Very much enjoyed the report and pictures, thanks for the effort!
Yet again, another great trip bosco! I’m jealous! 
There are so many places I want to see in Italy, this trip gave some new inspirations. It seems that having an own “airfield-pool” is not uncommon in Italy? La Filanda looks also really nice, even if it is located in the middle of nowhere.
boscomantico wrote:
We passed abeam Tonale airfield and then made contact with Milano Information, to let them know about our plan to stay at altitude and clear of the airspace Alpha. As usual, this didn’t work out initially and the guy wanted us to descend.Would it have gone better if you had contacted Verona Approach directly or is that not possible at Tonale? Just curious.
Unfortunately, not. The problem was that little snipped of class D before reaching Garda CTR. I mean that blue area where NEVMI is located. Verona APP is not responsible for this piece of controlled airspace. This is part of the Milan CTA, merely with the geographic name “Milano 3 – Garda CTA”. Hence, Milan FIS must issue the clearance for that bit of airspace. (One must dig into ENR 2.1 of the AIP for this). Therefore, I did not want to bypass them.
Ah ok, go it! Last year, as I flew from LIDU towards LOIH, Verona APP cleared me also trough the Milano 3 (Class D) and Milano 1 (Class A) CTA’s with climb to FL120. I guess they did coordination in the background and let me stay on their frequency.
Nice trip report, I will save this one for the summer !
boscomantico wrote:
We were now quickly approaching Collina airfield and made a call on 130.0, which produced a reply from the radio operator of the local gliding club. Runway 04 was in use for landing (which is practically always the case). Oh, and just a mile to the west of the airfield is the Mugello racetrack, which hosted an F1 Gand Prix this year.
I dropped to Mugello gliding club while we visited to Lucca/Florence, it was a very welcoming place, the scenery around Mugello (F1 circuit, the lake, the peaks) was just so nice to let someone else do the flying
Not sure about September but swimming pools in the Villa seemed obligatoire after hot flying days in July !
Thank you for a wonderful and inspiring write up Bosco. I will have to break out of my usual Venice Lido and Roma Urbe destinations and start using my newly arrived Avioportolano book.
boscomantico wrote:
Hence, Milan FIS must issue the clearance for that bit of airspace. (One must dig into ENR 2.1 of the AIP for this)
Should you really need to dig the AIP or would not the relevant ‘info’ frequency give you guidance as to who to contact before entering CAS? I know Milano info is very busy at weekends, but still, they should help, right?
OTOH, I tend to use Skydemon or GArmin Pilot for this kind of frequency advise. The only problem is when they give you several freqs for such airspace and you call the wrong one, but they will typically give you the right one if necessary.
Should you really need to dig the AIP or would not the relevant ‘info’ frequency give you guidance as to who to contact before entering CAS? I know Milano info is very busy at weekends, but still, they should help, right?
In theory, yes. But in practice, any question that you ask to Milan Info often produces unhelpful or irrelevant answers, or just a standby. In other words: they are somewhat incompetent* and you as the pilot must always be ahead of them in terms of knowing the airspace and the rules governing them. You cannot rely on them sorting things out for you which you don‘t know.
Also, Frans‘ question was the opposite, i.e. if you could skip calling Milan Info completely once over the border and go straight to Verona Approach on this route. And while Verona might coordinate with Milan, it is really the wrong way around. I would always call the station that is responsible for the FIRST piece of CAS that‘s in your way.
So, on this route, the best is always to call them and let them „coordinate“, which in turn means calling them well in time before reaching any CAS.
*This is not meant to be mean, but merely to say:
