Switzerland Archives - Page 2 of 3

Bern (LSZB)

Bern is the Federal Capital of Switzerland and is a nice small city to visit. The airport is a bit far from the city center but it is connected by bus and train, and taxi is always an option. There are a couple of airline landings and departure per day but the airport is not that busy. It offers all possible facilities: controlled airspace, ILS and NDB approaches to runway 14, customs (remember, Switzerland is not in the European Union), restaurant, and a nice tower café… more on that later.

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The main concrete runway is more than 1’500 meters long and there is one 600 meters parallel grass runway. VFR operations are quite straightforward and the VFR reporting points are easy to find… with the noticeable exception of “W”. This one is shown on the chart as the point where a motorway enters the city… but there is no clear “city boundary” in the real world. The FRI VOR / DME or your favorite GPS are your friends. Maintain a good watch of ATC and other traffics. Patterns exist on both sides of runway. The airport is located between hills that makes it a bit hard to spot but there is more than enough room for manoeuvers. Click here to see my video of a VFR arrival and departure from Bern.

After landing have an eye for your ground chart, your taxi clearance will be something like “Blue 3” or “Red 5”. The coloured lines do not start directly at each taxiway so a bit of preparation makes it much easier. Don’t forget to pay your approach, landing and parking fee before leaving the airport.

The IFR procedures are a bit complex, because of the surrounding hills. Approach starts at FRI or WIL, then to one of the 3 NDBs used for the approach, outbound and procedure turn to the final course. Bern Approach is radar equipped and usually provides radar vectoring. The trickiest thing is the IFR departure from runway 14. It starts with a left turn at 0.9 DME, then left back towards the NDB on the airport when passing 2’500 feet. This positioning results in a left turn parallel entry into the right-turns hold, and all gets very quickly. I got lost in this holding once, during my IFR training.

The local “hot spot” is the old tower, displayed on this picture behind the terminal, with the antenna on top. It has been reconverted in a small coffee shop. I never really understood the opening times, and it is often quite full, but it is really worth a visit.

Bern is located directly north of the Alps and is a good base-camp if you plan a visit to Switzerland and some alpine flying. The Jungfraujoch and Aletsch glacier are 30 miles to the south-east and from there you can descend the Rhône Valley to Sion or continue to the south towards the Simplon and Lugano, or turn left and fly to Buochs, or Samedan.

The official Bern city website offers plenty of tourist information. The city’s name comes from the German “Baeren” which means Bears evolved to “Bern”. The city’s flag still shows a bear and one of the curiosities – which I can’t really call a must – is the bear pit (Baerengraben) in the old town, where two to three bears are living and can be seen. Click here for a YouTube video of the bears pit.

Gruyère (LSGT)

Gruyère certainly makes you think of a delicious Swiss cheese (and for my Swissness sake, it has NO holes…the holed one is Emmental), but is also the name of the region where this cheese comes from and it has its airfield. If you ever come to fly in Switzerland and are not affraid of grass runways, a visit to Gruyère is a must. The airport is located at the southern end of the “Lac de la Gruyère” and has a 811 meters long grass runway.. and some obsctructions. The prescribed circuit track must be strictly respected to avoid troubles with airport neighboors. All details can be found on the airport’s website (unfortunately in French only…). Note that a prior permission is required (per telephone: +41 26 921 00 40) and that no take-offs are allowed between 12h00 and 13h30LT.

The pattern is like a mini scenic flight, specially for runway 35: turn base around the castle hill, intercept the river, and join long final along the river. On runway 17, fly along the lake, low over the trees on final, and land.

Take-off performance can be an issue, so consider short-field technique. For non-swiss pilots, the airport altitude might sound unusual: 2’257 feet. Combine this with temperatures in the 25°C range during summer and you’ll probably be out of your usual area on the take-off performance graph. Early lift-off and acceleration in the ground effect is recommended, particularly when the grass is long. I remember looking at the trees by threshold 17 nervously during some take-offs while accelerating in ground effet, and finally rocket towards the sky and feel relaxed when finally seeing the lake.

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This video includes a take-off on runway 35 with a DA40 and illustrates ground-effect acceleration… For info, we were two on board, with minimum fuel for a short trip. Note the road across runway during take-off roll, and how close to the obstacles we are. The video is quite long, and the Gruyère segment starts at 7:40.

The airport restaurant is a large Swiss chalet and offers coffee with double Gruyère cream. If you come during spring or early summer you can also have blueberries in cream and getting it on top of a meringue is an option to be seriously considered. The restaurant offers delicious grilled meat and the castle can be seen from the terasse. The airport offers bike rentals for 5 CHF for three hours to ride along the lake and discover the area.

The castle of Gruyères can be visited and regularly hosts art exhibitions or musical events. Surprisingly, it is also the home of the H.R. Giger Museum. If you don’t know him, H. R. Giger is a world-known swiss painter and sculptor who created his very personal style often qualified of “fascinating biomechanical”. One of his best-known creation is the Alien – yes, from the “Alien” movie.

Visit the official Gruyère tourist office’s official website to find more activities, including hiking, spas, cableways, and much more. And please remember: Gruyère cheese has no holes.

Zurich (LSZH)

Zurich is the financial capital of Switzerland and first airport of the country. Being the main base of Swiss, it is quite a busy airport but it still accepts general aviation under certain conditions. The key to a successful trip to Zurich is good preparation. I flew there a couple of times IFR and VFR and it always went smoothly. Take a deep breath, relax, and go through it.

[Read more…] about Zurich (LSZH)

Samedan (LSZS)

Samedan is the final moutainous airport in this series, after Sion and Saanen. Located in the eastern Swiss Alps, in a narrow valley, at 5’600 feet AMSL, Samedan is the highest airport in Europe (altiports and glacier landing places excluded). Whatever the season, landing up there is never simple and careful flight preparation is a must.

The arrival from “W” is impressive, and finding it in winter is not easy – this reporting point is overhead a mountain lake that gets frozen and snow covered. The arrival from the Albula pass is also memorable, as the valley to the pass is also quite narrow. Because the local relief does not offers a lot of alternatives it is important to study the weather in details so as not to get trapped below clouds in a valley, or be stuck on top before descent. In winter, don’t forget to call the airport to ensure that the runway is clear of snow and that parking is available. The parking area is not fully de-snowed in winter so make sur to get good information about how to taxi on snow – particularly if you fly with a retractable landing gear. A recent accident involving a Falcon jet and a snow-wall close to the runway highlighted the specificities of winter operations in Samedan.

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Flying to Samedan in summer also requires good preparation, particularly regarding performance. The runway is rather long (1’800 meters) but with summer temparatures above 20°C, the density altitude can exceed 8’000 feet. Don’t expect a short take-off roll and steep climb out. Don’t assume that any single engine piston aircraft can safely take-off and climb with full load under such conditions. Leaning the mixture before take-off also makes sense as the airport is already above 5’000 feet.

The airport circuit is narrower than in Sion and there is no room to fly a base leg. Even with a continuous turn from downwind to final it is usual to overshoot the runway axis. A higher circuit is published for light twins and it makes sense to use if with certain high performance singles. Don’t forget that the single engine landing point is in the middle of the runway, not at threshold. Click here to see landing and take-off videos in a DA40. Note that the final turn is steeper than usual and beacause of relief there is no natural visual horizon. Keep enough speed to make the steeper turn possible…

The best part of each flight to Samedan is to pay the landing fee. The office also sells excellent Graubünden nut pies. Don’t miss them – no excuse will be accepted. Samedan is localted in the Graubünden region. There are numerous ski resorts around, including St-Moritz, Laax and Davos. The airport is intensively used during the World Economic Forum in Davos and is closed several days, usually in January, because of the forum.

All these specifities make a flight to Samedan a bit more difficult but good preparation makes is achievable for a well prepared pilot. Great alpine flying rewarded by a nice landing there and a nut pie makes a perfect day.

Tips for VFR flying in Switzerland

This post was initially released on my home blog www.plasticpilot.net and as it is full of tips for foreign pilots visiting Switzerland I publish this updated version here.

If you want to add a new destination to your logbook in 2009, why not Switzerland ? As a local, I can give you some tips to make your swiss operation seamless and enjoyable.

Customs
Important things first: Switzerland is not member of the European Union, so you’ll have to clear customs. Some airports and airfields offer permanent or on request customs service. This can range from shaking hands with a customs guy to fill-in a form, and it is mandatory. As Switzerland finally ratified the Schenggen treaty, it should be easier, but the transition phase starting early April 2009 is still quite fuzzy. Shenggen applies to persons only, not to goods and this makes things complicated. My best tip is to contact your destination airport before your flight to sort out all details.

Airspace structure
Swiss airspace is split in two, along a south-west to north-east line. North of the line is the “Plateau” area. This has Class-G airspace up-to 2000 ft AGL (except in CTRs), then Class-E up to FL 100, and Class-C from FL 100.

South of the line is the “Alps” area. The Class-E is up to FL 130 in case of military activity and up to FL 150 if military are not active. Above that is Class-D airspace (mandatory clearance) up to FL195, and Class-C above.

All CTR’s are Class-D and TMA’s are Class-C. Flying within Geneva (LSGG) or Zurich (LSZH) TMA is normally not allowed. Crossing Bern (LSZB), Payerne (LSMP) or Emmen (LSME) is just matter of calling on the radio.

The country is split in two FIRs, Geneva and Zuerich, each with its Information frequency. The boundary runs along Bern (LSZB) TMA.

Routes on controlled airports
All controlled airports have mandatory VFR reporting points and routes for both arrivals and departures. You can’t just call “10 miles east for landing”. Most of these airports also have ATIS broadcasts that you’ll have to copy before callint TWR.

Sectors on non-controlled airports
Non-controlled airfields procedures are based on sectors through which you must arrive and depart. The AFIS service is generally very limited, and most of time you’ll have to do blind position reports (sector – overhead – downwind – base – final).

Operation times
Be careful with airfields operation times – many restrictions do exist. Some airports even close from 12:00 to 13:30, and violating such a rule could cost you up to 700 swiss francs (approx. 600 US dollars).

Flight Plan filling
You can get briefing and file flight plans using computer based system called “AMIE” or “self-briefing” which is available at all airports and airfields. You can create an account if you want, so as to be able to close your flight plan on arrival. This system is for free at airports, and if you prefer to use it on the internet you’ll have to pay a yearly fee.

Landing fees
Talking of thees, you’ll have to pay for landing fees in all swiss airports. The price will depend of the MTOW of your aircraft, but can also vary depending of the services you’ll use (parking, customs, …). Landing fees will vary from 10 to 80 Swiss francs.

PPR
Many airfields, but at some times also major airports require a prior permission for VFR flights. For mountainous airfields it is also important to get informed about runway status as snow cleaning is not always granted.

Mountain flying
If you want to fly over the mountains and are not used to, be extremely careful with weather and winds. I personally don’t fly in mountains if wind is over 20kts ! Envisage hiring a local instructor if you want an introduction.

Tailored service
If you want more details, or some help to plan your flight to LSxx, feel free to contact me directly. I’ll be happy to provide you some support, and may be to meet you.

Saanen (LSGK)

When it comes to unusual airports in mountainous area, Saanen comes after Sion and before Samedan. You probably don’t know where Saanen is, but you certainly already heard of the nearby town of Gstaad, in the Berner Oberland. The approach to Saanen is unusual because of the surrounding high grounds. The runway length is not an issue as it is an ex-airforce base. Because of the intense VIP activity in Gstaad, you’ll see many turboprops and even some light jets in Saanen.

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Saanen is an un-controlled airfield which requires PPR. Practically, you have to call (+41 33 744 40 25) before flying there. The AFIS is almost always active and will inform you about the runway in use… most of time it is runway 26. What makes Saanen a bit tricky is that there is no room to fly a standard pattern. The approach for runway 26 starts with overhead, flying away from the airport on the runway axis…

The “pattern” then includes a right turn above a crest, and a loop around Gstaad, before coming back on final. Do not overfly the town, as there are many VIPs relaxing there. Describing this approach is not easy, so I built a Google Earth picture of it…

The airport plate says that an initiation is recommended, due to the particular approach. The biggest trick is is to manage descent while on the extended base leg, because the runway comes back in sight only on final. The unpublished tip to make it easier is to aim at the white church located right of the threshold. The end of base and begin of final must be flown relatively low over ground to avoid coming high on short final. In summer, intense glider and para-gliders makes the thing even funnier. The good thing is that the AFIS makes a great job at informing aircraft about each other.

Compared to the approach and landing, departing Saanen is really a non-event. The airport has no IFR procedures at all. If you want to file a Y or Z flight plan, a good joining / leaving point is the Fribourg (FRI) VOR, a few miles away on the G5 airway. During my last visit to Saanen, I made this video guide which showing approach and departure.

Saanen is not really a golf destination, but it is great for skiing in the winter, but don’t forget to call before you fly in, it could be that the runway is not clear of snow… During your stay you will have to eat at least one “meringue” with double cream. The best hotel in Gstaad is the “Gstaad Palace“, which is easy to spot while you fly the pattern: it is a square-ish castle with a single tower. You can reserve the cheapest room for 410 CHF per night, but the Penthouse Suite will cost you 9’700 CHF per night.