Welcome to your AOPA Luxembourg Newsletter. We hope you are getting into the holiday spirit! Fingers crossed that with winter upon us, we get a few nice cold, clear days to fly. Read below to get your news, info and tid-bits - all aviation related, of course! 

Cristina and Reinhard

Who is Who on the board

How well do you know your board members? Every issue will highlight one!

Upcoming Events

Before year end your AOPA board will get together to prepare the event calendar for 2024 - if you have any ideas, suggestions or recommendations - please email us at editor@aopa.lu

** 03.02.2024        AOPA Luxembourg Safety Seminar

** 17.-20.04.2024  AERO2024 Friedrichshafen - 30th Anniversary

Postcard from Egypt: Flying Pharaohs

Our friends and AOPA members Rachel, Petz and Claude took their sleak UL's on a long trip and joined the FAI Egypt Rally 2023 to Gizeh, Abu Simbel and more, organized by the Egyptian Flying Pharaoh.

We will hear more from them in the upcoming yearbook!

In the News: Frequency Monitoring Code (FMC) 5101 in Belgian FIR 

Please note the publication of a new "Aviation Safety Information Leaflet (ASIL)" with the subject "Frequency Monitoring Code (FMC) 5101" in force as of 07.09.2023.

Please note that this FMC 5101 is applicable from Thursday 7 September 2023 and is strictly limited to the Belgian FIR (Luxembourg excluded).

What's new?  Skeyes decided to introduce the FMC 5101, which allows pilots to monitor the frequency without making a call and thus focus on flying and navigation.  FMC 5101 is not a flight information service request, but it does inform air traffic services that the pilot is monitoring the FIC frequency and is reachable as long as the code is selected on the transponder.
The goal is clearly to reduce frequency occupancy and workload for pilots and flight service services.

Why this change?  The flight information service can reach its saturation point in both summer and winter, especially on sunny days or after a long period without VMC conditions.  The size of the area covered by SIFs and the volume of traffic make it difficult to provide a good level of service to all users on the frequency.  Airspace violations and frequency saturation have contributed to numerous safety incidents.

Please note that you can still contact FIS (e.g. to activate a flight plan). Then you squawk 2000 as before.

Read More

Safety First! Stay within Your Comfort Zone

Our friend Sunny Swift from EASA reminds us to stay within our comfort Zone. Preparation is essential:

Winter Flying - Tips and Links 

The landscape and temperatures have once again changed and we need to adapt as we say goodbye to autumn and welcome in the winter.

As many of you already know, flying in the winter, over snow covered fields can be breathtakingly beautiful, peaceful and challenging.

Here are a few great links from EASA, Skybrary and AOPA US as well as a leaflet from the FAA  - all with great tips and pointers for flying in winter conditions.

Take a peek - be prepared in order to safely enjoy the winter wonderland below!

If you have any other great guidelines, please share them with us at editor@aopa.lu

Calling All Members

Would you like to contribute an article or share an interesting link? Is your AOPA baseball cap doing something or going somewhere and you want to share it with our entire community? Please email it to editor@aopa.lu. Keep it clean and aviation related, the editors reserve the right to omit and/or edit submitted material.