Following on the exchange above, I see 2 options for a different kind of fly-in:
Option 1 (Snoopy-style) :
It is the kind of experimental/Jodel fly-ins that are quite common here.
Option 2 :
Sam thing at a field that have :
One member would be required to coordinate stuff on site.
A 50€ per plane booking fee would be adequate to allow some organization (van rental, food that needs to be booked in advance etc..)
Are you interested in option 1 ? Option 2 ?
Does the fee give you second thoughts ?
Given the lack of fly-in these days, any flyin is still a good one
I would wait for the summer to see Option1 vs Option2 success, although it seems load of aircraft have stopped flying all together…
Tbh, Aosta was a successful flyin given “the situation” (it’s ski, winter, covid, restrictions), I wish the dates would have worked for me and also if I had the right aircraft, it would have been possible (now being stuck in Lanzarote, nothing flies here except kitesurfing and A320)
nothing flies here except kitesurfing and A320
Take ATR to El Hierro or La Gomera
A fixed yearly EuroGA fly&meet, always at same place and date might be an idea perhaps to bring the online crowd together offline and faces to forum names? LJPZ before the high season in May or June maybe?
Fee? Don’t think this is a good idea… binding people is never a good idea in aviation.
Let’s compare the 2 recent fly-ins:
1) Aosta – Cervinia. Peter goes to Cervinia to spend his vacations on the white slopes. Good for him. At the same time this is declared a “fly-in”, and few of the followers do (follow) 
2) La Seu d’Urgell. The flying is published and supervised by Aart. From what I’ve experienced, great success.
Now why was number 2 a success (in my eyes), and number 1 not, I ask?
number 2 a success (in my eyes), and number 1 not, I ask?
Perhaps because the first’Fly In’ was an Add-on; whilst the second was the Primary aim?
Peter can tell me – or alter this posting – whether this the place to share a Fly In I am organising:
Overnighter_Troyes_April_2022_pdf
All EuroGA Pilots are welcome!
The pdf should be self explanatory. If anyone is interested and sends me their mobile number, I will add them to a WhatsApp page which will keep them posted of developments.
Peter goes to Cervinia to spend his vacations on the white slopes. Good for him. At the same time this is declared a “fly-in”, and few of the followers do (follow)
With due respect, Dan, I think that’s unfair. I do work damn hard to run EuroGA as best as I can. And since I am the daily admin here, if I propose a meet-up, you can say I went somewhere and some followed me, whereas if somebody else drove the meet-up (as Aart did for Andorra) then one can’t say that. There was extensive preceeding discussion on the location, who wants to do what, etc. It was a fly-in. The location is 10/10. And easily the most friendly airport in all of Italy.
Of course I like to get something out of a fly-in, and have a backup if nobody else turns up. I had two in 2014, for example, Elba (5 aircraft “going”, just 1 turned up, and only for lunch), Lucca (3 aircraft going, and none turned up). Then the very first one, 2013, after a huge vote, La Rochelle, and almost nobody turned up, and a later analysis of who voted made it clear the vast majority were the 5hr/year rental pilots who were not going to turn up. And so on.
The successful fly-ins were organised by others (non admin staff), driven by pilots with local connections who also got others from their country (not necessarily active on EuroGA) to come along, which was always really nice.
But for sure I would like nothing more than me not having to do anything (other than the bulk mailing, which is necessary) and somebody else doing it all. I don’t like setting up a telegram group for a fly-in, see 40 people join, most of whom are just dreamers, then find the airport can’t handle anywhere near even half that number, so a lot of those who would go drop out… Now, who wants the job?
You weren’t in the telegram groups (you don’t use the app, and for those people everything has to be duplicated in the forum, and most of them don’t bother to read it anyway and then email me to say they didn’t know, so I no longer bother) so you haven’t seen how the numbers panned out. There were about 45!
As I said, the best way to do this is clearly to communicate with likely flyers privately. Then you have a decent size “core group”, say 5-10, which is plenty, and much above that it takes some local effort to organise a restaurant.
La Seu d’Urgell. The flying is published and supervised by Aart. From what I’ve experienced, great success.
Now why was number 2 a success (in my eyes), and number 1 not, I ask?
If you were in the tg group (which you aren’t) then you would know that most of the people in it were clearly not actually going. One can always tell because they go silent / remain silent when a question is posted there. So Aart kindly got on the job (a job which almost nobody wants to do) and dug up a load of others.
It wasn’t the location (Aosta is great) and it wasn’t the wx (the Alps were 100% CAVOK all the way to low earth orbit, and still are). It wasn’t the airport; extremely friendly and happy to have 20-30 planes (how many in Europe will say that?). It was the effort someone put in. CV19 issues were similar between the two, although I reckon a number of people could not be bothered to check the requirements (which were posted in the tg group, for those who can’t google) and discovered only late that they need a test, in addition to a vacc cert.
I’ve merged another identical thread from a few years ago into this one. Lots of good suggestions, but in the end somebody has to drive it.
Peter can tell me – or alter this posting – whether this the place to share a Fly In I am organising:
I would just start a thread in the Trips section, and see who bites.
I do work damn hard to run EuroGA as best as I can.
Fully agree, and yes, I reckon you do an amazing job at it, thanks for that 👍🏻
I’ve been flying for quite a while, and during this time taken part in many a fly-in. Most were highly successful with high attendance numbers. I would of course have to start with Oshkosh (oh my, it’s been called Air Venture for a few years now), Sun n’Fun, but we’re in Europe, so let’s focus on what’s going on here.
The most successful (define that…) fly-ins are the ones organized by the homebuilt associations, such as the LAA (ex PFA), RSA, EAA Sweden, and others.
Other specific associations organize fly-outs, a group of aircraft flying the same itinerary, and mostly rejoining in the evenings for the social part.
And then there are some semi-private fly-ins, EuroGA style.
Answering the questions as asked in the very title of this thread is difficult. The matter of participation, or not, is complex, and of course very individual.
Maybe setting up a poll would help define the needs and expectations of EuroGA users in regard to fly-ins?
I would of course have to start with Oshkosh (oh my, it’s been called Air Venture for a few years now), Sun n’Fun
LAA (ex PFA), RSA, EAA Sweden, and others.
– one UK “grass field” got 600 ULs once)and mostly rejoining in the evenings for the social part.
That’s what we do, and the most popular thing is the Saturday evening, because many arrive only on Sat an depart on Sun.
Maybe setting up a poll would help define the needs and expectations of EuroGA users in regard to fly-ins?
90% of the answers will be from dreamers. It’s the classic market research challenge.
I am “all ears” but I quite favour the idea of a small donation, simply because it is human nature to not value something which is free. But for sure this is not easy; I try to get people to pick up some leaflets and put them at some airport (perhaps their local) but almost nobody does even that, which is actually really easy.
After all, Cirrus manage to extract north of €220 for their meet-ups, and what you get for that is what anybody can book online in minutes, nowadays.
1) Aosta – Cervinia. Peter goes to Cervinia to spend his vacations on the white slopes. Good for him. At the same time this is declared a “fly-in”, and few of the followers do (follow).
There’s saying in my language (I don’t know about others): you missed complete ball. I didn’t notice Peter (or anybody else in this forum) has followers. We’ve been talking here on forum about fly-to-ski fly-in for years and a lot of people embraced this as something interesting and nice to do. More than 40 pilots joined Telegram group this year, the weather was perfect (and it was obvious a week before planned weekend), the airport was welcoming us, the situation with Covid was pretty acceptable and yet almost everybody dropped out. And you chose to point out to organizer and to blame him for low turnout. Strange…
2) La Seu d’Urgell. The flying is published and supervised by Aart. From what I’ve experienced, great success.
In my opinion the support for the 2nd one (thanks Aart) was the pretty similar to the 1st one: airport contacted, group formed, potential participants informed as much as possible about all details, transfer and accommodation recommendations shared, joint dinner announced. The weather was pretty much the same, the airport was friendly (except nonsense of closing for other traffic when they had “CAT”).
Instead of asking, maybe you can offer the explanation what were the differences between two.
