Beginning on March 3rd 2016 a VFR slot for Zurich LSZH will be given only if the PIC is in a list of people who have completed a mandatory training. It can be completed online at https://wbt-vfr.zrh.aero/olat/dmz/ and will be valid for three years.
It is expected that somewhere later in 2016 Zurich also introduces mandatory flight plans for VFR flights.
Flying (administration wise) is getting harder every day :(
Largely only applies to Switzerland…
Add to that:
There has been quite a reduction in available slots for small GA (Cat A).
This hits particularly IFR flights this time, even though also the early VFR departure slot allocation has been cancelled.
They new make a difference between German holidays plus SAT/SUN and Weekdays, in short DVO times, whereas on the affected days, earliest IFR departure is at 10:30 LT, latest arrival at 20:45.
The current new regime:
VFR UTC
Outbound: 0720-0745 (07:40-07:55 DVO), 09:40-10:55, 13:30-15:45, 17:40-18:45, 20:30-20:55
Inbound: 07-20-07:45 (outside DVO only), 09:40-10:55, 13:30-15:45, 17:40-18:45, 20:30-20:55
IFR UTC
Outbound: 07:15-07:25 (outside DVO only), 09:30-10:30, 13:15-15:30, 17:40-18:25, 20:15-20:45
Inbound: 05:45-06:20 (outside DVO only), 07:50-09:15 (08:15-09:15 DVO), 11:30-14:15, 16:00-17:30, 19:15-19:45
These times will change by one hour in summer, LT stays the same, that means – 1 hr on the above posts.
boscomantico wrote:
Largely only applies to Switzerland…
Your constant gloating does not make the situation any better. Apart, been to Munich or Berlin recently?
This thread is about mandatory briefings, which is, for a fact, a very Swiss phenomenon. It’s very unusual outside of Switzerland (for private ops at least).
I know only one other in Switzerland: Samedan. It is mandatory because people kill themselves for not being able to read altitude from the chart and not thinking about hot weather and mountain winds. I don’t know the reason for Zurich.
The thread is to inform people who plan a visit to Zurich and might be surprised when they pick up the phone and are required to provide proof of taking the course. The last sentence was just a personal comment from me which we all seem to share – making GA difficult is not nice but unfortunately other powers do it all the time.
I know only one other in Switzerland: Samedan.
And Lugano. And Sion. And probably a few more that I don’t remember now.
You may be referring to mandatory briefings for VFR?
Cannes LFMD is mandatory for IFR. That’s France.
Lugano (Switzerland) is mandatory for IFR, as I am sure are many others.
Yes; GA is not getting any easier. Lots of little irritating things. They don’t usually bother the locals because they sort it all out personally or they know a way around it, and since most pilots fly only locally they work out the places which are easy and stick with them. But it increases the amount of due diligence (preflight research hassle) for a visitor.
I still laugh at the Lugano briefing. It kept crashing my browser. Eventually, with a different browser, I “passed” the test but when, just to make sure, I phoned the airport to check if they had the “pass” they told me they had nothing. So I didn’t bother to go (went to Locarno instead). Of course Lugano “management” couldn’t care less because they get ~ €1000 from every bizjet.
Any flying from A to B in Croatia requires plan to be filed. At LDZA plan has to filed even for flying the pattern.
what_next wrote:
And Lugano. And Sion.
No mandatory briefing for VFR.
Vladimir wrote:
It is mandatory because people kill themselves
Yes, because Bizjet people killed themselves, SEPs now have to do the briefing 
And that briefing makes you answer what marshaller signs mean – < sarcasm > lots of people in Samedan have killed themselves by misinterpreting marshaller signs < /sarcasm > (I’ve never seen a marshaller there). They could have made the briefing actually useful by describing the predominant wind patterns and their pitfalls (like downdrafts in the region of Celerina), but no, they included mostly useless stuff (and their fees are now in the insane category, much better to go to Sion, which is equally nice or even nicer, and much more reasonable).
Compared to that, the ZRH briefing is actually not bad, it is to the point, includes only operationally relevant points specific to Zürich. It mainly covers the different operational concepts (i.e. runway use at given wind pattern) and what the impact for VFR arrivals and departures is. And yes, it also contains its share of “henhouse navigation” that seem to be the hallmark of european VFR nowadays.
For those interested I added Lugano and Sion to the pilot’s wiki. I will add some information about Zurich in the near future. If anyone wants to contribute and add more airports and/or countries, just let me know.
