Flying in Germany
 

I will be going to Germany for a year starting in Feb. I am hoping to do some flight instructing while I'm there. Anyone have any tips for flying in europe?

There is a flying club at Coleman AAF in Mannheim. I haven't looked into it but if you call base ops there you can probably find the contacts. I've been flying in Germany / European central region for almost 4 years, what specific questions have you got?

Airspace takes some getting used to, if you are on an IFR flight plan you will rarely (if ever) be cleared for a visual approach even if you see the runway 20 miles away, and you hold one minute outbound not inbound and you will quickly realize that is the only sensible way to hold.

I have talked to someone at Coleman, but it will be about 2 hours from where I'm at. I guess I just don't know what to expect over there. All I can find talks about the user fees and how expensive it is to fly in Europe. I saw that you have to have an observer at the field in order to land so it sounded like most fields close at night. I am curious if there will be any us registered aircraft near Spangdahlem AFB and how much it will cost to rent or if I will be able to flight instruct in them.

Where do you fly out of?

2 hours to Coleman is probably the best you're going to get unless you want to convert your licenses to German ones (not recommended, IMHO).

Coleman is probably the sweetest little secret in Germany...although I'd say there are plenty of people who know about it, coming from someone who is on a wait list for auxiliary membership (I don't have SOFA status, so I would have to be an adjunct member in order to rent their planes).

If you want to look for German flight schools flying German reg planes:

http://www.landings.com/evird.acgi$pass*99357476!_h-www.landings.com/_landings/pages/fbo/fbo-germany.html

there are some broken links, but scroll down and there are a few places. You'll be reamed by user fees, taxes, and fuel, which is why I said it's cheaper to go with Coleman!!!

What do you do at Spangdahlem? No way to beg for a transfer to Mannheim/H-berg area?

PS> If you go over to JC forums, there is a thread started by the director of the Coleman flying club...he was looking for CFIs at the time, although I'm not sure if that's still the case...I think his callsign over there is Ramsey, do a search and contact him or go to colemanaeroclub.com and get in touch with their POC about other options in the country.

THANK YOU for you help! I was curious what user fees and costs there are for flying over there? Anything else I should know? Is it very easy to find US registed A/C to rent in Germany?

It sounded like they still needed CFI's the last time i called there so hopefully that will work out. I'm still trying to finish it up...

I work with Lockheed Martin and we will be moding the F16's there at Spang.

Where do you work that you are having trouble joining the club?

THANKS AGAIN

what are the jc forums?

do you have JAA CFI licenses though? Don't think those are very easy to convert if you're sitting with FAA licenes.