if i wouldn’t land where pilots killed themselves there unfortunately wouldn’t many places be left.
Alexis you completely and totally missed the point!
Ah, I am really sorry! I was sure you implied that LOAV is a dangerous place to land.
Well, there are degrees of danger, and for the difference between €50 and €10 (2008 prices; a guess) the pilot traded an ILS for this joke which exists for god knows what purpose (probably to legalise some commercial operation e.g. an air ambulance) and merely encouraged him to fly a visual circuit in IMC for the benefit for LOWW radar which was just a short distance away. The strange thing is that he was a very wealthy businessman (net worth in 7 figures plus) and could have flown the LOWW ILS hands-off, autopilot coupled.
I am making the point that sometimes paying the extra money – even if it is a substantial proportion of your fuel tank – to get down safely is worth it.
Also most cheap GA airfields in Europe are dumps in the middle of nowhere (which is not a coincidence; they are cheap because the land is not under property shark pressure) so you save say €50 on the landing fee but you spend say €100 on taxis. It is a funny aspect of human nature that people readily spend up to say €300 on a taxi for 4 people – look up the taxi shuttle rates to the various slopes in the Dolomites.
I think too many people “fly to airports” when they should “fly to places”. And flying to airports is a great killer of one’s flying career.
This is just a rant, only slightly related to the above discussion, but I have seen so many people fly with strange priorities, and give up…
The title of the thread is about a VFR trip through Europe, isn’t it?
I talked to a pilot the other day who said that you can do ILS approaches to LOAV, but you can’t actually land them. You have to miss the approach at the last minute…
Thought about that one for a while, and still don’t get it. Practicing missed approaches is great, but I think this setup is the cheap man’s way of doing Instrument Approaches… head scratch?
I think LOAV is a nice airport. They have a real restaurant, which is great. The facilities were in good shape, and if you need/want to land at night, you can. Just make sure you give them prior notice, and know that there is a per 30min charge for the people manning the tower and operating the lights/systems.
I think it was something like 40 EUR for 30 minutes or so. Pretty reasonable, considering European charges in general.
It’s the only small NVFR airport I know of in the area.
I’d say you have a point about people spending in weird ways and human justifications. Just strange.
I encounter this flying on commercial airlines.
Flying more than 50k miles a year, it is well worth paying the extra 100-200 EUR per flight on Star Alliance airlines (not biased against any others, just the routes I take) .
The reasons are plenty, but luggage, lounge and upgraded seating (very often while in the US) far outweigh the bargain basement pricing of airlines that are non-refundable, no-modifiable, non-everything and nickel/dime you for every little thing.
I’ve had it happen where someone new to the company booked me on a “cheap” flight, and I spent 200EUR on checked luggage equipment each way. (400EUR round trip).
The ‘expensive’ flight was 250EUR more, but due my status, all the bags would have been free…
Similar mentalities. Cars and trains are cheap, airplanes are expensive…
I guess the moral of the story is flying within your envelope and abilities. If you let money, pressure or circumstances dictate your decisions, they are flying your plane for you… : {
To full-circle, LOAV is a nice airport and I easily recommend paying a visit!
