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LELL Sabadell

i need to fly to Sabadell next week vfr
any info about landing fees and handling (if needed)
cheers

fly2000

I have a writeup here from 2012. There was a very well organised company called 100ALAS who for a flat fee of about €80 took you into town and collected you afterwards.

Watch out for pickpockets and phone thieves in Barcelona if you hang out in the streets. I saw it first-hand. Small children too.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Sabadell is pretty uncomplicated. I fly in and out every week. Landing fee for my SR22 is 12,39 EUR. I don’t remember the parking fee but it was similar or a bit higher. As I’m kind of based there I pay a flat fee of around 160 EUR / month. Don’t confuse that with the fee for a few days.

Fuel AVGAS/Jet A1 is available at the pump or via truck. Getting fuel can take a while depending on how many people are in front of you. When the fuel truck is doing deliveries on one side of the airport there is nobody at the AirBP pump and you can’t use your AirBP either as the machine has been disabled due to issues with taxes.

Since recently the administrative office has moved to the new tower which is on the “inaccessible” side. So you pick up a phone, they print out the invoice and you pay via a machine that takes cash and credit cards. There are two computers to file flight plans and the phone is right there. It’s all clearly visible and instructions are in big letters on the wall in Spanish and English.

Most traffic is from the various schools and their planes take up most of the available parking spots. I once arrived on a Saturday instead of the usual Friday and had to park on the other side. Someone from the tower gave me a lift to get to my car on the other side.

There is no need for handling but if that includes the ride to/from Barcelona it certainly is a good deal and I would appreciate it myself.

I use this airport every week and to me it is 100% hassle free and very convenient. The only downside is that it’s VFR and they won’t let you depart when the ceiling is below 1500 ft. They do have RADAR (it’s class D) and coordinate with Barcelona ATC. Sometimes it can get busy and them having RADAR does help with separation.

Frequent travels around Europe

Stephan_Schwab wrote:

I use this airport every week and to me it is 100% hassle free and very convenient. The only downside is that it’s VFR and they won’t let you depart when the ceiling is below 1500 ft.

No Special VFR?

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

“The airport is closed” was the answer

Frequent travels around Europe

In Europe, each airport which is in CAS has VFR minima, and on departure they just keep you there, for days, weeks, whatever – until you file a full Eurocontrol-validated IFR flight plan. I got that at Biarritz, many years ago. They had a 1200ft minimum but I believe that most airports follow the ICAO figure of 1500ft. I was stuck there for a few days. I even tried filing “IFR” in Class G back to the UK but the tower just replied with “this is not a valid IFR flight plan” which was their way of saying “we know you don’t have an IR” Then one day the reported base was 1200ft and off we went! In VMC at 2000ft…

This is one of the biggest benefits of the IR.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

most airports follow the ICAO figure of 1500ft.

That’s the figure for “normal” VFR. For Special VFR the figure can be as low as 500 ft, obstacles etc. permitting. Did you try asking for Special VFR? (I believe ATC can’t offer it — you have to request it yourself.)

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Regarding the SVFR: I would have asked but there are two details to consider:

a) on that one single day the ceiling was really low and it was an overcast. I would have been IN the clouds at something like 800 ft AGL and there are many mountains close by

b) IFR pickup with Barcelona ATC can take a while depending on the number of airliners going into El Prat. That would have left me flying SVFR inside the clouds in close proximity of those mountains. It would have been a rule violation, dangerous although mitigated by synthetic vision.

The forecast for a bit later was good and so I left in the early afternoon instead of in the morning. No big deal.

Things would have been different if one were able to get a proper IFR clearance before takeoff.

Frequent travels around Europe

Stephan_Schwab wrote:

Things would have been different if one were able to get a proper IFR clearance before takeoff.

Can’t you get one by phone? In the UK, I call NATS before power checks and get it on the ground. It’s a good use for the Bluetooth headset :)

When I went to LELL some years ago, I got dropped (IFR cancelled) by El Prat at some altitude, visual with the airport but in reality in thick haze, about 3km, and the procedure seems to be to just do a descending orbit in the overhead until properly visual

And same for a departure: get airborne and climb in the overhead, while calling El Prat ATC. The impression I got is that they ignore you until you are high enough to affect them and then they suddenly wake up and give you the clearance

In the UK, I call NATS before power checks and get it on the ground

Do they clear you into CAS, with a US-style clearance void time? I don’t think so. All they give you is what any Class G airport tower should obtain for you – “remain OCAS, climb 5000ft, squawk 1234, London Control 133.175”. If there is no tower, or they refuse to do it (quite a few UK AFIS towers do refuse) then you get the stuff from London Info.

I don’t believe there is a way to get a CAS clearance on the ground at any OCAS airport anywhere in Europe. If this can be done with a phone call in the UK, that would be great, and is a new development AFAIK. I heard Oxford does this but you still need to call up the CAS controller before you actually enter CAS.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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