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What's it like to fly GA with user fees?

User fee video

Faced with an instrument approach below minimums, how would you react to the notion that a last-minute approach to a nearby airport with better weather would cost you $1,000? Such harried decision making and its negative effect on safety are a way of life for European general aviation pilots.

Fly along with AOPA Pilot Editor-at-Large Thomas A. Horne on an IFR flight across Europe in a Piper Twin Comanche as he deals with just such a situation. The user fees for his 350-nautical-mile flight totaled $233.97.

  • Weather briefing: $7.80
  • Filing a flight plan: $4.68
  • Airport and departure fees: $121.60
  • Missed instrument approach: $22.10
  • Second instrument approach: $22.10
  • Landing fee: $55.69

"European pilots pay more, receive less, and can face higher risks," Horne writes after the flight in "Euro-Fees Fears."

AOPA taped Horne's flight to let you in on the experience. Watch this disturbing eight-minute video to see how user fees increase costs and sacrifice safety.

March 27, 2007