Havnt been on a ‘fly out’ since we all were fined 1000FF at La Rochelle 20 years ago on a ‘Flyer’ fly out for not requesting ‘customs on arrival’,
however Mali Losinj sounds sounds good to me….(hopefully no such nonsense).
You were fined 1000FF each, or the whole group?
Mali Losinj (and Croatia generally) is dead easy.
As always, contact the airport before flying there. I guess your fly-out was “managed” by somebody. That, and taking deposits for a hotel, is necessary to get a good number of people to come (it also stops people dropping out) but it does make somebody responsible for the whole thing.
The scenery beats Bembridge or Blackbush anytime 
And the food outclasses anything you can buy here (IMHO ) but that’s easily achieved.
I have emailed the airport to advise them of the fly-in.
23-26 Mai LDLO is noted. Looking forward.
I can’t make it that weekend
Peter, almost every aircraft that landed was fined 1000FF….great welcome to France…started the weekend off nicely!
quatrelle,
well, these days most French airports don’t have customs anymore. Why do I get the idea they don’t like us there?
On a quick google, €1 was 6.5 FFR so that is a heavy fine!
But La Rochelle has PNR Customs even today so somebody dropped the ball badly. From Navbox:
However there is a sizeable group of UK pilots who do “just fly” and who boycott any airport which is PNR-anything or PPR-anything. And you know where to find them 
You can get away with that in the UK but not internationally because in many countries a lot of stuff is run on police/military lines and somebody will occasionally make a stand just to show their authority – a bit like some yellow jacket enforcers do in the UK actually…
France is like much of southern Europe i.e. normally easy – until you piss off somebody big and then the sky falls in on you. Some would say that is a good description of Africa and most of the 3rd world… I guess the fly-in did a good job of waking up the wrong official.
However, to be fair, 20 years ago was pre-internet so the AIP and really all flying information was relatively inaccessible. They must have been hard times for European flying around. Even in 2003 when I did my first long flights I busted some then-unpublished French nuclear power station TRA. I guess the only way to deal with PNR Customs would have been international directory enquiries, get the airport phone #, and phone them. Or contact somebody in UK ATC who will get you their contact details and phone+fax them. It would be interesting to know how exactly La Rochelle expected to have the PNR delivered in 1994. OTOH, to mirror the poor published info access (same goes for notams!) I am sure there was generally less enforcement back then.
I guess the “bad old days” were when Jeppesen established their business, with their “text pages” containing all this stuff, but they were never cheap enough for private GA.
Flying around Europe 20 years ago wasn’t that difficult (or even 40 years ago!)…. phones and faxes existed… and of course in France, the Minitel was around….
You got the UK weather on some £1 per minute fax service or free on the French Aerofax service, or called up the local met office, you bought the maps and the flight guides (Bottlang , Pooleys , Delage etc) and then phoned up the airports… why someone organising a Fly-in from the UK didn’t bother with checking the customs requirements first or just giving the airport a call is somewhat puzzling… but then again les Douaniers can sometimes be a tricky bunch…
I have lots of fun memories flying around France, or those two much feared destinations of the aeroclub lore, Spain and Italy, with a PPL friend in a Cherokee 140 just after our PPLs. I don’t think we actually had mobiles then either! Never had any real issues getting information on customs, airports, regulations etc ahead of time, going through piles of Bottlangs, local aeronautical guides, and charts was part of the fun at the time. Of course it all sounds very complicated that now a few taps on the Ipad on Skydemon and off we go…! OK… it took us 3 days to reach Tuscany once at 95kt, but that was also part of the fun!
If anything, I would not be surprised to hear that longish distance European touring in light aircraft was probably more widespread in the 70s or 80s than now, just looking at what types of trips my local aeroclub used to organise across Europe or my plane’s old logs. Of course now it is much easier with the internet, schegen etc, but the cost of flying these days is such that people’s long distance flying ambitions are severely curtailed.
ps: edited to add… it looks like the Guide Delage, the French Pooley’s equivalent, ceased publishing this year, after 46 years!
I do remember using the Bottlang guides (carried ~30kg of them in 2003/2004/2005, pre-IR), and sending faxes (the only way to file PPR in some cases) via a Nokia 6210 phone connected to a laptop with a cable. It’s much easier today, with email2fax, and 3G in most places, and EU data deals. I also recall the Met Office faxback numbers but that was totally ridiculous.
I would not be surprised to hear that longish distance European touring in light aircraft was probably more widespread in the 70s or 80s than now
I am sure it was, given that fuel price today dominates the operating costs, which makes flying more expensive on the marginal (hourly, disregarding fixed costs) cost even if avgas has only tracked inflation over say 20-30 years, which will be emotionally offputting to most.
Guide Delage, the French Pooley’s equivalent, ceased publishing this year, after 46 years
I used to buy that ~ 10 years ago but could never see any value. It was basically a hotel/car hire directory, with airport details one could IMHO never quite trust. Oddly enough Pooleys still sells in the UK… I wonder what their USP is – apart from not having any competition.
