Advance notice - Europe Fly-in - Aussies and Yankees welcome

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Antoine
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Re: Advance notice - Europe Fly-in - Aussies and Yankees wel

Post by Antoine »

So for now we have:

- Robin and Mrs
- Lance (alone or Mrs?)
- Myself
- Aart

What about Kai, Thomas, Jean, Nick (Budd) Bartek and everyone else here in Europe?

While waiting for others to express interest, could Robin and Lance tell us how many days they are able to allocate to this? We could make the trip to Palma very interesting:

From my experience, it is desirable to plan each "hop" as follows:
1 day for flying in and settling into the place
1 full day for visiting
So really each hop would "cost" 2 days at a minimum

If we have 7 days available, that's 3 hops plus slack.

A good major hub as an initial meeting point could be Paris or Rome.
Zürich would also be OK geographically, but it is generally more expensive to fly to and outside the EU, which means we have more paperwork on our way. I have no experience of spanish airports and GA, but this is also an option, especially if we have little time.

I am assuming that on the way home, our non-EU friends are willing to jump on a commercial plane from Palma to wherever they landed.

Aart how are the connexions?

Cheers

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Jean
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Re: Advance notice - Europe Fly-in - Aussies and Yankees wel

Post by Jean »

You can count me in.
I can't tell yet how many pax. Will be 1,2 or 4 (depends on how much Duvel I need to carry :D ). I will confirm that later.
I also think that june is a good time for the fly-in, less storms, longer aeronautical daylight.
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Star57
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Re: Advance notice - Europe Fly-in - Aussies and Yankees wel

Post by Star57 »

Heh....what about Canadians, :tap: can we come, I will drop by the Canadian factory and get some goodies, I was just there, got a tour, very nice people specially Wendy ;) .
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Re: Advance notice - Europe Fly-in - Aussies and Yankees wel

Post by Antoine »

Of course Frank!

The subject of the post was a bit restrictive, trying to be funny ? But by "America" really it was both continents ( north and south!) that were meant.

So by all means, think about it and let us know. I was wondering if some of the Diamond factory people and even Diamond resellers might be interested to join, it would be legitimate CRM after all!

We seem to be in agreement that it will be june 2013. Folks are you happy if we make it a big week, say start our flying from the international hub on a saturday and leave Palma on the sunday of the following week end?
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Lance Murray
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Re: Advance notice - Europe Fly-in - Aussies and Yankees wel

Post by Lance Murray »

I would be bringing the Mrs. And I could probably do June. I would probably take two weeks in Europe and allocate any part of that two weeks. Sounds fun.
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Re: Advance notice - Europe Fly-in - Aussies and Yankees wel

Post by Aart »

This is beginning to take shape, good! Connections out of Palma to European destinations are great. Intercontinental almost non existent, but from Barcelona and Madrid are very good, and connections between Palma and Barcelona/Madrid are excellent too.

Slight hiccup here regarding Palma. We would use my home base, the GA airport of Son Bonet (LESB) that is just a few miles from the main airport LEPA. The aviation authorities have just decided to close Son Bonet at 16:00, just to save a few salaries. It is completely crazy because it robs flight schools, tour flight outfits and other companies of the bulk of their income. These companies (and me as a private user) have just hired a lawyer to fight these silly burocrats. It does not become impossible to do the fly-in to Palma of course, it is just a bit limiting. And we may be succesful to get this reversed.

Other than sight-seeing on the island by ground transportation it may be a nice idea to do a hop to nearby Menorca. There is a hidden gem there called San Luis (LESL), a private airfield. No landing fees, a superb 2 km runway (redone a few years ago by Ferrari who wanted a secret place to test some cars..) one hangar and a nice restaurant next to the apron. Aviation paradise as you would only see in the US. Oh, sorry, probably Canada too. Heck, probably also Australia. In short, all across the world except in Europe..
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Re: Advance notice - Europe Fly-in - Aussies and Yankees wel

Post by Antoine »

Hello Aart I am sorry to hear about your worries with the Spanish civil servants. The attached pic almost got me into jail.
It is made in Sitia / Crete. It shows the three (!) police officers employed in this deserted airport taking a hard look at my (EU) passport. They managed to keep themselves busy for 15 minutes with one german and one french passport! Poor guys, we were probably their only occupation of the day. Not even kidding!
Sitia_cops.JPG
Sitia_cops.JPG (23.53 KiB) Viewed 3380 times
But back to the topic. Assuming your legal action works, we can include the Menorca hop as a day trip in our plan.

I have been scratching my head and here is a first proposal of a travel plan. As you can see the time line has grown considerably, but if this is ok with everyone, why not? Folks, we need reactions please.

Make Rome the initial meeting "hub". Locals arrive at Rome Urbe (LIRU) whereas intercontinentals land at Fiumicino. Plan on spending one day in Rome together for visiting.
Rome is obviously a wonderful place to visit so Robin and everyone coming from far away really could plan on arriving earlier and taking more than one day there.

From Rome, we could fly north to Florence (not sure where to land yet but the city is a blast to visit off season). We could include a wine tasting event there too.

For the second hop, I propose Cannes, France.
At this time of year it will be very pleasant and it is already vibrant in Riviera glamour.

I was thinking of maybe Andalusia as the third stopover on the way in. I suppose our overseas friends would enjoy seeing the Alhambra or another major highlight of the region ?
As an alternative, maybe we could plan Barcelona, or what else, Aart?

Plan would look like:

Day 1 arrive Rome
Day 2 visit
Day 3 arrive Florence
Day 4 visit
Day 5 arrive Cannes
Day 6 visit
Day 7 arrive Andalusia
Day 8 visit
Day 9 arrive Mallorca
Day 10 visit
Day 11 visit Menorca
Day 12 fly home.

If this is too long, we could remove Florence and fly direct from Rome to Cannes, overflying Elba and Corsica on the way. We will need maritime gear anyway for the Mallorca crossing.

And if it is still too long, we may want to consider ending the fly-in in Andalusia.

Aart, would you be willing to join us in Rome and DA-42 a couple of lucky bastards down?
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Re: Advance notice - Europe Fly-in - Aussies and Yankees wel

Post by Aart »

Sounds like a plan. I think it is sensible to aim for the Mediterranean. June may still throw in some nasty weather up in the northern part of Europe, as you have experienced Antoine.. However, Andalusia and then back to Mallorca may be a bit out of the way. Indeed Barcelona sounds a bit better to me. Or else go to Andalusia (Granada airfield) after Mallorca. International connections out of Malaga thereafter.
If Barcelona would be in the route, Sabadell (LELL) is a great GA airfield, just 15 minutes from the city.
Yes, I may consider joining this squadron, let's see how the composition of the number of people and number of aircraft looks like.
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Star57
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Re: Advance notice - Europe Fly-in - Aussies and Yankees wel

Post by Star57 »

Gentlemen...any idea where I could possibly rent a DA 40 or a 172 (would I still be welcome :thumbsd: ) preferably N registered or C for Canada so I wouldnt have to do a conversion...
Germany would be fine? I think?

I would love to participate....guys, if you want to come as far South as Fatima Portugal I will BBQ a Lamb at my house for all of you.
Maybe I should explain, I live full time in Calgary Canada, but we have a Home in Portugal as well as Scotsdale USA, I was made and born in that home in Portugal.

BTW...I woont make you pray in Fatima :oops:
Cheers
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Re: Advance notice - Europe Fly-in - Aussies and Yankees wel

Post by Aart »

Could you make that an Angus cow, Frank? Or do we need to go to your Scottsdale home for that? OK, let's do some strategic planning: next year North America!
Kai, are you not tempted to join in? It would be great to have you along..
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