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Who knows EuroGA.org ?

As I’ve said before, let’s see some postings about flying around Norway

I know the scenery can be stunning, in the right sort of wx.

Ultimately any online community will end up with content that reflects what the members are willing to put in the time to write about.

BTW I have 1000 EuroGA leaflets here so please – anyone who hangs around a club or airfield – let me have your address and I will send you say 100

If those leaflets end up in Norway then we should see some material from Norway.

If those leaflets end up at a homebuilder base then we should see some homebuilding material.

I know there are homebuilders (or owners of such, bought already built) reading EuroGA, every day, but they are not writing

I almost gave up 10 years later, and one reason was to use my license for anything practical, I would need a de-iced twin or SET + IFR

For Norway, that’s absolutely correct. When it isn’t CAVOK it’s – on any long-ish trip – icing conditions. I know airline pilots and they tell me it’s icing, often pretty severe icing, almost every time they fly there.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Flying can be hundreds of different things. You can enjoy it as a pure hobby, which mostly means you will enjoy it alone. That either requires to be single or have a family who supports you enjoying something alone. A non-pilot passenger is likely to find the activity boring unless there is an interesting place to go to.

Powered flight has a tendency to become a tool for going somewhere worth the expense. If that is not the case, people will stop using their PPL. In the past without an IR I would never start any trip in less than perfect VFR weather. Why should I go out an increase risk just to be flying? I don’t enjoy a high risk activity. It happened that the good weather and my free time didn’t coincide that often. Without a need to travel back then, I let the PPL lapse.

Now with a high need for travel (my job is 100% travel) and an IR, I get a high utility value and got myself a tool well suited for the job and within my budget.

If you remove the need to travel, I would not be flying at all, because I don’t want to separate myself from them during my free time. I rather look for something we can do together.

Frequent travels around Europe

ortac wrote:

Personally I would rather read about LeSving hopping around remote Norwegian areas in his Cub, than read about someone flying their SR22 to Cannes :)

Well, that would require that I could write interesting stories and take nice pictures I don’t even have a camera except my phone. A usual trip goes like this: I come to the strip, take at least one low pass/low approach to scare away sheep, moose, reindeer, boy scouts, bears or whatever and see if the runway looks OK. Then I land. The owner is usually there, and is very happy to meet other people and airplanes, and invites for coffee and cookies. There could be other people there as well, other planes. I stay there for an hour or more, talking about flying, the strip, airplanes and other pilots. Looking at other planes if there are some. I write my name and the reg-number of the plane in a book he has, and take a look when I was there the last time, and who else have been there in what planes, and another hour flies by. Then I saddle up and go home, or to some other place. Most strips can be flown with any light airplane, but the Cub is such a nice plane to fly – if it’s not too far. The flying itself is nice, into fjords and valleys, far into the mountains and woods or at a small island far out at sea.

All that is beside the point though. Personally I’m not interesting in reading about trips be it VFR or IFR. Unless perhaps bush flying. For me flying isn’t about “going places”, because I have no particular place I need to be, except in the air (or my shop), and I don’t want to do it flying straight and level. “Going places” is something I do in the passenger cabin of a B737 to get to a meeting. As a note, in the US they call it “cross country”, which is something I can relate to. Here in Norway, we call it “long trip” (directly translated), which has the same meaning. Cross country can be done in any aircraft, and is more a matter how long is too long before it becomes utterly boring (or too nerve wrecking, flying across the poles and things like that). Going places can be done in deiced SET or a twin piston, as a minimum. I got my PPL in 1992. I almost gave up 10 years later, and one reason was to use my license for anything practical, I would need a de-iced twin or SET + IFR, which was outside my financial capacity, and it would mean yet another level of bureaucracy, training, regulations, no fun. Then I “discovered” microlight, soon after homebuilding/experimental, tailwheel, glider towing (was familiar with gliders from 1982) and so on, aerobatics. In short I re-discovered why I got the PPL in the first place, the fun was back. A funny thing is that an RV (4,6,7,8,14) can be used for everything: you can build it, maintain it, aerobatic, cruise 150-200 kts for 900 NM, lands almost everywhere a Cub lands, VFR and IFR. Even my tiny Onex cruises at 135 kts, and will easily do 170 simply by changing the engine to a more standard 120-130 hp Rotax/Jabiru/ULPower instead of the homemade contraption I have now (+ it’s aerobatic, lands everywhere a Cub can land, not much panel space for IFR though).

ortac wrote:

If it is a stated objective to increase the amount of “VFR” content on this site (even though on the other hand we apparently don’t want to make an IFR/VFR distinction anyway), then all of LeSving’s points are very valid and reflect a type of audience that is not well represented here.

This is indeed exactly what I mean. If I didn’t “know better”, I would believe that an (un)spoken agenda for this site is to get people into flying IFR in expensive 1960 technology span cans In essence what I mean is that unless you have an RV, Glasair, Velocity, Lancair or similar then flying IFR (in no icing and nice conditions) is a dead end path for 99% of all PPL pilots in Europe. Even among those planes mentioned, only an RV will truly work because it can be landed everywhere. If you happen to be (or have been) a professional pilot, then the situation is very different of course. It’s just that most PPL pilot are not professional pilots

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

I have uploaded the EuroGA logo here

It has a transparent background, so when displayed in a normal image viewer, it may not look right. But in say Photoshop you get the transparent background showing as the chequerboard pattern

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I think if we were to create a new category, while retaining the present layout, Bizjets would be the first one to go.

How about renaming “Maintenance and Avionics” to “Maintenance, Tech and Avionics”?

BTW I have just received another 1000 leaflets, so anyone who can leave them locally, email me your address please

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I second that. People and legislation divide us enough, we shouldn’t ask for more division. Plus, I would do a lot more IFR touring, if I had the opportunity, and still keep my grass roots flying and basic instructing. This doesn’t exclude each other. (My dream would be flying IFR-Trips in stylish grass-rootish aircraft as the Cessna 195 or Beech 18… Or crossing the US in something like a Champ or Chief mordo and without any electronic gadget… )

The only category I don’t really understand is “Bizjets”, could be just “aircraft” or something similar. I think the content of “instructors” and “learning” are quite similar and could very well be joined, in my opinion. But as many others, I don’t use the categories anyway.

mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

Have not read all the thread, but there is a reasonable number of sport/tail wheel/vintage (both senses of the word) contributors on the forum, we just need to start a few more threads.

I certainly enjoy the long legged mainly IFR trip reports, these pilots are an important part of GA. I sometimes think airports, regulators, and airlines would like a simple binary, separated world of turbines and permit to fly/micro lights with nothing in between. The self fly pilots/entrepreneurs deserve all the moral support we can give.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

Personally I would rather read about LeSving hopping around remote Norwegian areas in his Cub

Of course, but why could that not be posted under the existing Trips and Airports section? We have plenty of VFR trip writeups there.

And if you had a section like “Grass Roots Trips and Airports” how would one define that? The classification would be very much in the contributor’s mind – especially as there is a significant aspirational factor in GA.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

If it is a stated objective to increase the amount of “VFR” content on this site (even though on the other hand we apparently don’t want to make an IFR/VFR distinction anyway), then all of LeSving’s points are very valid and reflect a type of audience that is not well represented here.

Since we don’t want to talk about IFR vs VFR let’s call them “grass roots/sport” pilots vs “going places” pilots.

We can make a sophisticated financial argument that IFR flying in certified aircraft is not eliteist, but at the end of the day if it is perceived as eliteist (or boring), by a group that this site wants to attract, then that is what counts.

Personally I would rather read about LeSving hopping around remote Norwegian areas in his Cub, than read about someone flying their SR22 to Cannes :)

In what way are the existing homebuilding forums insufficient?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
97 Posts
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