I’m now in contact with Gozen. Seems things have changed a bit – LTFJ doesn’t have AVGAS anymore. Means I’ll stop at Atartuk. Also on the way back from Kapadokia, Atartuk doesn’t do Tech stops so I’ll need to refuel at Ankara, from which reaching Tivat is a stretch. So will prob stop at Skopje and go to Mali Losinj for the night.
Sounds weird though, since LTFJ is where the aeroclub is. Maybe they just stopped officially seling Avgas?
I have been at Atatürk about 5 years ago. Was expensive, but otherwise good. Very good ATC I remember.
Otherwise, I am not too fond of flying in Turkey. Every stop is very expensive, Avgas is scarce and super-expensive. Also, visitors can usually only fly at international aerodromes. MEAs are high. DCTs are hard to come by.
I was just going to say the same about the aeroclub at LTFJ.
But some Greek clubs have private avgas too – Lesbos LGMT, Thessaloniki LGTS.
What is a “tech stop”?
No AVGAS in Lesbos – LGMT. Only MOGAS.
Tech stop = just taking fuel, not passing customs or immigration, and NOT paying 100eur/head for compulsory use of the GA terminal (each way).
OK… we had this here before.
There is no such thing as a tech stop.
Some airports might operate some unofficial policy on it, but the general principle is clear. If a country requires you to enter or leave via a Port of Entry (called a “Customs” airport in international aviation terms) then you have to present yourself to the authorities at that airport.
Turkey especially has been and remains tight. Foreigners are not allowed to do even internal flights without all stops being Customs airports, due to a big artefact smuggling scene. You could easily load the plane up at some small (non Customs) airport, then “clear Customs” on the way out of the country, but we all know the plane doesn’t get taken apart there. So they want all stops to take place at airports where they will put everybody through security as they are walking out to airside.
This is the Iran thread I referred to earlier – worth a read.
There is no such thing as a tech stop.
That was not the conclusion of the other thread and I disagree. A tech stop is an established principle in aviation. I have done tech stops without passing immigration (Germany → Serbia → Greece) and before airliners became capable of going all around the globe nonstop, tech stops for refuling were very common.
Some airports might operate some unofficial policy on it, but the general principle is clear. If a country requires you to enter or leave via a Port of Entry (called a “Customs” airport in international aviation terms) then you have to present yourself to the authorities at that airport.
No, there is the concept of a “transit area”. You can even spend half of your life there, see this silly movie with Tom Hanks. Before I did this Schengen to Schengen trip via Serbia, I asked both German authorities and the Serbian airport whether I can do this without going through a customs airport on the German side. Answer was yes, as long as I stay in the transit area. Fees in Serbia were 50% for tech stops marked as such in the flight plan (RMK/TECHNICAL LANDING).
There is no such thing as a tech stop.
This is the ICAO definition:
Technical stop. A stop most commonly used to refuel the aircraft, to make unexpected essential repairs or to respond to some emergency need to land the aircraft. No traffic is unloaded or loaded during a technical stop.
I am not saying some airports don’t operate such a scheme, but take the point I made earlier: how does the country in whose airspace you are doing this know you cleared (or didn’t clear) Customs?
Let’s say I fly Shoreham – Le Touquet – Peenemunde with a “tech stop” at Le Touquet? The Germans will not know anything about what was written on the flight plan for the first leg and will assume I cleared Schengen there.
This would provide a means to break the “Port of Entry” system and generally nobody would know anything about it, especially if the final stop was in a different country which won’t see the previous flight plan and any remarks on it (especially the case if VFR). It would be a purely voluntary action on the pilot’s part to submit himself to the Customs officers, and obviously most are not going to bother.
I am not saying some airports don’t operate such a scheme, but take the point I made earlier: how does the country in whose airspace you are doing this know you cleared (or didn’t clear) Customs?
You need a transit area. Just ask the airport whether it has such a transit area.
Let’s say I fly Shoreham – Le Touquet – Peenemunde with a “tech stop” at Le Touquet? The Germans will not know anything about what was written on the flight plan for the first leg and will assume I cleared Schengen there.
When it becomes an issue, you can use that flight plan to show that it was a technical stop. Of course there are gray areas and one would only do this with an international airport with permanent border control presence and segregated areas but you are doubting a principle which has been standard in aviation for the last 100 years. Do not forget that it used to be very common to make fuel stops in “hostile” countries on a long distance flight.
