Posts Tagged ‘Lugano’
Posted by Bernhard Daenzer | Filed under Flying, Travelogues
Foggia was selected as fuel stop for its location and reputation. There are very few airfields in southern Italy which have Avgas, offer customs and are close enough to the final destination of the day, Kerkira.
The lack of proper (fuel available) alternates for Kerkira, practically require the fuel stop to be close enough to allow for a return to the departure airfield even when over the final destination.
Unfortunately, Foggia did not live up to its good GA reputation (eddh.de, other sources). We lost more than an hour on fueling expensive at 3€/l (approx 16$/gal!!!) Avgas and watching an airport rep taking forever to print a paper slip to enable us to pay the landing fees of another twentyish Euros. To top it off, despite emails and phone calls ahead of time, customs was not organized as it should have been. We were lucky that this didn’t delay us any further.
While Greece took a lot of effort for flight planning and then the actual operation turned out to be very easy, Italy was quite the opposite. At first sight, Italy is pretty easy flight planning wise, but then turns out to be quite a pain for operation. Controllers tend to have a VFR-averse attitude and airspace structure is set to mainly keep you below 2000ft AGL. Despite this, I managed to get a decent economic cruising level of FL115 for the better part of the flight, but it required hints and suggestive communication all the time.
Also, the scenery along the Italian Adriatic coast is quite boring.
So based on our experience and the excellent reports out of Croatia (which we will fly through on the way back) I would advise against taking the Italian route unless necessary for weather or other reasons.
Statistics
Planned Distance: 404 NM
Actually Flown Distance (TO to LDG): 424 NM
Top Ground Speed: 182 kts
Average Ground Speed: 153.5 kts
True Flight Time: 02:46
Block Time: 02:57
Posted by Bernhard Daenzer | Filed under Flying, Travelogues
Sunday morning, we left Birrfeld on a short flight to Lugano, a short (and efficient) tech stop to fill the tanks with (relatively speaking) cheap AVGAS in Switzerland and comply with the required customs bureaucracy/regulations.
Statistics
Planned Distance: 101.8 NM
Actually Flown Distance (TO to LDG): 101.5 NM
Top Ground Speed: 182 kts
Average Ground Speed: 145.5 kts
True Flight Time: 00:42
Block Time: 00:50