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Sicily - Palermo LICP - EuroGA 4-5 Sep 2021 fly-in

Great report, thanks for sharing! I’m happy I was part of it.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Thanks, really enjoyed the report + pictures!

always learning
LO__, Austria

Thanks Antonio, great trip report!

Private field, Mallorca, Spain

Great write up! Looks like a brilliant event!

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Such a pity I missed your meetup, guys and gurlz. I tried more or less absolutely everything, but short of leaving Justine sitting alone in Dubrovnik, it just wasn’t possible.

Let’s hope for the Spanish one, 16/17 October

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

IN summary , my first EuroGA meetup, and a great one. Wx seemed to play against it but everyone who committed made it. A great welcome by Aeroclub de Palermo and grazie mille to Fabio and Sacha who made it possible.

Thank you all those who made the effort to attend and share your flying stories. Well worth it! Fly safe!

Antonio
LESB, Spain

Two of the group’s aircraft left early the next day: one for Comiso in Sicily, the other one back home in Switzerland.

Some of the group’s aircraft with one of Palermo Aeroclub’s steeds

We ourselves set out for a local flight around Mt Etna, still smoking and glowing from the prior week’s eruption. The kids (and I ) were thrilled!

nice view of the solidified lava flows

a couple aerial views of the island…

The Palermo basin and the airfield at Boccadifalco

We then went for a swim at the beach, some lunch and then took the flight back home for an uneventful return, other than our tailwind of the prior day had doubled and reversed…as usual, making the return flight 45 mins longer than the outbound.

Last Edited by Antonio at 20 Sep 13:13
Antonio
LESB, Spain

I owed a small personal report on this meet-up too.

Wx and COVID were the dominant negative factors.
Getting to meet EuroGA members and the local GA community face to face as well as the unquestionable attractive of Sicily as a destination were the big positive ones.

Judging by the outcome the positives outweighed the negatives since 100% of those that committed to making it attended:

-Six crews
-Five aircraft (one local crew attended by train, but nobody called that cheating)
-16 people

The main meet-up target was an evening at Palermo with a pre-booked group dinner. Everyone was free to tour around Sicily earlier or afterwards and each crew planned it a different way: some spending a couple of days somewhere enroute, some flying into Sicily a few days in advance at a different airport (LICB, Comiso, due to fuel and instrument procedures) then drive to Palermo, most flew into LICP (Palermo Boccadifalco or Falcon’s Mouth) on Saturday and left on Sunday. At least two crews stayed a few more days touring the island. The advantage of a “free” agenda, except for the one meetup evening is that it can suit those with a few extra days to do other stuff, as well as those that only have the weekend available.

On the COVID side, rules keep changing and it is difficult to get proper written clarity. Fortunately there was an exemption in Italy for flight crews, but you need a certain dose of bureacrative bravery to travel these days. This was a deterrent mostly for UK members, since a mandatory quarantine was in question, but it was eventually clarified it did not seem to affect this kind of flight either as pilots or as individuals transiting for a couple of days by private means of transportation.

In the end, we all carried our EU vaccination certs or fresh COVID tests, but, other than the restaurant, nobody asked us for them.

On the weather side, widespread TS were forecast mostly on Friday and Saturday in Sicily, the Tyrrenian sea, and the Italian peninsula, affecting most of the routings from Mallorca, Netherlands, the UK, Croatia and Switzerland for interested attendees.

This was the storms outlook for Saturday three days ahead:

As for the GRAMETS, depending on routing, except with you picked a route avoiding the stormy areas:

The rest of the possible routings for Saturday, although better than Friday, assured some kind of weather encounter or another:

On the actual day, it was not so bad, except that those coming from Mallorca had to dodge the exact two storms forecast three days earlier…

For us, coming from Mallorca, it was clear early on the flight that the forecast was reasonably accurate and we would have to deal with these:

Once at Sardinia , we could clearly see from 200nm away the storms we would have to dodge: one was right ni our route from Cagliari to Palermo, the other one was in Tunisia heading swiftly North to Trapani in western Sicily…would we have a big enough gap to route between them and land before the latter blocked our path?

At least we had a healthy 25KT tailwind (worse than the forecast but still very welcome) which allowed us plenty of reserve fuel at destination with no fewer than four viable alternate airports on the island of Sicily: Trapani, Palermo Punta Raisi, Catania and Comiso, although only two of them with Avgas.

Rather than getting close and then do a big dogleg to avoid, we asked ATC to route 20 degrees off heading from 100NM out and they approved.

This made things very easy since the northern storm was clearly growing as we approached (this pic shows wx one hour before the aircraft position)

but clearly receding as we passed South of it and well clear of the big storm from Tunisia to the south

We did arrive to Palermo basin in glorious sunshine and cancelled IFR for a LH downwind join for the South runway at LICP. LICJ slightly NW of LICP clearly had a lot of traffic and ATC seemed to be happy that we routed South of their area. The circuit for LICP is a bit limited by a restricted area encompassing most of the city but it is all clearly explained in the Aeroclub website.

Fabio from Palermo Aeroclub did a great welcome symbolically delivering the keys to the city. In typical Italian parlance he joked that all we had to do in the city was go to any place, say his name and eat and drink at will without concern for cost…Now seriously we would not have been able to do this without the hosting of Aeroclub de Palermo, who offered Avgas at around 3EUR , offered ramp parking for the four aircraft in the group in excellent, AMI-guarded security, and guided and backed our reservation for dinner, which is always tricky at a strange place for a large group and without deposit. Please do not underestimate the importance of this minor detail.

Aeroclub de Palermo seems a well-run operation with no fewer than six aircraft , mostly TB9/10 singles…, somehow benefiting form the official use by the police and medical helicopters of the shared airfield with air force security.

getting a rental car delivered to the airfield proved impossible, ending up with a combination of taxi and rental car. We took a taxi to pickup our rental car at the beach with Automania at Mondello beach, no frills, but also no problem (as long as you pick full insurance) local company. The usual international companies were closed on Saturday afternoon. We went for lunch at the beach

then drove to our hotel Bel 3 for checkin and a little swim in the stormy wx and enjoying the nice views of Palermo basin and the airfield.

Then it was time for the great meetup, for which I was late since I had to return to the hotel (a 25 min drive) to get my forgotten wallet…bummer!

After a brief stroll

There was a lot of excitement in the group who had gathered for a drink prior to dinner and were sharing their flight experiences. Kudos to Sacha, the local guy who left his airplane back home and rode a train for the meetup . He acted as pseudo-host since Fabio from the Aeroclub was not available. More Kudos to the group who drove three hours from Comiso/Catania with an adventurous trip which ended up reporting theft to Carabinieri and exchanging rental cars…

It was great to see all flyers made it safely and wx seemed to be a lot more manageable than forecast.

We dined at La Cambusa and I simply could not have asked for a better place, with great reasonably priced food and the owner treating us just as Fabio had promised. Four adjacent but separate tables had been arranged to abide by COVID restrictions.

Great conversation despite the rainy weather which made the post-dinner stroll a bit more hurried than we would have liked. Obviously all that made it were quite advanced flyers who knew not only how to negotiate the wx for long-distance flying but also brave about COVID and bureaucracy.

We don’t blame Peter for his absence, since it was for a greater good as wx was really not suitable for his partner and he set his priorities right…we also missed Udo but it seems he also got those right as he was with the whole family!

I’ll post later on the next day.

Last Edited by Antonio at 20 Sep 12:23
Antonio
LESB, Spain

Emir wrote:

Other than that, nice and calm flight at FL180

Yes, being able to fly high makes flying much smoother, even when wx down below you is nasty and bumpy. I’m glad you made it back and have some fun on the way!

Antonio
LESB, Spain

Arrived home today – I guess I was the last one from fly-in crews to leave Sicily. A bit tough departure but pretty much on time before weather worsened. Other than that, nice and calm flight at FL180.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia
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