Wow such a beautiful rugged landscape! Thanks for sharing ? 

Andrew, I just came across your post - must have been a fantastic journey! 

Just by chance: Would you mind to share a list of places where you went as I possibly would like to do a similar journey however in my little fixed wing Bölkow Junior plane.

@heinrichleuters

I'm afraid the vast majority of places we stayed didn't have runways....kinda the point when using a helicopter! However we used these:

Carlisle (just for fuel although Kirkbride would be a better bet)
Colonsay (hotel up the road but you will need a lift)
Islay (just for the fuel - which was the most expensive I have ever come across!)
Stornoway - again only for fuel which was actually quite reasonably priced
Glenforsa (Mull) decent hotel on site.
Oban (just for fuel)

I'm not sure that's much use for you though - sorry

@andrew, yep - understand ... however many thanks for taking the time to reply. Let’s see if and when (in Covid times) I can make some use of it.

Lovely report Andrew. Sorry I missed it previously!

Heinrich, I'd recommend as follows:

EGEY Colonsay for exploring on foot & camping. 500mtrs tarmac. The airport is located around the centre of the island, and with a day's hiking you can explore all of the southern half of the island or all of the northern half. So you'd need two days to explore the whole island. A walk into the main village is about 45 minutes each way. The hotel does nice food, but I've never stayed there, so can't comment on the accommodations. The airport is unattended and you need PPR from Oban airport and you pay your landing fee to Oban. You need a permit to use it out of hours (which is always!) but this can be obtained free of charge by providing your insurance details. 

EGEL Coll is another lovely island. 500mtrs tarmac. It's a little larger and the village is too far away to walk. The hotel does lovely food and the rooms are comfortable. The only difficulty is getting a phone signal to call a taxi! It too requires an out of hours permit and landing fees paid to Oban airport, but the one permit will cover you for both Coll & Colonsay. 

Glenforsa is a lovely 780mtr grass field. It has a hotel onsite. The hotel runs the airfield. Rooms are nice but basic. The food is very good. The island is bigger and you'll need some form of transport to explore it. 

EGPI Islay 1545mtr of tarmac. They have restrictive opening hours at the weekends. This is a large island, but still quite rural. You'll definitely need car transport to get around, but there is a car rental place just across from the airport. If you aren't flying anymore that they, they have lots and lots of whisky distilleries to visit!

EGEO Oban. A larger but still GA type, airport. This is the place to get fuel in the area. Not available at present, but expected to be sorted in the next month or so from what I read. A short taxi ride into a fairly big town. 

Plockton. An unattended airport in a lovely setting with an 'honesty box' for the landing fee. It takes about 30 mins to walk into the village where there is a selection of accommodation, but you're best booking in advance as it might all be gone! The little village is lovely with a few places to eat. 

Skye. Another unattended airport. There isn't much at the airport and nothing much walkable. But if you manage to arrange some transport, a drive around Skye is spectacular. A flight around is very good too, but a trip at surface level is just amazing. Probably Scotland at its best. 

Not sure if you are into camping, but wild camping is legal all over Scotland (with obvious restrictions like not camping in someone's garden!) But if you camp out of the way and not disturbing anyone, you are perfectly legal to do so. 

I hope this is helpful.

Colm

Colm,

many thanks for this. If when the current restrictions will be lifted I will certainly look into this again.

Best, Heinz

P.S. Are you still flying the Piper Arror I remenber?

Hi Heinz,

Yes, still flying the Arrow. Now with new paint and some new avionics 🙂 

Good to hear, Colm. 

.... let’s hope that things will improve and we can altogether travel again and maybe meet up with fellow EV flyers somewhere. 

I will bring my Bölkow Junior 208 ?? (same type Stu owns). 

Sounds great 🙂 

Hello Andrew, what version would you find more reliable? I have hard time migrating from EVFR3 to EVFR4 (I use EVFR for like 5-6 years!) and I do it only because I need to get used to it and I am afraid that EVFR3 will not be supported and updated anymore. I especially have problems with blank rectangles during panning screen, some freezes and very bad autorouting in EVFR4 that always leads me to some CTR, TMA or restricted airspaces. No problems with EVFR3 whatsoever... Thanks, Jan

@jbrepogmail-com I've found EV4 to be fine aside from the bugs that have been slowly but surely ironed out. Back in 2019 when I did this trip, EV4 was still in either Alpha or Beta and there were quite a few things wrong with it but these days I would say it's overall as good if not better than EV3....in fact I've stopped using 3 now and just have 4 on my android phone, windows tablet and windows desktop. If you have some repeat problem I would suggest you add it to the "bugs" section on this forum as you may not be alone

edit: Oh and I've never really used the auto route feature

Like Jan I too have used Ev3 for some years and have been beta testing Ev4 from first launch so I have followed and have given input where I can on bugs and fixes throughout the last couple of years in order to try and gradually improve Ev4.

I have both Ev3 and Ev4 running alongside each other in my aircraft. The problem is that Ev3 is so quick and simple to use, has fewer options and basically it just works and IMHO is nicer to use. For this reason I too unfortunately still prefer to use Ev3 over Ev4!

Will my thinking will ever change? I currently just don't know but for the time being I will continue run both Ev3 and Ev4, offer my input from time to time and see where things ultimately lead.

Alan.