Advice on trip from France to Thailand in a light piston twin.

[peterflite]

Hello.
We are planning a trip to Thailand in a Cessna 337.
Planned routing at present is thro' EU, Cyprus, Luxor,
Riyad, Bahrain, Muscat, Karachi, Ahmadabad,Bhopal, Patna,Chuttagong,ChiangMai.
I would be most interested to hear from anyone who
has flown a similar route, especially as to Avgas availability/price
and handling.
Any advice or your experiences would be most welcome.
Thanks.
Peter Fitzpatrick

[AEST]

Seem to recall some guys indicating Luxor as a major RIP-OFF

[dc9-32]

Alexandria would be better. You have a PM

[beerdrinker]

Dear PF,

Transitting India will be a pain.The Air Ministry will only give you overflight clearance if you have a visa. The Embassy will only give you a visa if you have overflight clearance. Then if you manage to get them to compromise (by sending the first one proof - photocopy - that the other has been applied for but is dependant on the first one been granted) the time frame they give you will be very tight so if anything goes wrong before you get to their airspace you are in danger of the clearances runing out of validity.

Get a good agent to arrange overflights for you.
Sounds pathetic but wear pilot shirts and stripes to transit India
Have a wad of dollars (hidden) to ease your way despite already having paid for clearances.
Make sure that avgas is available at your planned stops by checking with the fuel company HQ - not just the airport.

Good luck,

BD

[Manual Reversion]

Couldn't get fuel in Ahmedabad a few years ago ferrying to Japan. (Despite the airfield claiming to have loads) Just had the fuel to get to Indore which did have avgas

[AEST]

rokami93 (http://www.pprune.org/members/288326-rokami93) on the Spanish Forum just came back from Thailand in a Diamond it seems. Suggest you contact him.

Also recommend you get a copy of the latest "International AC-U-KWIK"

[rokami93]

EU, Cyprus, Luxor,
Riyad, Bahrain, Muscat, Karachi, Ahmadabad,Bhopal, Patna,Chuttagong,ChiangMai.
I would be most interested to hear from anyone who
has flown a similar route, especially as to Avgas availability/price
and handling.
Any advice or your experiences would be most welcome.
Thanks.
Peter FitzpatrickPeter,

I just came back from Thailand in a DA40. I did both ways. My DA40 has 1500 nms range with its ferry tanks. Some headwind trips took me up to 14:30 hrs of stick-flying as my plane has no AP. I flew over Chiangmai-Chittagong-Karachi-Fujairah-Luxor-Rhodes-Corcega.

Avoid: India and Riyad by all means. Consider even flying over Iraq. Airspace is completely controlled by US-American controllers and the radio chatter sounds more like flying over the Midwest than over a country in the ME

Luxor is completely overpriced: 850 USD in handling, fees, ramp charges, etc... complete rip-off. AvGas by the litre, but 4,56 USD/litre. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

Instead of Cyprus, I would recommend Rhodes, which is friendlier and cheaper. Handling and airport fees there are 18 EUR, Avgas 2,06 EUR/l on 30.03. Also, you will not be able to overfly Syria at less than FL250, so also from that point Rhodes might be the more logical choice.

Avgas in India is cheap though, 200 l barrels 460 USD. Handling is not mandatory, but if you decide to do it yourself, be prepared for a nightmare. In Ahmedabad it took us 10 hours, in Kolkata 15 hours to get all @#$#$% stamps and signatures on our 18 copies of the flightplan. Cheapest handling in India is about 300-500 USD, but they will still try to get more out of you, no matter how. Best GA airport in India for our purposes would be Nagpur.

Chittagong: selfhandling is easy and people are friendly and will assist. I paid 12 USD in airport and landing fees, don't expect that they can change a 20-dollar-bill. AvGas was 650 USD/barrel.

Chiang Mai: Landing fees too cheap to mention. Parking 1100 BHT per night (35 USD). If you want to stay longer, make sure to move on quickly to VTCM. Flying in Thailand isn't as easy as I wish it to be, special permit for each flight needed. It needs to be sent per fax and you have to check per phone to see if they have received it. Then wait for a week and hope they will approve at least a day before your planned departure. Will pass on my contacts there, if you wish.

Karachi: Try to contact Schon-Air to help you with AvGas and handling. They are a flight school and have different prices than the handlers, who will charge about 650 USD for handling and 550 USD/barrel of AvGas. Karachi is a huuuuge, high-security airport with many checkpoints, but still far better than Ahmedabad.

Overflight permits: Mike Rose from Rose aviation is the most frequented agent for these trips. Very professional and fast. Will not disappoint you.

Also good GA airports on the Arabian peninsula: Bahrein and Fujairah. Selfhandling possible in both, nav-/ landing-/ parking fees 100-200 USD. AvGas sold per litre @ 1,80-2,20 $. Can give you a few hints and tricks per PM.

Have at least 20 copies of ICAO flightplan forms and general declarations on you as well as carbon copy paper.

Be careful with posting too many details here, your intentions might get intercepted by interested "handling-agents" who will be waiting for you at the airports to present you the most interesting and official looking invoices. They are monitoring these forums, believe it or not.

Enjoy!:ok:

EDIT: I didn't have a VISA for any of these countries and entered each one of them with either Visa on arrival or crew-Visa. No problem at all. For India overflight permits you will need an agent, no way to do it yourself.

[AEST]

Might want to note that shortest route (Great circle) would take you north of the Black Sea, Caspian and north of India. (Watch out for them mountains)

Check it out on Google Earth. Suspect you might have less hazzle doing that as compared to doing a tour of the middle east/India.

[Pilot Positive]

Advice on trip from France to Thailand in a light piston twin.

Peteflite,

Welcome to PPRune,

Cant say that I have done that trip in a light piston so not much advice from me - sorry. However I want to wish you all the best as it sounds like a fantastic trip... :)


Pilot Positive

[eloigorri]

Hi Peter,

I am a friend of rokami93 (http://www.pprune.org/members/288326-rokami93) based in Chiang Mai with a Malibu Jetprop.

I ferried the Jetprop from Vero Beach to Bangkok late 2008 and enjoyed the trip immensely. I now operate it here in Thailand.

I echo the paperwork nightmare in India especially Kollcuta, avoid, avoid, avoid!

Wearing uniforms definitely works, however upon arrival at Chiang Mai Airport, insist on getting a tourist visa stamp in your passport on arrival depending on how long you plan to stay, and under what means you plan to exit the Kingdom.

Chiang Mai airport is very friendly, but they are not used to handling GA. They assume you need to be treated as commercial crew for immigration purposes, and will not stamp your passport, just inspect and keep copies of the GENDEC.

This method of entry is flawed should you wish to stay more than 30 days/and or if you try to leave the Kingdom via any other means than your aircraft you will be fined as rokami93 (http://www.pprune.org/members/288326-rokami93) found out!

If you require any other specific tips PM me. rokami93 (http://www.pprune.org/members/288326-rokami93) has more up to date info on MEA etc, and I am very current here in SEA, so between the two of us we should be able to answer most of you questions.

Have a safe flight.

Eduardo

[Vigelic]

Hi all,

I know this is an old thread but I was wondering if Peter could update on how the trip went?

I'm particularly concerned as I'm also moving my own aircraft from France to Singapore via the middle east, india, etc.

[jungle drums]

Avoid landing in India at all costs!

I once met a chap in the airport operations at Calcutta
who was flying a C150 from Australia to the UK.

(I had diverted a corporate jet there and was doing my own handling.)

He was counting out $10,000 in $100 bills to pay for the India handling charges alone.

I doubt the aircraft was worth that

My handling bill after doing the Calcutta airport marathon - about $250.

Good luck

[Lurcherman]

Done 2 deliveries to India. One with a visa, one without.
On last one with no visa not allowed landside, they wouldn't provide me with a visa of any kind one on the spot despite local help. Put on next plane out. I wanted to go anyway but the customer wanted me to re position a/c. Another ferry pending, do I get a visa?

[peterflite]

Hello.
Thanks for the reply .
We are hoping to do this trip to Thailand through India in November.
Any more advice on India or the whole route would be welcome. We are planning Larnaca, Luxor, Riyadh, Bahrain, Muscat. Karachi, Ahamaded, Bhopal, Patna, Chittagong, Chiang mai.
Especially advice on Avgas availability and handling etc.
Kind regards.
Peter

[rokami93]

http://www.estudiologos.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/nike-just-do-it-300x300.jpg

:ok: