For the American posters that don’t understand how this works in Europe (particularly “B2N2” who thinks we should pay a few hundred pounds to land and bring them business by having dinner or booking hotel rooms):
- private flying for pleasure/recreation is far more common in Europe than US and self-fly-hire rental is easily found and available (it’s not all CPL factories; you can actually do this for fun)
This is not entirely untrue for the US. For example, there are three folks checked out by the school I lease back to who SFH my R44 quite regularly. However I can't speak to how the US and EU compare in this respect overall. Certainly there's plenty of SFH fixed wing op's, not 100% sure where the US industry stands on this for rotary wing.
- we have a large number of hotels/restaurants/pubs available to land and the vast majority are free, so long as you are eating/staying.
That certainly is true, at least in the northeast. I really do wish there were more commercial properties to land at. Off the top of my head I can think of only a half dozen or so across ME/NH/VT. I'm probably missing a few inns here or there.
- the comments above regarding “facilities” are laughable; because those of us who actually do this know we’re merely instructed to land on a bit lawn or an adjacent field. Out of around 80-90 private sites I’ve landed in the UK only 1 even has a windsock – and it is situated right next to a tree rendering it useless (it’s really just for show as the hotel appreciates pilots visiting).
The US experience is identical in this respect.
- approval procedure is normally just giving them a call; maybe filling out a form and possibly sending a copy of your insurance in some instances. Any mention of a landing fee is met by “no thanks, I’ll book elsewhere” to which they reply they’d welcome a visit in the future, if driving – to which I reply “you just tried to charge me £250 and you think I’m planning a future visit?
Again, the US experience is identical in this respect. Never heard of a landing fee at an off-airport facility in the US, but sometimes unworkable insurance requirements.