Trip to Hungary in C182

[Steve6443]

So does that mean that a Belgium or French based pilot can get in his plane and fly too and thru all the other European countries (excluding the UK) without stopping for ports of entry or customs? If so I've just become a screaming Europhile and want a passport with pictures in it of Dagaul or Leopold or whoever they have on the passports that let you fly free.

There are other exceptions - for example Croatia. This is another European non-Shengen country and the Italians are very suspicious of general aviators coming in from there - last month I flew to Dubrovnik, no issues with passport control on the way there. On the way back I filed a flight plan in order to stop for a few days at Lido de Venezia (LIPV). On arrival I was greeted by two members of the police and two officials from the finance ministry.

The policemen proceeded to copy down all the details from my passport - manually, no photocopying, including all entry stamps I had in it - whilst the officers from the finance ministry went through my baggage and even examined the contents of my wallet - good job they weren't allergic to the moths in there, surprises me they haven't cottoned on to how terminably broke this hobby of ours causes us to become....

Either way, half an hour later they departed, allowing me to proceed. However I couldn't help think that everything was just a complete waste of time - the piece of paper, upon which the policemen had lovingly copied all my passport details onto, was found in a bin and the officials from the finance ministry never went near the aircraft; if I was smuggling, then why not just leave it stashed in the aircraft and go back later? Better would have been to fly to Portoroz (Slovenia - part of Shengen), clear immigration there and then hop across to Venice without requiring to present myself to the italian bureaucracy.

Oh, another exception - Germany to Austria (and vice versa) doesn't require flight plans to be filed, however I file them so that R/T is easier - saying "via flightplan" is so much easier than spouting your routing. Again, the Italian way was "different" - submitted Flight Plan with routing back to Germany via the Brenner, noting the VFR routing points around Venice and Padova but even so, the Italian ATC still wanted my next waypoints.... seems that flightplans aren't so well disributed there....