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My experience filing flightplans from my iPhone
My experience filing flightplans from my iPhone
On a recent business trip to Cannes with a Piper Archer II I had the opportunity to shortly visit the great island of Corsica just off the coast of France. One of the great aerodromes of the island is Proprioano, which has one paved runway, partly overgrown by grass, air-to-air communications only and which runway ends at the beach.
When we landed there we met 2 Swiss pilots sitting at the local restaurant in the shade with thick Bottlang manuals and charts preparing for their next flight out. They were camping out right at this desolated aerodrome and wandered how to file and activate their flightplan as nobody seemed to be there at the aerodrome at that time.
Sitting in the shade with one of our new Swiss friends. On the right you see the runway running from the beach.
I offered my help and suggested to file the flightplan for them using my iPhone and the AeroPlus Flightplan Filing app.
Later that day we visited the beach for a swim. The beach can be accessed by a path alongside the runway and it is amazing that they would just let you walk alongside the runway towards the beach. That is something not possible back home in Holland.
After returning back from the beach, we filed our own flightplan to Cannes and since nobody was there to activate our flightplan for us, we send ourselves the departure AFTN message from the iPhone app and took off.
Once in the air and enroute we contacted ATC area controllers at the nearby larger airport and they already had our flightplan there and informed us that it was already activated. We were all set to fly to Cannes.
During this whole trip, I used nothing else but the iPad and iPhone for flightplan filing, checking the current and forecasted aviation weather and for preparing the flight. It feels great to have all this information available at disposal on your iPhone or iPad at any location and not to be dependent anymore on local briefing rooms and writing out flightplan forms by hand.
Filing my flightplan from Propriano to Cannes using my iPhone. A Pilatus aircraft is approaching the runway.
Meeting the winners of the BOSE A20 headset
Finally: Meeting the winners of the BOSE A20 headset
During the Cannes Airshow in June we collaborated with La Boutique du Pilote. Together we collected businesscards from participants of the show and we drew out the winner later that month in Paris together: Aeroclub Antibes. During the Cannes airshow we offered espresso, cappucino and latte art to visitors of the booth. This was a concept that worked well on the Open Day of the Pilotshop a month earlier in Lelystad, the Netherlands but with the warm weather and the Cannes environment around us, the concept did not work as well during the Cannes Airshow. Offering champagne would have been a better choice here :-)
The front and back of the flyer we handed out during the Cannes Airshow.
We handed out flyers during the airshow. My wife Saskia and even our youngest daughter Joy helped along to get visitors to sign up for the newsletter and take the opportunity to win the Bose A20 headset.
My wife Saskia and youngest daughter Joy in action during the airshow in Cannes 2011.
Back at home in Holland we entered all the received addresses and business cards into an Excel-sheet and then printed out white small pieces of paper of each the same size with each one name on it. Then we went to meet the people from La Boutique du Pilote with whom we collaborated on this Bose offering and in their Toussus-le-Noble office we drew out the winner: Aeroclub d'Antibes.
And the winner is ... Aeroclub d'Antibes
Finally, last week we had the opportunity while in Cannes for business to meet the people of the winning aeroclub. They were situated at the North-East end of the main runway.
Showing off the great BOSE A20 headset to the manager of aeroclub d'Antibes, Cannes.