How much support are people looking for on a fly-in / how to make fly-ins work

From my experience, both in aviation and in classic car clubs, on the level Euroga (no staff no money to pay staff, and unable to take the financial risk of people not turning up.) Peter is 100% correct. What any organiser of a fly in needs is a core of people, if necessary only 2 or 3 others that the organiser can rely on not to pull out at the last minute (unforeseen circumstances permitting) . Others can then join or not join this core as they see fit. But if the organiser is expected to book hotels, restaurants etc, you can’t expect them to put down deposits and lose them, so either people have to pay something up front or much more difficult, the organiser has to find accommodation which can be cancelled at the last minute. For a group in a holiday season, this can be both.very time consuming and very difficult.

Peter_G wrote:

Perhaps because the first’Fly In’ was an Add-on; whilst the second was the Primary aim?

Yep, I’m with you on that.

@Emir
Emir wrote:

And you chose to point out to organizer and to blame him for low turnout. Strange…

Negative Sir. Unfortunate demonstration of the limitations of forums in a non-native language for most, where chosen words or sentences can be played with and manipulated at will, consciously or not.

A reminder of the thread’s title: How much support are people looking for on a fly-in / how to make fly-ins work
Complaining about people dropping out of a fly-in is one thing, finding the reasons and cure (if possible) another. Since you went to both, and were probably in both of the Telegram groups, makes you way better qualified than myself to:

offer the explanation what were the differences between two.

Of course I’d like to help and try to find out as to why the only EuroGA (La Seu d’Urgell) fly-in I attended was indeed a success:
- Telegram group… not sure if it is a necessity, I managed to get most details from the EuroGA site direct, details by texting Aart (thanks again). The official fly-ins mentioned above certainly work without Telegram
- Weather… yes, we were lucky, and it was perfect, not only there, but enroute as well
- General location… “exotic”, scenic. My guess is that most participants had never been there
- Main attraction… in this case the city of Andorra. Same remark as above, and also piqued my interest in going there
- Facilities, airport… a runway and approach facilities that suited everybody’s requirements or taste, ample tarmac space, fuel, safety
- Facilities, stay… as in accommodation and food, all plentiful, only downside distance to the city
- Dinner… was great, the amount of participants as a direct result of all the above. The food was excellent, and so was the social interaction

What can be done for future successful events? Probably no magical recipe here, but a few pointers to be gleaned off in the the last 66 posts…

Maybe the discussion is taking place at a wrong time. Many pilots right now find the Corona regulations for border crossing too annoying to bother with it. I am sure the turnout would be better once corona regulations are lifted. It has already started. So I look forward to the next fly-in :)

@Dan whatever you wrote above about Andorra I can just confirm and practically all listed I found in Aosta/Cervinia. That’s why I don’t see much difference between those two fly-ins, so I wouldn’t seek the reason for so low turnout within place, date, weather or organizational issues. I don’t complain why people dropped out, I’m just stating the facts. I always try to join, time and business obligations permitting. And I understand people who can’t join due to any reason; the only thing that surprises me is the difference between initial enthusiasm and final result.

Snoopy wrote:

A fly-in is something that gets its soul from many others doing something together, parking lots of planes, meeting others, plane-talk on the ramp, checking in with the Euroga counter/tent on arrival, meeting the guys“, nametags, a common activity like planes and coffee or something similar on one or two days designated for arrival. Perhaps a dinner on the evening of day two. A little prize for furthest flown/most challenging arrival or whatever.

We do these kind of fly ins once a year (usually) from the ILS forum, one day event and maybe 3-4 hours on the ground. That is something families will either simply endure or rather tell the pilot to go have a day without them. If you want to get the families on board, the way it’s done with EuroGA is much preferrable.

The kind of meet and greet fly ins for aviation nuts is best done to venues like the Aero or similar where non-flying family members will not take part in any event.

Personally I am very reluctant to commit to any such events if they involve crossing the Alps, as 70-80% in VFR it won’t happen. We had some of these fly outs planned quite ambitiously over the years, not one of them happened because of weather and interest was low from the start. “Long haul” fly ins usually are limited to IFR for most people anyhow due to the absymal dispatch rate of VFR, particularly around the Alps.

Oskosh, with respect, is a pipe dream for most and requires a) tremendous amounts of preparation b) viciously expensive and c) requires airplanes capable of doing the NATL in almost all conditions, which means either turboprops or turbo-piston airplanes with a range north of 700-800 NM. I know it’s been done before, e.g. by Pilot und Flugzeug Leserreisen, but usually we are talking 6 months preparation and maybe 8 high performance planes doing it in the end.

The most successful fly ins I’ve seen for myself outside the ILS yearly fly ins was the meet up of Euroga in Lausanne a couple of years ago and the ILS camps in Nördlingen and Speyer. All of those were great short trips for all participants, easily done VFR even in less than optimal conditions. But even then, you get a maximum of 10-12 planes, often enough 3-4 remain of the flock originally interested.

Well, if anyone is interested, I usually am near Primorsko Airfield, Bulgaria, each summer. If some EuroGA folks would like to meet up there, I’d be available from Mid July to August.

Peter wrote:

Sure, for random dates the VFR despatch rate is not great, but contrary to what most PPLs think IFR SEP/MEP despatch rate is not much better

I actually meant pre-planned dates over the Alps are something most people simply don’t bother with as weather is mostly against them. You get either the Alps themself in murk or north or south faces. That all of them are open is comparatively rare, about 30% of the time, judging from a survey of GAFOR data I did a couple of years ago (X/M vs O/D). In the flat lands however, it is reverse, 70% flyability over the year.

So if you pre-plan a destination which has alpine crossing involved for a specific date, many PPL’s will not bother to sign up or do so at extremely short notice. From my time as aviation wx briefer I always followed the strategy:

- Defined destination: Find the date to fly to it within the next week or so
- Defined date: find a destination which is flyable on the day.

Given the surveys results, I would no longer plan any fly ins for our club which involves alpine crossings but rather go for places which can be reached even VFR and with less than CAVOK conditions. For us here in Switzerland, this means going anywhere but South.

Peter wrote:

but contrary to what most PPLs think IFR SEP/MEP despatch rate is not much better The real rise in despatch rate comes with FL250+ capability + radar + full ice protection (not TKS that runs out after 45 mins).

Airliner like dispatch rates I agree. I think however that there are steps in between. IFR rises the general despatch rate from “pure luck” to “educated guess” in smaller airplanes. I’d say the “good probability” despatch rate starts with the smallest denominator being a Seneca II or in the SEP segment with turbocharged and full FIKI planes such as the Cessna 210 (even more so the Silver Eagle), Piper Malibu or Mooney 252/TLS/Acclaim in their FIKI versions. The step to “quite optimistic” would go for TBM’s, Cheyennes and similar turboprops or jets.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

one day event and maybe 3-4 hours on the ground

Mmmmh, interesting concept. But might only work locally, e.g. for rather short flights, as most prefer a nightstop following a “long” flight.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Oskosh, with respect, is a pipe dream for most

For me as well No, I really meant the concept of the fly-in, as being in the US and flying into KOSH during AirVenture.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Primorsko Airfield, Bulgaria

Visited the place in July 2018, and it is a dream little airfield Magnificent runway and tarmac, litte hut style terminal building, and the coast within short reach by bicycle.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

crossing the Alps

A little bit of a myth here really. The Alps crossing is possible most of times of the year, a capable aircraft and some experience do help indeed. A crossing is not mandatory, a reroute West via the Geneva/Grenoble region (short version), or East via Austria/Slovenia (long version), another possibility. Assuming one likes flying

Re fly-in attendance and success…
One of the hurdles I see is the disparity due to the large array of aircraft flown, and differing interests, by EuroGA members. Here we have some private pleasure flyers, such as UL or puddle jumper, whilst on the other hand we have high end +/-M€ machines, used primarily for business and A-B flying.
Yes, the majority is in between these 2 groups, but it probably also explains some of the difficulties in A) choosing the right spot to stage a fly-in, and B) reaching any kind of success.

Let’s not forget that LESU had one C172 flown VFR all the way from Elstree EGTR to Spain, Dave raised the bar higher on how far one can fly with few hours after PPL

I think the main factor when flying the puddle jumpers that far is 1/ rarely justified while renting and 2/ not an easy experience for family (better have another motivated pilot with Devil’s arse to fly 5h untill fuel tanks go dry)