You'll not find them all that sympathetic to "just dropping in", but if you're just using them as a place to land and departing the site on business, then coming back and flying away - or you have business on the airfield, you'll meet little resistance.
MoD(RAF) rates are fixed. I haven't paid them for a while but it's in the order of a tenner per landing.
£7.5m crown liability insurance is mandatory. If you don't have it, they'll charge you about £8 per landing supplement for it.
The people you want to talk to on the station for PPR will be "station ops", NOT ATC.
Also I'll offer a few pointers:-
- Be very familiar with the airfield layout plan from Pooleys, etc. - they'll expect you to know it.
- Mil airfields fly constant aspect circuits, not civvie rectangular circuits, with slightly different circuit calls. Be familiar with them.
- If asked on RT if you are familiar with the airfield, always say no, otherwise you'll be sent around strange local unofficial VRPs or routings only known to pilots based there.
- If uncertain you'll get things right, and bearing in mind that as a PPL - however experienced - you'll be probably a rank beginner in military terms, use the term "Tyro" after your callsign at initial contact. This is the military equivalent of "student pilot" and means that they'll treat you (a little more) gently.
- My experience is that if you are light, landing after heavy, military controllers won't automatically give you safe separation, you have to ask for it. Bear in mind that a fighter may be only a little larger than you, but it still weighs 10 tonnes and is landing at 100kn+, so treat it as heavy.
- Take a cheque book, they won't accept plastic for landing fees and cash will throw the system.
- Don't assume that they'll have AVGAS on site, most military aircraft only run on jet fuel so they won't often bother having a store of 100LL or equivalent.
- It does no harm to read up on RAF (or Navy / Army) shoulder tabs so you know whether you are talking on the ground to a Junior Technician, Flight Lieutenant or the Group Captain Station Commander, a basic awareness of military etiquette goes a long way.
G