Life in Finland as a private pilot (OFFTOPIC)

[tigert]

*** Sorry, this is offtopic, it's just related to aviation.. so move on if you are not interested. ***Things seem to get ugly again, the city of Helsinki seems to have decided against the will of most of the city inhabitants (nearly 60% in a recent survey) to pull the rug under the feet of majority of Finland's professional flight training, a lot of aviation clubs, and more than 200 jobs, to build a suburb on top of a piece of land once determined as "unsuitable for housing", thus set aside for the airfield. The Helsinki-Malmi airport, only general aviation field within reasonable distance from Helsinki, is under threat. This would very likely kill most of the "IRL" part of the aviation hobby in the capital area of Finland. In plain english: it wouldnt be good.This would also kill the only reasonable way to travel into Helsinki in a light aircraft, as Helsinki-Vantaa airport is far away and it is not feasible to land there due to the heavy airline traffic and high landing fees.More information can be found in http://www.pelastamalmi.org/en/index.html - please consider signing the petition if you havent already. If you live in Scandinavia or Northern Europe, visit http://www.hel.fi/tourism/EN/matko.asp and let the tourist information know (via the feedback form for example) if you have planned to visit the otherwise beautiful and modern city by air - in a non-commercial flight. Please try to be polite and sensible, we dont need swearwords but real world reasons why you think this sucks :)We had another demonstration today to try to have some sense to this matter, some pictures are here: http://www.fsnordic.net/discussion/index.p...&threadid=32550Now, back to normal matters, thanks for your time, sorry about posting off-topic. This is just stuff where I get my inspiration for simming as well, so it is hard to separate that out.. :)//Tuomas

[Guest PoRrEkE]

Sad to read this .. there is such disrespect towards aviation these days. In Belgium it is far worse.We used to have a fairly buzzy national airport at brussels. Now it just looks sad. Since Swissair caused our national airliner Sabena to go bankrupt, EBBR Zaventem has not been the same at all. SN Brussels Airlines is now trying hard to color the airport back with blue tails with the well known S logo.The other problem is that there is 1 wise guy in gouvernement that thought to be funny and changed all approach & departure routes of the aircraft into a different direction than they used to be. Folks living in areas near the airport that didn't use to have any noise now had and they didn't like it so they objected. The harm was done cuz they changed it back the way it was but too late. The folks that used to get all the noise now thought "hey if those people can complain and get ridd of the planes, so can we" .. so now nobody wants them anymore. This being the reason why DHL chose not to expand their activities at EBBR and probably will move away to other locations in the future. Leaving many people without a job here.Then I wonder .. and probably lots of spotters do the same .. why people complain now. Now that all 727s, all 707s, all 732s are gone from EBBR. I lived near that airport and I know that only a 707 on take off could wake me up .. and even then it was only for a half a minute and then I would fall asleep again and not remember it the next day.What a dirty game those action groups play against BIAC (owner of EBBR). Imagine 50 children (age 3 to 5) with white balloons protesting against the noise .. and this they show on TV ?! While a guy that just lost his job barely gets 50 seconds to say that he feels bad ?!? Those kids can sleep, I'm sure. Hell, they probably don't even live near EBBR ! Let alone that they knew for what reason they were there protesting. This is child-abuse if you ask me !Oh well .. sorry this whole thing just p****es me off. I'm sure you guys understand. If one would concider a visit to EBBR with a camera to take some pictures ... make sure you got plenty of time to wait for planes. And if they arrive .. most will be SN Brussels BAe avrojets.Ow and just 1 more thing .. the latter ones .. aren't those called "whisper jets" ??? #####!?

[tigert]

>Oh well .. sorry this whole thing just p****es me off. I'm>sure you guys understand. If one would concider a visit to>EBBR with a camera to take some pictures ... make sure you got>plenty of time to wait for planes. And if they arrive .. most>will be SN Brussels BAe avrojets.http://tigert.gimp.org/tigert-albums/spotting/afc.sized.jpeg;) That's one, on finals for Helsinki-Vantaa (the bigger airport) 22R//TuomasPhilip, btw (and others), if you have 100MB worth of bandwidth, here's some diesel cessna fun to look at: http://aviation.kapsi.fi/videos/OH-CAU.avi (you need DIVX codec to watch it, http://www.divx.com/divx/download/ )

[Guest PoRrEkE]

*click*(downloading ;) )

[Guest PoRrEkE]

that is a nice movie :)airspeed picks up rather nice after that stall :) sad you can't feel it when looking at an avi :(All this reminds me of the cessna flight I took in Slovenia (when I had the opportunity to fly the plane around a bit at 2000ft. Though I prefered the ULM flight I took more recently over Belgium. Brand new ULM with lots of power (almost cessna-like) 300km/h.http://users.skynet.be/porreke/blogger/Amo...Amougies-21.JPGLow wings mean less sight underneath the plane but this plane was SUPER confi !!

[Guest Erups]

In rome here we still have the city airport: a rusty-dusty stripe of checkered tarmac, with lots of aged c172 and c152 (yes, we still have them :-roll ).In Italy general aviation is not kept in any regard, if it is anknowledged at all.The majority of the population don't even know that you can go and hire a plane for some money, and if you ask them you probably end up with some post 11/9 BS :(I hate them, i hate the politicians... i just hate.I hate the fact that takeing the PPL is something like 10000

[Guest Erups]

>Philip, btw (and others), if you have 100MB worth of>bandwidth, here's some diesel cessna fun to look at:What a beautiful 172 you have!The one i flew, compared, looked like an oldsmobile :(

[rickalty]

The same problems are cropping up all over the USA too.The City of Chicago raided Meigs Field (Known to most simmers as the default start-up airport in MSFS 2000 & 2002) at 0200 one morning and bulldozed the runways, because they coudn't do it legally during the day. They too cited post 9/11 security reasons, only to have the Federal Homeland Security Agency say that for security reasons they were OPPOSED to the closing of Meigs, and then the FAA fined Chicago millions of dollars becuse they'd accepted Federal transportation funds on a promise to keep it open. Here where I live in Northern California, the County board of supervisors wants to close Buchanen field (KCCR) airport in Concord to build housing on it. The field is surrounded by businesses and office complexes, and gets literally dozens of biz-jet flights a day, plus three active flight schools, a helicopter medical flight business and two flying clubs, not to mention the 400 GA aircraft that live there. They've proposed an alternate site which could have only one runway, and is on the banks of an estuary where it's fogged in half the year.In Florida, airfield closings are on the agenda of at least a dozen cities.Go to www.aopa.org and follow the links to see their project to fight for threatend airfields.Richard

[tigert]

>In rome here we still have the city airport: a rusty-dusty>stripe of checkered tarmac, with lots of aged c172 and c152>(yes, we still have them :-roll ).Yeah, same here. Malmi airport has lots of them too.. Those planes are durable, and new ones cost a lot, so they stay in action :)This wallpaper pic I took from 5000ft above the airport shows you a bunch of Cessnas and Pipers too..http://www.mik.fi/gallery/taustakuvat/mik_wallpaper2_1600Our club"house" is in the large hangar that has a black roof.>In Italy general aviation is not kept in any regard, if it is>anknowledged at all.>The majority of the population don't even know that you can go>and hire a plane for some money, and if you ask them you>probably end up with some post 11/9 BS :(>I hate them, i hate the politicians... i just hate.>I hate the fact that takeing the PPL is something like>10000

[Guest Erups]

>Yea, a hour on a C172 or a PA-28 costs from

[Guest twabi2]

[off-topic]I aggree on everything you said, but not this:> This being the reason why DHL chose not to expand>their activities at EBBR and probably will move away to other>locations in the future. Leaving many people without a job>here.Maybe some people lose their job, but I think that's NO f*ing reason to spend 2 months of government time on it... there are more then enough stores/companies going bankrupt, but who cares? I mean, DHL isn't moving completly... There will always stay a terminal, how can the packages get here without? + there are way more jobs entering with the new terminal in antwerp + ...Did you hear our prime minister on StuBru this morning? Well, I totally aggree with him.[/off-topic]

[rickalty]

Tuomas:"Yea, a hour on a C172 or a PA-28 costs from

[tigert]

>Tuomas:>"Yea, a hour on a C172 or a PA-28 costs from

[Guest EasyEd]

Hey All,Canada Too!!!The downtown Edmonton Airport is likely going to be closed down (they've already scheduled a car race on the airport - and I'm not against racing - by any means). The downtown airport is about 15 blocks from downtown government offices and medical facilities. All the outlying parts of Alberta like to fly to the downtown airport in smaller passenger planes (metroliners, dash 8s, and the like) as it is very convienent. However we do have the International airport about 45 to 60 minutes from downtown where the big jets land. Why have two airports when one will work - and where the big jets land apparently takes precedence! The international airport wants everyone landing there (more money of course). And of course there is also the spector of 911 raised - what if somebody attacks downtown Edmonton - AS IF! Like the Canadian Military actually has the capability to stop it. What a joke! It's money and nothing else.Sadly and Take Care! -Ed-PS Paiva to everyone from Finland - the land of my great grandparents.