After about 25 one week VFR trips in the last 10 years with a DA40TDI from the Netherlands to the ends of Europe I can report the following:
- 2 of these returned 1 day late due to weather
- 1 returned 2 days late due to weather (miserable warm front)
- 1 returned 6 days late due to weather (flooded runway in Spain)
A factor is that the general destination - say Iberia/Morocco, Italy/Greece, Baltic, British Isles, Eastern Europe - was commonly decided late by looking at the long term weather prognosis. This did often but not always work out.
Mountain crossings need a little extra weather care.
Some other remarks:
- English language RT will generally do
- but smaller airfields in France require some minimum of French RT (by law)
- France has extensive military low flying routes that tend to be in the way (notams)
- secondary surveillance radar is not available in several countries and frequent waypoint-time estimates and reports are demanded
- Spain requires local flightplans for all flights (and there are many local reporting offices)
- close flightplans, know the numbers to call
But all quite doable provided there are no set plans (!).
Last edited by jan99; 22nd Mar 2018 at 22:07.