Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Experiences with Russia

boscomantico wrote:

helps you nothing. There seem to be essentially zero international airports which sell 100LL.

This is not true again, boscomantico. Please take your time first to check www.makgas.com/fuel to make such statements

UUUZ, Russian Federation

Pointless to discuss if on arguments you reply “what about your country”. But I’ll reply.

Being small country, we can’t have many airports – it’s like complaining that Luxembourg has only one airport. Btw in Croatia you can land to any registered airfield/airport and there are many besides international airports. Just open AIP and check how many there are – 9 international airports, 2 additional ones that can be international with 2 hours PPR, 15 grass airfields and 11 water airports. So in total 26 land and 11 sea, all with ICAO codes and all available for landing without any permission within working hours.

If you want to land to unregistered surface then you have to apply for permission for such operation at CAA. I don’t see anything unusual in this requirement. Otherwise you could try to land anywhere including my balcony. And there’s nothing unusual that CAA wants to know who, what and when.

Saying that LDDU is expensive is obviously lack of information and/or arguments – for example 9.40€/ton landing fee, helicopters 50% discount.

Fuel price in Croatia is a bit lower than in the rest of EU but it’s higher than it used to be because of common taxation policy. Jet A1 is approximately 1.2$ for private use with all taxes or 0.6$ without taxes (AOC).

Last Edited by Emir at 12 Feb 20:09
LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Emir wrote:

Just open AIP and check how many there are – 9 international airports, 2 additional ones that can be international with 2 hours PPR, 15 grass airfields and 11 water airports. So in total 26 land and 11 sea, all with ICAO signs and all available for landing without any permission within working hours. If you want to land to unregistered surface then you have to apply for permission for such operation at CAA.
What about Medulin and Unije? Those are not included in the AIP, but are they still registered for operational use in Croatia? Or is there some special rule in place for the usage of such aerodromes? At least Medulin can be used without any permission from the CAA.
Last Edited by Frans at 12 Feb 20:15
Switzerland

One of these might well cost a bit to land at Dubrovnik

but a 1400kg plane is €50 which is not at all expensive.

This is an interesting thread but I think my comments above (about a “local” being able to “lubricate matters”) are probably the key.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Emir wrote:

Otherwise you could try to land anywhere including my balcony. And there’s nothing unusual that CAA wants to know who, what and when.

Saying that LDDU is expensive is obviously lack of information and/or arguments – for example 9.40€/ton landing fee, helicopters 50% discount.

Fuel price in Croatia is a bit lower than in the rest of EU but it’s higher than it used to be because of common taxation policy. Jet A1 is approximately 1.2$ for private use with all taxes or 0.6$ without taxes (AOC).

Thank you, Emir, the discussion is obviously not intended to offend anyone.
Anyway it is odd that CAA wants to know who, what ICAO type and when wants to land at “your balcony”. Normally property owner consent is enough, and it is not a CAA business to check if my aircraft fits your property size – e.g. neighbouring Italy CAA does not get involved in these matters, leaving it to local authorities. Even in Russia CAA does not care is it safe or not to land at ZZZZ this or ZZZZ that – not their business.

I believe you would be interested to know landing fee at St. Petersburg ULLI international airport – 9.8$/ton, being slightly cheaper than LDDU.
And it is nice to know, jet fuel for private use in Russia is cheaper than that in Croatia, I guess AOC holders are not members of this community.
That difference, I believe, explains why you do not have air navigation fees for MTOW less 2000 kg – you pay them indirectly via excise tax on fuel, while in Russia you pay that directly

UUUZ, Russian Federation

pilotatotale wrote:

That difference, I believe, explains why you do not have air navigation fees for MTOW less 2000 kg – you pay them indirectly via excise tax on fuel, while in Russia you pay that directly

That would be theoretically possible, but AFAIK the fuel taxes in Europe are just taxes that go straight into the state budgets and are not earmarked for anything.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

pilotatotale wrote:

Thank you, Emir, the discussion is obviously not intended to offend anyone.

No offense taken, I didn’t get any of your comments in that way, neither my attention was to offend anybody.

pilotatotale wrote:

Anyway it is odd that CAA wants to know who, what ICAO type and when wants to land at “your balcony”. Normally property owner consent is enough, and it is not a CAA business to check if my aircraft fits your property size – e.g. neighbouring Italy CAA does not get involved in these matters, leaving it to local authorities. Even in Russia CAA does not care is it safe or not to land at ZZZZ this or ZZZZ that – not their business.

It’s probably related to safety role that CAA has, S&R capabilities, incident/accident prevention and investigation. It’s defined differently in national laws and it’s not consistent across EU. BTW in Northern Macedonia if you want to land at one of their two airports, you have to provide all these documents to get the operation approval.

pilotatotale wrote:

That difference, I believe, explains why you do not have air navigation fees for MTOW less 2000 kg – you pay them indirectly via excise tax on fuel, while in Russia you pay that directly

No. These taxes are budget income and are collected from all private owners refueling in Croatia while air navigation fees are collected for all overflying IFR aircrafts over 2 tons regardless origin, destination and registration.

pilotatotale wrote:

And it is nice to know, jet fuel for private use in Russia is cheaper than that in Croatia, I guess AOC holders are not members of this community.

With so many drilling potential and capabilities, the fuel in Russia should be twice cheaper Jet fuel is $0.8 in UK, $0.7 in Bosnia and $0.6 in Serbia – the price is mainly consequence of tax policy.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Frans wrote:

What about Medulin and Unije? Those are not included in the AIP, but are they still registered for operational use in Croatia? Or is there some special rule in place for the usage of such aerodromes? At least Medulin can be used without any permission from the CAA.

They were operational last summer but latest AIP change (October 10th, 2019) doesn’t list them, so I’m not sure about their status.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Emir wrote:

It’s probably related to safety role that CAA has, S&R capabilities, incident/accident prevention and investigation. It’s defined differently in national laws and it’s not consistent across EU.

I think it more likely that it is related to the legal tradition. E.g. in Sweden you are allowed to freely access private land as long as you’re not being a nuisance. (I’m simplyfying a bit, but that is the gist of it.) This does not in itself extend to motor vehicles or aircraft, but the law explicitly states that you can take off and land anywhere without any permission from authority or the land owner as long as you’re not causing damage or substantial nuisance.

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 13 Feb 18:51
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

I found the old Info-Pilote article where they flew from Stuttgart to Gelendzhik on the Black sea in a Jetprop for the seaplane show.

Before leaving, you need:

  • An original letter of invitation from someone in Russia
  • Original written declaration from your insurer that they will cover the cost of repatriation on the dates required
  • Visas – 3 weeks minimum, some Euros, and a few hours of patience for the 150m queue at the Russian embassy (can be bypassed using an agent for some more Euros)

They stopped for fuel at Lviv, but needed a unique reference number from Moscow before entering Russia. This took all day and dozens of phonecalls, and they ended up having to stay the night. Lviv is apparently beautiful.

Next day, Russian ATC cancelled their IFR waypoints and vectored them for an hour, before making them divert to another aerodrome. They were surrounded by eight soldiers, plus policewomen in miniskirts and heels, but it quickly descended into a nightmare: no smiles, no English. They had to stay next to the plane for 8 hours, were accused of having a fake passport, and had to sign various documents in Cyrillic.

Once arrived at Gelendzhik, there was a further 3 hour delay, and they think they were only allowed to stay because their invitation had been issued by the Russian defence ministry. JetA1 was seven times the normal price, and the landing fee €4,500

Their strong recommendation was to hire a Russian pilot. The Hydroplane show deserves to be more well known, but rendered almost impossible by Russian administrative paranoia.

EGHO-LFQF-KCLW, United Kingdom
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top