For the last few months I am flying now out of Berlin Tempelhof, one of coolest airports in Germany, Europe even. It lies in the heart of the city; one flies over the roofs of my fellow Berliners and I am flying the same traffic pattern that once the air force pilots flew for around a year to keep Berlin-West alive in an action they called the Airlift or Operation Vittles (the Germans simply call it the Luftbrucke). Berlin, in post war Germany, was split in 4 sectors and Tempelhof was under control of the USAF. After WW2, no flying activities were allowed for Germans. Germans were not allowed to build aircraft, or run a business involving aircraft; civil aviation was outlawed for more then 10 years after the war. The only thing Germans could build and fly was gliders. This was not new to us Germans. After WW1, a similar law was in place that allowed brilliant German engineers to think about sailplanes only.

Even though in the mid-sixties Germans started flying again and the German Lufthansa began flying routes and lines, still they could not land in Berlin. Berlin was excluded from German flying; only foreign airlines were allowed to service the 3 airports.

That was a bit different for East Berlin, where the East German Airline, Interflug, had its main quarters, but it had to build a new airport at the skirt of the city, just a few miles outside of Berlin and here again were no signs of General Aviation, especially after building the Berlin Wall. When I now fly around Berlin, it is obvious that it would have been too easy for anyone to just take off anywhere in East Germany and land in West Berlin in a blink of an eye. So East Berliners were not to fly and West Berliners also, because here was simply no airport or airspace there to fly in. If you happened to grow up around here and were aviation interested you were building small scale models; that's what I did.

Map: Berlin as it was divided after WW2.

The situation changed after the fall of the wall. The US Air Force handed the Tempelhof airport over to Germany in 1993 and one year later we had the first Lufthansa airliner land in Berlin.

Things got easy for general aviation, too. A lot of airports around the city that used to belong to the military were handed over to the public and, with a lot of hope, flight schools kept popping up and those who dared, learned to fly.

So did my brother. I called him up from San Francisco in 1999 when I started taking flying lessons myself in the San Francisco Bay area to tell him the news. I said, "Guess what! Your brother is taking flying lessons."
"Me, too," he replied, and we both shared an experience just divided by half the globe.

It took him twice as much in time and money than me to get his license and he ended up with a license that was worth only half as much as mine.

Although Germans do follow the same minimum requirement for flight training that Americans do, they seem to have higher standards, requiring additional tests to pass for having similar privileges as US pilots. My brother is not allowed to fly outside of his country unless he passes an additional exam that proves proficiency in mastering aviation language in English. Passing that exam is not easy since it involves actual talking to the examiners, retired ATC specialists that proudly insist on the use of a British aviation English.

A new German pilot is also not allowed to fly into class Charlie airspace, or Bravo if they would have it here. The German rule makers determined that in a controlled airspace the pilot needs some special skills that a normal VFR pilot can not possess, like holding a course for example. Therefore one has to get an extra license, the CVFR license. After an additional dual practice of 10 hours and 30 hours ground school, making for an extra expense of a few thousand *Euros, the pilot then is allowed to fly above 10,000 feet, that is Class Charlie airspace here, but not at night. For flying at night, you need -- you guessed it -- a special license. For the night addition to your CVFR license, you only have to take another 5 hours of dual time. Surprisingly, there is no ground school requirement here, but you need to know how to plan a flight with IFR Maps and reporting points. After all, you will be flying along the IFR routes and will be talking to ATC, so it is basically flying under IFR rules.

One wonders what is being taught all these hours to the student pilot when you put into consideration that German pilots do not say much on the Unicom once they are in the air. Position reports are rare and traffic pattern rules seem not clear. These folks under fly you in the pattern without hesitation and without announcement. And why not, there are not many people flying here anyway.

Then, there is the tower. Germans are in love with towers. They can not imagine an airport without one, so even the non-towered airports are having a tower. And on every tower sits a governmental authorized "Flugleiter" , required by law ; without him the airports would be unauthorized to be used. This "Flugleiter" is also asking you about your flying destination when you take off and WRITES it into a computer system. This system is NOT used for flight following, I guess it is rather utilized by the secret service to find out about all your travel activities. After all, pilots are potential criminals -- a known fact, it seems, in Germany since World War One. To be clear about that, the German government declared General Aviation pilots as potential terrorist threats to German society. Reason: GA pilots don't fly for hire. They are utilizing their vehicle without profession, hence they are dangerous. To mitigate the danger from them to Germany's skies, Germans always had to pass a background check by the local police before they were even allowed to take flying lessons. My brother passed that test too, but since last year he and all other German pilots were forced to sign a paper where they had to request another background check. You are not required to sign this request, (hey, it's a free Country here) but if you elect not to do so, you will have to surrender your license to the officials.

This new check not only included the database of the local police but also the comparable offices and databases of the German Intelligence service, the customs offices, the equivalents to the FBI, CIA, your local police (again) your personal doctor, any (other) governmental institution, even your own wife, as well as the register for dismissed offenses. German pilots are required to list the places where they lived within the last ten years and if bad luck has it that they lived outside of the country, they are requested to produce evidence from offices of the foreign countries proving that they had not been involved in any criminal activities there. The produced evidence has to be officially proved and translated into German, of course, since the representatives of the German bureaucracy don't speak foreign languages.

But it is also expensive to do such checks - so who is paying for that? The pilot of course, because he requested it with his own signature.

So, last year my brother refused to sign the request for deep background checks and promptly, his license was not only not allowed to be renewed, but he also had to surrender his license to the German authorities. They argued that since he did not sign the spy-authorization, he is obviously hiding something, making him a suspect for terrorism, hence he is a threat to the society and therefore is not allowed to own his license. I am wondering if the German authorities never realized that the people that fly airplanes into buildings never had a pilot's license, nor would they decide not to fly if the authorities would have taken their licenses away. What a nonsense.

The funny thing is that I am considered a foreigner under these rules. With my American license I am totally untouched by this law, I have nothing to prove to anyone here, I can fly in class Charly at night if I want to, I don't have to pass any of these background tests, as would any other foreigner, let's say from Saudi Arabia.

Germany does not treat airports as part of the public transportation system, believing that airports should finance themselves. They also don't see the airway system as a matter for the government; it should fund itself off the fees. I doubt that they are making enough money to cover the costs, however they charge you anytime you are using their services, so most people try to stay out of the service areas. Instead, they fly VFR, with no flight following or other activities that require talking to the ATC. In my case, I need to talk to ATC since I am in controlled airspace (Berlin), hence the fee. These fees are nowhere published except in the Aeronautical Information Manual that you have to purchase with a yearly prescription.

Then also the airport operator charges me 30 Euros per landing. Since not many people land here (Tempelhof), I rather think that the fees are barely enough for covering the administrative costs of collecting them.

The same is true for other non-towered airports. The Germans require an "official" (the Luftleiter) to watch over every airport, (a tradition from Nazi Germany) and this guy needs to be paid by the airport operator as well. So they collect landing fees. They do that because they can, because it is a tradition and because people are used to it. It's 6 to 10 Euros per landing on a non towered airport, depending on your aircraft's noise certificate. There are no noise certificates for Ercoupes, so we end up paying always the highest prices.

But these are FBO costs, back to the ATC costs. Most people I know are trying to avoid the ATC costs naturally. They don't fly into controlled airspace where communication to ATC is necessary and the do not fly at night or over 10,000 feet -- all situations that require talking to ATC.

They also avoid leaving the country because that requires a flight plan and landing at customs airports in Germany and France, for example, where you are facing lots of fees (landing, customs, plus ATC). It makes flying a tedious game where you never know whether calling someone will cost you something and how much.

To identify positively who is generating what costs, the authorities are pushing for mode S transponders to identify you and be able to charge you for "services" you took or for violations you did. Mode S transponders are mandatory for flight in class charly from 2008 on. Your airplanes tail number is engraved into the S-mode transponder transmission.

Then, the European Union exists only  for automobile motorists. We aviators still are flying into foreign countries. While any German can take his car and drive to Paris without being asked one question, we pilots need to have the second class communication certificate first, file for a flight plan, land at a customs airport in Germany and France respectively and you can't even fly to a Paris airport then, because Paris is surrounded by class Alpha airspace. We pay for filing the flight plan and we pay for flying it. Calling up the weather report costs you money. It is a 900 number without a published price. You can also check the aviation weather online for a fee of 80 Euro per year. This is the only source for aviation weather in Germany. It is a governmental institution that is half privatized to reduce costs to the tax payer. That means in effect Pilots are paying twice.

Since most people that fly are not Millionaires here, they simply don't fly as much. That's why they have a law in place that requires a biannual license renewal where you have to prove a minimum flight time of 24 hours for proficiency plus a checkride with an instructor. The medical needed for the license is a second class medical that you provide every two years too, unless you're turning 65; from then on Germans need to get that second class medical every 6 month!

With such hard rules in place, you don't have less and less people that actually fly. A young person must be very dedicated to go through the long and costly process of getting a pilot license. Most people won't have the money. When you compare the costs for becoming a pilot compared to becoming a driver and what you actually can do with it, staying automobile is a no-brainer.

Then there is also the question where to fly to. All German airports are having some noise restrictions in place. This way or another, flying is restricted. Especially on week-ends where I with the Ercoupe can't do touch and goes on most of the airports. I have to wait at least one hour for another take-off. And Munich is almost completely not accessible to GA pilots on Sundays since the non-towered airports in the vicinity are closed to the traffic by noise-law. The city airport they used to have is long closed.

Except for the noise regulations, many of these restrictions are a non-issue for me. I fly with an non-expiring American license my American- registered Ercoupe and figure that will stay that way. I was asked a few times if I would try to convert my license to a German one and reregister the plane in Germany, but I see no reason to do so. German authorities, by the way, only allow me to fly American registered planes with my American license, but to be honest, I don't really feel the urge to fly under these rules anyway.

And so does my brother. He is fighting for his license in court, but he told me that he is planning to get his American license in any case. He is also planning to bring his Coupe back to the states he told me. He gave it to a Swiss flying club while he is fighting for his right to fly. His hope is that the USA will stay Aviation friendly as it is and his plan would be to go over once a year and fly for a week or two. Meanwhile I am liking his idea.

However, there are still some brave men and few women here that do all the sacrifices and spend thousands to do what mankind was dreaming about for such a long time.

* Editor: At this writing, the Euro was 1.3 to the dollar.