EGBE coventry

[davehearn]

I am trying to encourage all you general aviation pilots to pay us a visit here at coventry but this would be easier if i knew what you expect when you fly out for a land away? your thoughts would be appreciated. for any info regarding fees and facilities please feel free to pm me
many thanks in advance
DH

[flybymike]

First thoughts.
Friendly ATC and ground staff.
NO HANDLING
Charges say £10 for singles, £20 for twins.
Nice cafe with decent food and opening hours (they all seem to close at 4pm) Interesting things to do and see not too far away.

[Dark Helmet]

^^ What he said ^^

Does Coventry have a published arrival or departure route for GA?

[davehearn]

hi mike, charges are per kg of mtow....
currently landing is 0.015p per kg we also have no handling for ga
a cafe and the dc6 diner
and most friendly atc and ground staff
50% discount on landing fee if uplifting more than 30 lt of fuel :D

and dark? this is a question i should surely know the answer too!:uhoh: lol
i will find out in due course.
DH

[Jodelman]

currently landing is 15p per kg

Is this correct or am I calculating it incorrectly?

650 (kg) x £0.15 = £97.50.

[24Carrot]

I hope that should have read 1.5p / kg ?

as per Coventry Airport : Fees and Charges (http://www.coventryairport.co.uk/fees_and_charges.php/)

[CharlieDeltaUK]

I will vouch for the friendly ATC staff. Always been very clear and helpful.

[dobbin1]

Posting an invitation on a forum is a good start:-)

Do you have periods when you are less busy? If so, then discounted landing and instrument approach fees might attract some of us.

Are you happy to take students on solo or qualifying cross country flights?

Our school/ club organises a Sunday breakfast fly out once per month. Coventry would be just within range from Redhill I think and it would be nice to go a bit further North than our usual destinations. Will you offer discounted fees for a small group of aircraft like this?

[sharpend]

Last time I went there the Diner was shut. Anyway, one has to book and it is not cheap. Moreover, I was told to orbit 5 miles finals whilst a Meteor flew a circuit. No priority for me who was No 1!

[davehearn]

sorry should have put 0.015 per kg
so 650 kg is £ 9.75

[mad_jock]

Was at the dinner a couple of weeks ago but not in anything GA.

It was good food and I think 50 quid for an engineer, FO and me including a double round of soft drinks. Nothing from the steak menu mind. I think the café is cheaper but as the company was paying. The diner was good food and worth it just to see what the fuglies where bitching about. Its been de odorised from its atlantic freighting days.

ATC were fine with an IFR outbound and were pretty busy with VFR traffic and seemed to handle things effectively even with one hand tied behind there backs waiting for radar release from Brum which is understandable.

There is loads to see round the airport.

In some ways its a bit of a missed location. Everyone thinks its to hard to get into because of Brum being so close when actually its a pretty interesting place to go to.

http://www.ead.eurocontrol.int/eadbasic/pamslight-4A800301260B2639FA1EC3EFAFB5F86C/7FE5QZZF3FXUS/EN/Charts/AD/AIRAC/EG_AD_2_EGBE_5-1_en_2012-08-23.pdf

I don't think there are VFR routes in but its not that hard as long as you don't go above 1500ft. I would attack it from the east and just get myself North of the 101 radial tons of fields and stuff that side

[Tupperware Pilot]

Went is a couple of years ago when it was "shut" to visit the classic airforce...would love to try the cafe. do we have to wear Hi-viz....:ugh:

[ChrisA87]

Don't know why I've missed Coventry so far. Maybe due to it's proximity to BHX as MJ says.

Will definitely plan on visiting soon, probably as a fuel/lunch/leak while heading North on the epic trip I'm planning...

[John R81]

Price structure is unfreindly to helicopters. EC120 MTOW 1750 kg = £26.25 despite not needing PAPI, the runway, tarmac taxi ways or creating any need to surface / repair same.

Much fairer to have fixed prices £x singles, £y twins, etc.

Guess you will just have fixed-wing visitors, sorry.

[mad_jock]

I was pleasantly surprised how relaxed it all was.

The only person who seemed to be wearing a hi viz was some bloke wandering round taking photo's of the shack and other things. the whole place seems to be a bit of a scrap yard to be honest in a nice interesting way.

I think if you try and be daft and cut across brum zone your maybe going to get a hard time of it but if you just track a bit further north and then come in North of the 101 Hon radial I can't see any gotchas.

[24Carrot]

I don't recall it being hard - I did it as a solo landaway during my PPL.

I just rather nostalgically dug out the chart with the GPS track on it. I navigated visually to Draycott Water and then followed the motorway straight to the airfield. (I was barely allowed to know what a VOR was in those days) :O

Edited to add: I was talking to ATC and following instructions!

[Dawdler]

If you do visit, try the Midland Air Museum just outside the perimeter of the airport. I had driven past that place so many times thinking it was just a few sad old aircraft in a field. Boy was I wrong!

It was a fascinating place even without the outside exhibits, (of which there are many and some very rare). A day is nowhere near long enough to visit this place. It is only a short walk from the flying club.

[stevelup]

EC120 MTOW 1750 kg = £26.25. Guess you will just have fixed-wing visitors, sorry.

To be fair, if you can afford to run an EC120, you can afford £26.25!

[davehearn]

if you bring in your ec120 and uplift 31 ltrs of fuel your landing fee will have a 50% discount making it just over £13.00


hi dobbin i can ask if it is possible to gain a discount for a group fly in, and the dc6 diner has now started doing breakfasts, all be it only saturday and sunday at present.
tupperware yes hi viz is mandatory and minimum required is that at least one member of crew to be wearing one.
DH

[The_Pink_Panther]

Yep, MJ’s “in a nice interesting way” description is good.

I recall a student out of Conington lining up from the Flying Club on a cross country and having a “did I just hear that?” moment when asked to “move forward to the burnt out aircraft” to do their power checks.
There’s a training aircraft that the fire crew (use to?) use, but the radio call did make me think, “so does this kid understand what he’s been asked or does he think this is Mad Max territory and we judge airfield position by debris?!”

Coventry has it’s own ATC, beneath Brum, with DHL 737s based there, (all of which is enough to make some fair weather flyers I know hot under the collar) but to Coventry’s credit, they are as GA friendly as they come. Approach and Tower are both helpful and accommodating, and are as calm and friendly as a good, local airfield. Not sampled the food, but will have to make a point of trying.

[modelman]

Park on western apron, pay landing/fuel at Almat who will direct you to The Oak pub a few minutes walk away with good grub.
ATC very friendly, pick up ATIS before calling ( no problem if you if you don't), usually given base join. Remember 1500' AMSL when getting close, easy to bust if on QFE as airfield at 270'.
Please visit, you will get airport service at airfield prices.

[davehearn]

park at west apron and pay landing fees in building with yellow 'c' on it where if on a weekend i will be there to meet and greet then try food at dc6 diner..... lift provided if needed then ask diner to ring when finished and I will bring you back to terminal.
should you wish to visit the museum or flight sim ask atc for parking at cov flying school
DH operations assistant patriot aviation/coventry airport

[John R81]

To be fair, if you can afford to run an EC120, you can afford £26.25!

To be fair, I got to be able to afford to buy / run an EC120 by not accepting that people could rip me off just because they thought I could afford it. I should pay more than you for less service? Where did you learn what "fair" means?

The fuel-related discount is more likely to make a difference.

John

[stevelup]

How is £26.25 a rip off for landing a 1750kg aircraft? The cost would be the same or higher at many other places.

There are far more important things to get hot under the collar about...

[ChrisA87]

Is there enough interest for a mini-PPRuNe fly-in to Coventry one weekend? :ok:

[davehearn]

a bit of moderation please steve, the question was how can we attract visitors to the airfield not who can afford to land what where?;)

john, we have a lot to see here at cov we have the museum and the flight simulator up at the flying school plus we have the dc6 diner which is well worth the visit and we have rotary engineering facilities
our fuel prices are some of the lowest in the uk as are our landing fees.
DH

mini fly in:
if there is enough interest for a fly in to visit maybe the museum with lunch in the diner? then i will see if we can get discount on landing plus there will be a free drink in the diner with lunch and i could also approach the museum and see if group discount can be arranged?.
DH

[mad_jock]

you could get someone from the Shack restoration team to let them have a look round and also see if you could get into the Nimrod.

[S-Works]

Landing fees could be cheaper. Fixed price rather than commercial weight calculations for spam cans.

My aircraft is maintained there so I am a regular visitor and can't fault the service from the airport staff.

[Mickey Kaye]

"Fixed price rather than commercial weight calculations for spam cans."

couldn't agree more. Also how about pay xx and you get unlimited T&G and full stop landing for the day.

[soaringhigh650]

but this would be easier if i knew what you expect when you fly out for a land away?

1) NO MANDATORY HANDLING fees for all light aircraft operated non-commercially and not too distant walk from the ramp to the terminal building.

2) Easily accessible ONWARD CONNECTIONS of TRANSPORT such as bus, car rental, train, and bicycle rentals, and good tourist attractions in the local area. There's absolutely NO POINT in landing SOMEWHERE and having to spend a long and expensive TAXI just to get out of it. ALL airports look the same after a while.

3) Competitively priced AVGAS and PARKING rates.

FOR INTERMEDIATE STOPOVERS:

4) A good restaurant / bar based serving hot food and drink.

[John R81]

Aside from the sniping, my comments are intended to be constructive; you want ideas to increase GA traffic into Coventry.
As a heli pilot I consider pricing by MTOW without regard to class is discriminatory against helicopters. I am not alone. The fee is paid for a service given and the staging of fee by MTOW is an attempt to vary the fee proportionate to the service given or cost of providing the service. Higher landing weight requires more runway length and it creates greater wear & tear on the tarmac / grass which leads to higher maintenance costs. Helicopters of the same seat capacity as a fixed-wing tend to be heavier. It takes horsepower to hover, and a strong gearbox to transmit the power. Ignoring the category of machine and having a ‘one size fits all’ MTOW-based fee therefore necessarily charges helicopters more than fixed-wing. Helicopters then pay more, but get less service (we don’t need a kilometre of tarmac or bumb-free mown grass, we don’t need PAPI, we don’t need tarmac or grass taxi-ways, etc) and we cause less wear and tear to the surface that you do have so we cause less maintenance cost.
You will appreciate that we heli pilots therefore feel aggrieved by this approach to landing fees, and many will exercise our right to stay away. (You may have seen a press article about a restraunt wanting to charge the singer Adele £60 to land an R22 on the lawn, they don’t charge for the car park. All credit to the girl, she went elsewhere.) Do you want heli-traffic or not?
Other airfields (who don’t actively wish to discourage helicopter arrivals) take the view that pricing should be for categories of machine. Hence helicopters have their own pricing bands distinct from fixed-wing prices. For example “Light”, “Medium”, “Large” and a charge equivalent to the average applied – say £15, for example, for Light, £25 for Medium over 3000KG MTOW and £40 for over 5000KG MTOW but pick your own categories and prices, these really were just examples.
With the location of your field being handy for refuel on longer journeys I suspect that you could get a lot more helicopter traffic than you do. With the amenities that you have close by it would also be an interesting destination for the Helicopter Club of Great Britain (of which I am a member); but not with your landing fee structure (you would be asking £60 landing fee from some of our members just because their machine has the capability to lift up to 4 ton). If a more “fair” charge schedule applied I personally would be keen to press the HCCGB to organise a trip.
I'm not going to come back to this discussion, so I am happy for you to ignore my input completely if you want.

[soaringhigh650]

To be fair, if you can afford to run an EC120, you can afford £26.25!

+1

So many aircraft owners who complain about £10 or £20 knowing they will probably never get sufficient government funding for zero landing fess.

However nobody complains about the airports/heliports that charge £50-£550, including handling.

R81 why don't you start at the london heliport - and work your way down the list?

[stevelup]

That was exactly my point, and I was trying to make it in a lighthearted manner.

There are far bigger problems facing general aviation than a great airport like Coventry charging £26.25 for a 1.75 tonne half million pound aircraft to land there...

[John R81]

You ghaps are missing the point - deliberatly?

Highest I have paid to land - £350 (paid twice last Saturday for Battersea). It's not the actual cash amount. I know - lets have a standard landing fee of £26 for all GA aricraft on non-commercial work. I would be happy with that - it would be fair.

Read my post - it's the inbuilt discriminatory nature of the charge mechanism. You don't want to see it - is that because you benefit? or is it just envy because you think helicopter owners must be wealthy so should pay more so you can pay less?

That's OK - Coventry does not get much heli traffic and it looks like you want to keep it that way. Fair enough.

As I said, we heli pilots simply vote with our feet (or rotors). If you don't want the traffic I am not forcing you. There are plenty of options.

[stevelup]

I really am struggling to understand why you are interpreting this as anti-rotary?

A Cessna 152 will be charged £10.80
A Robinson R22 will be charged £9.30
You are charged £26.25, but a heavy SEP would also be charged the same.

So you can land an R22 at Coventry for less than the 152. Where is the discrimination?

Coventry have chosen to base their landing fees upon MTOW. They didn't do this to deliberately penalise helicopters - it's an absurd way of interpreting the situation!

[davehearn]

john we do not discourage rotory in fact the chairman and owner of the airport is a rotary pilot? I will however run your thoughts by our base manager .
DH

[soaringhigh650]

stevelup, well said.

[davehearn]

yes steve well said!
DH

[John R81]

Yes Steve, well said. You convinced me when you compared the lightest, cheapest 2-seat rotory aircraft today with the lightest, cheapest, 2-seat fixed wing aircraft available today.... No!, Wait!.... Did you just make my exact point by having to select a fixed-wing from higher in the pecking order just to make the same weight???????????

Helicopters are inherently heavier than fixed wing. Therefore a single schedule based on MTOW regardless of aircraft class is inherently discriminatory.


Look. You are right, I am wrong, have a great life and good luck attracting aircraft to Coventry.

[davehearn]

tell you what if you rotary pilots promise to visit more then i will have a word with the base manager and other folks here and see if we cant have a rate solely for rotary aircraft?
DH

[stevelup]

Yes Steve, well said. You convinced me when you compared the lightest, cheapest 2-seat rotory aircraft today with the lightest, cheapest, 2-seat fixed wing aircraft available today.... No!, Wait!.... Did you just make my exact point by having to select a fixed-wing from higher in the pecking order just to make the same weight???????????

I give up! That was exactly my point...

I picked a ubiquitous run of the mill entry level helicopter and an equally ubiquitous run of the mill entry level fixed-wing aircraft. I wasn't trying to massage any figures!

Ok, how about a couple of contemporary kit aircraft?

Rotorway 162F - 680kg
Vans RV-4 705kg

Again, the rotorcraft is lighter, therefore cheaper.

Your aircraft is a 5 seater turbine powered machine weighing over 1700kg.

It is, quite frankly, ridiculous to moan about a £26 landing fee.

[TheArb]

There is a minimum limit of 500kg isn't there? So at the moment no fixed or flexi 'microlight' can come in. Why don't you reduce it to 450kg?

[PA28181]

I do find airfield landing fee structures quite incomprehensible at times. I think the old adage of if you say something long enough & loud enough it will eventually become the truth.

Large helicopters cost a lot more to accommodate than light ones, twins destroy runways at an alarming rate compared to singles, forgetting of course these larger heavier machine may also take on a substantial amount more of fuel when purchased at the airfield in question.

Good job the cafe' doesn't apply the same rules or a bacon sarnie for a large twin pilot would be how much.....

I dread the day airport style management is used for the basis of charging in multi-level car parks. Driving a seven series BMW sir? that will be 2.5 times the price of a Mondeo to park.

I do not accept the premise that because you can afford to fly expensive machines you should be charged more for the same service lesser mortals are, "because you can afford it" absolute rubbish.

[John R81]

Just so long as you are not trying to bend the figures.

I was under the impression that a friend of mine flying a Reality Escapade 1 has a MTOW of 250 KG and that the 2 has a MTOW of 450kg. Both are "real airoplanes" and more equivalent in their class to an R22 (which I won't fly in) within helicopters.

As I said earlier, I give in; you are right, I must be wrong. Best of luck attracting fixed wing traffic.

[stevelup]

Oh my word, this is getting insane now.

You are seriously comparing an Escapade One (115Kg SSDR) with an R22?

[Jetset150]

Back to the thread, I've flown into Coventry three times, excellent ATC and easy parking. On departure back to EMA I had to wait what seemed a long time because of circuit traffic, other than that no complaints. :)

[caroberts]

Flew in one lunchtime to treat my mum to the DC6 Diner for her birthday - couldn't have been a nicer reception at Ops or the Diner. Thanks

[Viola]

Not landed there, but Coventry ATC is helpful - as is EMA - so there's no need to be afraid of flying around the airspace.

For me, straightforward parking, easy access to fuel and a comfortable place to have a coffee/bacon sarnie are the main criteria for a visit.

Dave, I'd try to encourage GA pilots from small airfields to visit as Coventry seems to be a good introduction to flying to a large airport. Friendly ATC is a bonus - especially if visiting aircraft are not used to mixing with 737s!

[spescogoo]

Id like to just add that you only get 50% off your landing fee if its a fuel tech stop and not just a general visit. Also there used to be a different rate for choppers back in the day due to them not needing to use the runway...management are currently looking into this again.

[thing]

Coventry has been on my 'to do' list for a while, must get my bottom down there this summer. Bit OT but Croft Farm is another I want to tick off. My best route is via Honily VOR in Brum CAS. Never transitted through Brum class D before, are they amenable?

[mad_jock]

I would suggest you forget that rule then.

Or give a voucher for money off in the diner or set something up with the Museum with again money off.

[Piper.Classique]

. Never transitted through Brum class D before, are they amenable?

Never had a problem with them.

[magpienja]

Mmmm all sounds very promising....so can I fly my microlight into Coventry...and if so what would the landing fee be.

Nick.

[thing]

Never had a problem with them. Thanks for that. Some are good and some are! Never had a problem with Donny or East Midlands but have yet to get a crossing through Leeds/Bradford. On the odd occasion I've been through Luton they have always been good too.