A few people in Greek GA did a huge and admirable job organising the Aero Expo thingy at LGTT, even dragging Phil Boyer from the USA to make a speech about how easy things are in the USA, with GPS approaches into non-towered airfields. The contrast with the speaker next to him (a Eurocontrol man, pontificating how GPS alone is not to be relied on and we will all have to use Loran or INS as a backup in PRNAV airspace, how there are NO freqiencies left and we must have 8.33 down to ground level, etc) could not have been greater..... Martin Robinson was in the audience a few yards from me.
With a bit of luck, the attention which this event attracted might just make a difference. I certainly hope so.
There are of the order of 200 GA planes in Greece, and as you can imagine most of the pilots know each other.
There are probably as many private jets and turbine helis - you can see where the money goes.
That press release obviously wanted to make the situation look dire. But it is true that GA is largely ignored. The airports often open only for a few hours to allow a commercial flight and then close. Most have no avgas. The bureaocracy is silly, with several different forms having to sometimes be filled at different offices. There is also some corruption. And then you get places like Hania LGSA with 5 days' PPR for both arrival and departure - except SX-reg at weekends.
No doubt Kyprianos will be here in a minute to fill in the details
Back to the subject though - I believe there is a CAA approved school in
Spain - a far better place to train than the UK if you are doing it as a full-time block
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