Paginatitel

The Grumpy Gang

The Grumman Aircraft Pilots Association European Branch

Saturday 16th June - With our plan to fly into Portoroz, Slovenia, it was necessary to leave Italy via a customs attended airfield. The nearest and most convenient one for us was at Venice, San Nicolo Airfield (or Saint Nicholas, as Tim continually called it! - By the way, this is the first and last time I'll be mentioning Tim and his abuse of the local languages - Suffice to say he was 'fun' to listen to on the radio as he bludgeoned his way through the names of reporting points and airfields - If you want a good giggle just ask him to say, "November 31Romeo Bravo is at Chioggia" !!- It was through his mispronunciation that Nancy Military though he was 40 miles out in the North Sea!!! Enough said!)

The Customs and Immigration formalities (and bureaucracy) at Italian airfields are the stuff of legends. Many have read in the various flying magazines all about other peoples experiences and their encounters with Italian bureaucracy and it was with trepidation that we timidly asked the airport management to inform the local Customs/Immigration people of our intent to fly to Slovenia. We received a helpful - "Here's a phone number. Call this". " Ah! Yes thanks. And where's the phone?" - A pointed finger indicated the way back to the blokes who had taken our flight plans. These honourable gents lent us a phone.

The next fifteen minutes were spent talking to a nice lady who didn't speak very good English (Needless to say your scribe can only say two words in Italian - and in case you ask - 'Si' and 'Spaghetti' !). I had to spell each aircraft registration, each pilot's name, and each persons nationality phonetically - It took ages and with much repetition, but I considered I'd done well. However, I felt something approaching pain when she summed up with ..., "Which aircraft are you going in?" . "All four aircraft", I replied, "Oh! Quarto aerocrafto?", she said,...... "Si", I said. ...... A moments silencio as the lira drops ...... "Which ones", she asked - I was disappointed to have to go through it all again!!

We then had to wait an hour and a half for the various Polizie and Customs gentlemen to arrive and write our names in a book. There is no use bucking the system nor in shouting. The Police and the Customs men were very, very polite and kept their sense of humour. Patience proved to be a virtue and we left in good spirits (after taking a careful look to see if any ferries were approaching!).