR” to me.
Read it: Open every day. Summer until 5pm, winter until sunset. PPR later…??
Airborne_Again wrote:
Which kind of puts your claim below in some doubt.
Not really. While the city of Berlin as a whole did vote to keep Tegel, the parts of town where Tegel is actually located said no in true NIMBY fashion.
But what is much more significant in this whole Berlin saga is that the authorities actually don’t appear to give a rat’s ass about the results but do what they want anyhow. What happened there was a typical political chess game between the socialist administration and the opposing FDP. While the referendum was legally binding up front, it was constructed such that it wasn’t, in as so far that no actual law was voted upon. Consequently, the Senate decided that the will of the people was not relevant. In Switzerland, a referendum like that would have been impossible.
Airborne_Again wrote:
I think you very much misjudge what majorities will “always” do.
In a pure democracy where everything is decided on majority vote without the effect of politics and press this would very much be the case.
And it is the reason why democracies today are basically split in two forms:
- Republics which are representative democracies
- Direct democracies.
Direct democracies are exceedingly rare, basically the only working one I know is Switzerland. Wikipedia yields some more such as the town meetings in some US states and the Crow nation as well as parts of the Kurds in Syria. They also mention the begone times of the Athens democracy and the Paris council in the 19th century.
What a direct democracy does is involve the citizens directly in the legislative process. Switzerland does this via referendi and initiatives. Laws passed by the legislative parliament are subject to referendum. Any citizen who wishes to propose a constitutional ammendment can do so by finding sufficient signatures, if he does, his proposed law will be put to the public vote no matter if government approves it or not. Government therefore does derive it’s power by the consent of the people only. The way the constitution is set up, these instruments of direct democracy are not challengeable as such. In recent times there have been more or less successful attempts however by the political class to undermine this by castrating certain passed initiatives in the executive legislation after they were approved. The consequence of this attitude is dire in so much that initiatives have become more and more radical in trying to force through issues which started out with reasonable texts beforehand but which parliament defused. Generally however parliament can not totally ignore or reverse decisions taken by the population.
In a republic, the public votes for representatives who then become legislators. The public has no direct influence over the legislative process but needs to exercise their democratic rights via lobbying, be it by writing to their MP’s or representatives, via political parties or the press, to put it simply.
The interesting discussion on that subject is always that a direct democracy would end in a tyranny of the masses over minorities. In fact, the American founding fathers actually write about this explicitly. Alexander Hamilton (of renewed fame after LinLin Miranda’s musical) states that
“That a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure, deformity.”
It is hard for a Swiss citizen to come to terms with such claims seeing that it works just fine if the instruments of democracy are used properly. But looking at arguments from people like Madison and others I wonder why their fear of their own people had to do with the fact that the original US still had a lot of large land owners over a mass of poor folks who, if empowered in such a way, could have threatened that order. Looking at how the US even today exercises democracy where money has a lot of influence over who wins a congress mandate or becomes president, one can see the thought prevailing to the present day.
European democracies today all are representative democracies who rarely employ referendum as a tool to ask people what their uptake is. The result of that is that referendums are usually consultative ballots only, that is, they are used by politicians to re-enforce an issue they have trouble with getting it past the opposition or long standing debates which they want settled once and for all. Brexit is one example of this, Scottish independence another, where the UK has to be commended by actually adhering to the outcome of those referendums even tough in some cases they did not reflect the goal of re-enforcing the actual intent of that government.
In the case of Germany the actual tools of direct democracy do exist but are used rarely, maybe the case of Tegel being a good example why. The vote of the people was clearly for keeping the airport going, yet the Senate saw it fit to overturn this decision by claiming it was not implementable as it conflicted with law about the use of the land. A legal challenge to this failed as the referendum had been set up without actually including a law which would have made it binding, therefore it was actually a mere consultation. The way this was done shows openly how hostile the city is against this airport. It also would indicate how pointless it will be to try to reverse that, as long as the socialist/green Senate is in power.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
our purpose is primarily self serving and only in parts serving others
Well, I am afraid that the mistreatment GA has been receiving has ensured it is more and more so.
For my part, I and others do what we can to change it, for example here
Closing Tegel is only going to make this worse, keeping it open will improve the changes of GA helping people in Berlin.
Thank you all for your support to the initiative anyway.
Can anyone recommend an unbiased petition site where I can post the initiative? Currently I am only using email and forums which is not very effective.
The petition sites I know are all politically biased.
thanks
Mooney_Driver wrote:
In a pure democracy where everything is decided on majority vote without the effect of politics and press this would very much be the case.
Yes, that’s your claim, but where is your evidence? (Your long explanation of various forms of democracy work is not evidence, nor is it news to me.)
@Antonio – perhaps try talking to @Bart who started this initiative – maybe he’ll have pointers / insight… I know it is not the same, but similar enough to me.
thx. Maybe , but in this case I dont need money, only signatures.
I’m thinking change.org, any reports?
In the meantime, I found news on another old TXL petition
Any readers know about that initiative? Any references?
