All pilots flying outside the USA have heard stories about how easy and simple it is to fly there. I’m no exception and now that the Flying Across America project is started I got some first hand experience. Trust me, the differences are as big as the stories tell, if not more…
Airport operating times
When preparing a flight in Europe, one of the first things to check is the airport operating times. US airports – even the ones serving General Aviation only – are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All constraints we know in Europe like no circuits on Sunday, or no take-off around noon do not exist in the US. Noise abatement measures are not so strict in the US.
VFR procedures
Talking about noise abatement, there are no VFR approach charts or VFR approach procedures in the US. European airports request VFR pilots to approach along certain routes and to fly prescribed patterns. The exact positions of crosswind, downwind and base are specified and must be respected by the letter. In the US, the pattern altitude is published, and that’s it. Pilots can fly the pattern they want and adapt it to their aircraft.
Flight following
To some extent, the flight following service offered to US pilots includes what exists only in IFR in Europe. Pilots requesting flight following receive a specific SSR code and are in contact with approach or center controller. When getting transferred from one controller to the next one, a simple position and altitude report is enough. The controller already knows about the flight, no need to repeat all the details.
VFR flights receive much more advisories from flight following in the US than from FIC in Europe. So far, in 16 hours of flight from Florida to Texas, we got the following kind of information:
- Traffic information
- Weather at our destination
- Weather around our position, like the intensity and size of precipitation
- Vectors around weather and restricted areas
The best part of it is that controller give these information spontaneously. This makes flying VFR in busy area or adverse conditions a lot easier. And just like airports, flight following is available 24 / 7.
Traffic information and METARS are available in Europe from the Flight Information Centers, but these are not operated 24 / 7 and they don’t provide the same level of service because they have to manage a much larger number of aircraft.
There are lots of other differences between flying in the USA and flying in Europe and I’ll post more about that soon.
Vincent Lambercy is a Swiss private pilot now living in Germany. He holds a private pilot certificate with single-engine, multi-engine and instrument ratings and has logged more than 430 hours of flight.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m happy to see the Flying Across America project go so well. Just a small clarification on VFR approach charts: we actually do have a few in America, although I’m unsure as to whether VFR aircraft are required to follow them.
These charts only exist in a few locations – typically busy airspace with lots of restrictions, such as New York’s La Guardia with the ‘Expressway Visual’ or Washington DC’s ‘River Visual’. I’ve flown these in the RJ and find them to be a whole lot more fun than the daily grind of routine ILS approaches.
Hi Vincent,
You forgot to mention the top three major differences between flying in Europe and the USA:
1) cost
2) cost
3) cost
@Patrick: the charts I’m talking about are for VFR flights only, not for IFR flying visual approaches. I’ll probably post more about that later.
@Reza: your three reasons are good.
I didn’t realize you had two different types over there. If I ever wind up in Europe I’ll have to take a flight – that is if I can afford it! Reza’s three differences might just break the bank