RobertL18C wrote:
alioth I think flying into Northern Ireland from the Republic may be more relaxed? I recall a spur of the moment flight from Sligo to Enniskillen and the local Garda waved me through and I may have ’phoned Enniskillen and delivered a GAR on arrival
The Irish don’t need any paperwork. It’s only the UK side that does.
If the UK is not enforcing a 12 hour notice period for CTA flights, they need to drop it or make it more reasonable.
Flyer59 wrote:
I don’t know … I never even THINK about stuff like “dispatch rate” or about “how to get somewhere”.
I am a former airline dispatcher, that is why I use this terminology. I know plenty of ppls who are not and use different wording for what I describe in these terms.
You might have noticed in the last few years that I use figures quite a lot in order to learn more about what I am doing. There are people who think I am crazy to do that and who will simply fly the “easy” way without ever consulting performance tables or anything, but for me this is part of my hobby and part of the fun finding the most efficient power settings, finding out what the statistics are about some of the routes I fly and about other stuff not relevant for this thread.
I spent the last winter putting together a GAFOR statistic for Switzerland, which I hope to publish some time in 2017 as my collaborator on it is too busy to finish the implementation as we would like it currently. What I do know however is that out of the statistics we have, a clear trend can be found for alpine crossings under VFR, discounting VFR on top.
If you look at a 10 year statistic on the yearly average, the main route from Zürich via the Gotthard Pass to Lugano available at 35% of times roughly. That means, your chance of cancellation is 65% if your flight involves this route. The other Swiss GAFOR routes across the mountains show similar numbers. In the flat lands (as far as our north of the alps region can be called flat) the statistics are massively different, the route from Altenrhein to Geneva is available at roughly 75% of the times.
While the alpine routes keep their availability similar over the whole year, with a spread of maybe 10% between 30 and 40%, the flat land routes are available at up to 90% of times in summer and down to 50% in November to February. I’ll try to post the table here if I find a way to do it, but that is the whole gist of it.
We have not done the same stuff for the Austrian or French Gafors, mainly for lack of data. I’d also like to do the German one at some stage. France and Germany are different anyhow, as they do areas rather than routes.
Clearly, the argument will be that GAFOR is not a weather record but actually a forecast. However, the figures we found do fit together very well with the experience local people have and actually matched their expectations pretty much in the alpine region, while expectations were much more pessimistic for the low lands.
So if the question is, why people shy away from doing long trips VFR, this certainly is one of the factors when it comes to crossing the Alps. On the other hand, it should also show that bad wx is often badly overestimated in other regions.
IFR, things do look different if you have the right airplane for it. Right means FIKI and it means a max level of 200-250 for the alpine region. IFR in non de-iced airplanes or such which have a maximum level of 150 or so is very much resticted in many ways.
So in that regard, what keeps people from doing longer trips is the very high cancellation rate. This will undermind confidence, both of the pilot but primarily of the people who are to come along. If you announce 3 or 4 trips and they never happen, people will not want to come anymore. I’ve seen this experience first hand and it is perfectly understandable.
Add to that the risk of cancellation fees from a flight school or club, and you get the perfect recipe for people foregoing long trips altogether.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
I spent the last winter putting together a GAFOR statistic for Switzerland, which I hope to publish some time in 2017 as my collaborator on it is too busy to finish the implementation as we would like it currently. What I do know however is that out of the statistics we have, a clear trend can be found for alpine crossings under VFR, discounting VFR on top.If you look at a 10 year statistic on the yearly average, the main route from Zürich via the Gotthard Pass to Lugano available at 35% of times roughly. That means, your chance of cancellation is 65% if your flight involves this route. The other Swiss GAFOR routes across the mountains show similar numbers. In the flat lands (as far as our north of the alps region can be called flat) the statistics are massively different, the route from Altenrhein to Geneva is available at roughly 75% of the times.
While the alpine routes keep their availability similar over the whole year, with a spread of maybe 10% between 30 and 40%, the flat land routes are available at up to 90% of times in summer and down to 50% in November to February. I’ll try to post the table here if I find a way to do it, but that is the whole gist of it.
That’s very interesting! Do publish your results.
Have you also looked at the average time you would have to wait for an unavailabe alpine crossing route to become available? That could be just as interesting.
Add to that the risk of cancellation fees from a flight school or club,
Very sad if there are clubs that have such fees. That’s very detrimental to flight safety. My club always let people cancel without any fees up to the start of the booking period to lower the pressure to launch in marginal weather.
I think the culture of aircraft ownership correlates significantly with those who will use them for actual long distance transportation.
My airplane is NA and has anti-ice (non FIKI TKS). It is restricted to FL175 but can climb to 200 easily if necessary for a short time. I do not want to fly higher than that unpressurized, and i will not fly across the mountains in IMC if i can’t be in VMC or under the clouds safely. That’s a personal decision based on the fact that i fly with my kids.
From May to October i can cross the Alps with that equipment on at least 80 percent IFR of all days. If i apply my personal limits it’s still (probably) 75 percent.
@Mooney_Driver
I understand why you use the numbers and statistics, but personally it does not interest le, because i never HAVE to fly. I check the weather – and if the weather is un my limits, i fly.
The longer i fly the more convinced i am that it’s helpful ro make things simple and to have solid criteria you keep to. This way i might not fly on days others do – but i have also never scared myself in an airplane. Which is important to me.
All in all i am still sure that it’s the high cost that prevents people doing ling trips, and that includes that you need some experience to do them safely.
If you look at a 10 year statistic on the yearly average, the main route from Zürich via the Gotthard Pass to Lugano available at 35% of times roughly. That means, your chance of cancellation is 65% if your flight involves this route.
While I can perfectly believe the 65%, it doesn’t represent a reduction in GA utility.
A large % of that 65% (of, presumably, IMC in the valleys) is going to be widespread bad wx, which makes the destination itself unattractive. So the trip would not have been done anyway, using any means of transport.
Also only a small % of European PPLs will know how to go about it. AFAIK only Swiss PPLs are trained to do this. Germans are not, despite being adjacent to the Alps. And it never even occurred to me to fly through the canyons on any of my long VFR trips.
But most VFR pilots do not have oxygen and probably aren’t interested in it. So they won’t get across the Alps anyway…
I think the culture of aircraft ownership correlates significantly with those who will use them for actual long distance transportation.
Of course, as does the IR. You are more committed…
Peter wrote:
But most VFR pilots do not have oxygen and probably aren’t interested in it. So they won’t get across the Alps anyway…
Why? When the weather is good, you can cross the alps perfectly fine VFR via the different passes. Only if you wanted to fly over the alps, you would need oxygen, but who would want to do that on a calm, clear day?
@Rwy20
I have crossed the Alps many times (30-40?) in FL100-130 without oxygen, which was always fine in former times, when the rules about O2 weren’t as strict. And I still fly FL120 without if it’s only for the crossing of the higher parts. And actually can cross most of the eastern parts in FL100.
Flyer59 wrote:
which was always fine in former times, when the rules about O2 weren’t as strict
The latest rules (COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) 2016/1199 of 22 July 2016) give you a lot of liberty to decide for yourself if supplemental oxygen will be needed.
NCO.OP.190 Use of supplemental oxygen
(a)
The pilot-in-command shall ensure that all flight crew members engaged in performing duties essential to the safe operation of an aircraft in flight use supplemental oxygen continuously whenever he/she determines that at the altitude of the intended flight the lack of oxygen might result in impairment of the faculties of crew members, and shall ensure that supplemental oxygen is available to passengers when lack of oxygen might harmfully affect passengers.
(b)
In any other case when the pilot-in-command cannot determine how the lack of oxygen might affect all occupants on board, he/she shall ensure that:
(1)
all crew members engaged in performing duties essential to the safe operation of an aircraft in flight use supplemental oxygen for any period in excess of 30 minutes when the pressure altitude in the the passenger compartment will be between 10 000 ft and 13 000 ft; and
(2)
all occupants use supplemental oxygen for any period that the pressure altitude in the the passenger compartment will be above 13 000 ft.
My point in replying to Peter was that you really don’t need oxygen, unless you want to be higher than the highest peak around at all times, for which there is really no reason. But crossing the Swiss alps, I would still say that you need to keep to the passes and valleys to do it safely without oxygen.
My point in replying to Peter was that you really don’t need oxygen, unless you want to be higher than the highest peak around at all times, for which there is really no reason. But crossing the Swiss alps, I would still say that you need to keep to the passes and valleys to do it safely without oxygen.
Yes; what I was getting at is that the 65% cancellation rate which you get for random-date-planned canyon flying doesn’t represent a real loss of utility – because a large % of pilots don’t want to do those flights anyway.
I have crossed the Alps many times (30-40?) in FL100-130 without oxygen, which was always fine in former times, when the rules about O2 weren’t as strict. And I still fly FL120 without if it’s only for the crossing of the higher parts.
Which is really dumb, especially if implicitly recommending it to others on a public forum.
And actually can cross most of the eastern parts in FL100.
You can cross them at 0 ft if you go far enough east 
But crossing the Alps is not a “long trip”. It takes about 45-60 mins to do it.
