Rwy20 wrote:
I’ve read your arguments on the Swiss forum (not only from you, but they seem to have stuck), I’ve tried in vain (obviously) to counter them with facts, but I’ll try once again. If you then still want to stick to your narrative of “France has become GA hell because of a conspiracy of socialists” , it is up to you.
Ah, ok, so you are in Flightforum as well? I also see you are in Zürich, why don’t we meet up once? I always think it is much easier to talk face to face.
I am angry at the decision to take away customs from that many airport which were widely used by the Swiss and UK GA, yes. And I do think that it has to do with that government that they would do this. That is the only “beef” so to speak that I have with them and I have been active wherever possible to help the French airports in question to get their signatures for the petitions they have launched to get their customs status back. And clearly, in order to get people to take action, they need to know about it.
Rwy20 wrote:
In France, Paris is a no-go, the rest usually possible. Restricted areas in France can look frightening, but you just need to call flight information and you can usually fly a straight line through it (with the exception of the AZBA routes).
I know. I used to fly to France a lot and never had a problem. I used to do flight planning sessions in flight schools at times and tried to get the message across, yet many less experienced VFR pilots simply are scared by this. France is not alone there, not at all, Belgium is worse, I can think of Poland and the South of Bulgaria too. Full agreement with the ease of ops once you are inside France. I guess there are better and worse places, but for this you have EDDH or other pirep sites to help you choose.
Rwy20 wrote:
One such “report” about ramp checks with fines for “missing language proficiency” has been false, I had already demonstrated that on the respective thread.
It appears indeed that this has finally been sorted, probably a long time ago too. From what I gather, it was in the very beginning of the LP saga that some inspectors took some liberties with this, but since it appears really that this was the action of some misguided people. Personally, because my French is not up to speed, I avoid FR only airfields, but that is up to everyone to decide.
Rwy20 wrote:
What “other hassle” do you mean that is talked about in which “other pilot reports”?
Mainly getting fuel can be difficult if you don’t have the Total Card or confusion about airport hours.
The gist is, MOST of these prejudices are wrong and the only thing we can do is to dispell them and educate the pilots. At the same time, I believe like others said here, that it is very important that we keep supporting the French airports drive to keep their customs and whatever else problems they may have.
Rwy20 wrote:
Once you know where to find the AZBA routes (or if you only fly on weekends, you don’t even need those), you can pretty much draw a straight line on the map and get full service on the way from friendly, English-proficient, real controllers who can directly clear you through anything that may be in your way. It doesn’t get any easier than that.
Yes. I think it is really important to get people to understand that. I know, I keep trying to tell people that, yet many just see all the red and panick. I think the future will be in electronic charting which then allows to only have the airspaces shown which are really active. THAT would be a milestone, not only for France, but for MANY countries.
I do remember fondly one incident I had some 20 years back when on VFR approach to Avignon under Orange Control we were told that Avignon was closed due to an incident and if we wanted to drop in at Orange for a coffee to wait for them to re-open. We did and took off 30 minutes later again for the short hop. I don’t think it would happen in too many other places that you are offered that by a major military base.
Rwy20 wrote:
This looks more like a deficiency in training if a PPL isn’t capable of planning a flight because of “airspace”.
Yes. That is why I said, we need to train people better for international flying. One of my mantras which often set off folks, but there is no replacement for it.
Rwy20 wrote:
About PPR, I can’t remember when was the last time that I asked for a PPR in France
I was talking from the perspective of a Swiss pilot about customs PPR which is necessary for almost all the nearby entry fields in France. Some are quite long ahead. Me, I usually avoid such places (also elsewhere) and go someplace where I don’t need it or where it’s manageable. 24 hour prior notice is simply not realistic in VFR most of the time.
Rwy20 wrote:
you did mention multiple times that those concerns were probably exaggerated or even not true.
I said also that much of this was not my personal opinion but what I hear when I talk to people. This thread is about what is going on so I was trying to bring across the perception I hear so that we can get what is wrong sorted out and what is false debunked.
If you frequent the ILS Forum, you might know that I am the president of the association which runs it. We are trying hard to promote GA, my specialitiy being airplane ownership, and we do hear a lot what worries people. Actually, we are planning to start doing seminars about various topics and I’d be delighted to have people with real experience talk to the people at such occasions. As I said, why don’t we get together once at LSZH. I am here.
Rwy20 wrote:
It seems like you decided to construct a negative image of aviation in France mostly based on hearsay. I hope this doesn’t keep anyone from flying there and seeing for themselves.
That is definitly not what I want to achieve. But what I will do is point out stuff which should not be like this, such as the French customs problem and others. You might recall that I was equally vocal about the Italian luxury tax garbage and the Austrian tax attempt which closed all major airports to GA for a while. These things NEED to be told and addressed. The more people complain about them, the more the likelyhood that something will be done about it.
And BTW: France does have my respect and praise for the fact that they had a massive part in getting EASA more GA friendly. And I have said that many times as well.
On the subject of french being mandatory to use by french pilots (which I agree is the texts but think is not enforced), the other day I was on the outbound leg of the Toussus LFPN ILS 25R, and heard the Cotam ## (That’s basically the equivalent of the US “Air Force #” (mostly in smaller planes though ;)) reply in english (with slight french accent) to the Approach controller’s directions (in French), and then the controller switched to english and didn’t seem upset about that. It was even a high ## number which means someone much less important than the prime minister.
Customs/Immigration is obviously something I’d fight for, but as said before I would probably fight against getting rid of the FR only if it meant restricting the rights / recucing safety of the locals that don’t speak English. After all it’s their taxes that pay for the airports, and would probably kill the nice spirit I’ve seen in clubs there.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Ah, ok, so you are in Flightforum as well? I also see you are in Zürich, why don’t we meet up once? I always think it is much easier to talk face to face.
Yes, would be about time to have a beer together.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
That is the only “beef” so to speak that I have with them and I have been active wherever possible to help the French airports in question to get their signatures for the petitions they have launched to get their customs status back.
Yes, I do care about this as well, which is why I opened a thread about the petition here. 
Next step would be a system like in Germany where you can use many small airfields for entry and exit from the EU if you don’t have anything to declare, though for Swiss based aircraft you would need to clarify first if they could be made to fit under that regime (the German text talks about an “EU aircraft registration” as a prerequisite, but that cannot have any effect on the customs status IMHO).
Mooney_Driver wrote:
I do remember fondly one incident I had some 20 years back when on VFR approach to Avignon under Orange Control
I also fondly remember one incident overhead Orange, but won’t post about it here. Let’s say we were lucky they didn’t shoot us down. 
Mooney_Driver wrote:
I was talking from the perspective of a Swiss pilot about customs PPR
OK, so you mean the PNR requirements. I would say as long as it’s free, it is not too bad to be required to send one e-mail, if that is your price for access to GA heaven. But of course it should be much easier, see above.
RobertL18C wrote:
LeSving that’s a busy ramp for Namsos – the local club I think has switched to microlights with the old club Cherokee a ramp mummy (but not in your shot – it’s parked in the weeds East of the hangar).What’s the next GA friendly field as you head north, Namsos being pretty north as it is.
The Cherokee is a private one, owned by a women. The plane has a bullet hole in the vertical fin. She got it when she refused to pay a local airport king when she was on a trip to Africa, and he started shooting at her when she took off. The hole is still there, she wanted to have it as a souvenir. The last time I saw the plane it was mostly a wreck.
Namsos is not even half way to the Nordkapp. The closest field is Rørvik (ENMR), only some 15 minutes flight away to the NW. There are several smaller private fields close by also. All Avinor airfields are GA friendly (free parking, friendly personnel etc), except Gardermoen perhaps. But they are all commercial airports for airline traffic, meaning security and closing hours. There is also a “network” of private airfields in Norway. Some of these are much nicer for GA, but probably a bit “hidden” for non native speakers. If you want to experience some “outback”, this is definitely the way to go though. A normal GA type aircraft will be OK for most of them, but a more “bushy” plane would be necessary for a few of them (or a microlight). Most of them are found in SD, but wrongly marked as “microlight strip”. The concept of microlight strips does not exist in Norway. An airport is an airport here.
I have a fond memory of the small club at Tromso. Warmest and cosiest I’ve seen to date, in a wooden hut (inside the international airport) with nice cosy couches, little or no inside doors/ walls, and lots of coffee waffles.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Also, a lot of people shy away from the complex airspace structures
Flying VFR in France seems difficult in some areas. And it is indeed, in some areas, if you do not want to call ATC and then you have to spend hours trying to figure out a weird route to avoid all kind of ovelapping airspaces/restricted/danger areas (ok, actually it is not that difficult)
Otherwise it is extremely easy, since you only need to contact ‘xxx info’ and say where do you want to go. Then you can cross the whole country almost in a straight line.
Then you can cross the whole country almost in a straight line.
IME, you get easy ATC clearances through CAS (just as well since some of it cannot be deciphered – example ) but not necessarily through D R or P areas – example – and these need to be pre-planned / explicitly checked with ATC even if they did clear you on a straight line which passes through it.
That said, last time I did any VFR in France was just over 2 years ago and maybe today ATC can clear you through D R and P areas too.
Aviathor wrote:
Peter wrote:
French GA airport food tends to be much better than UK GA airport food.
Again, lets not turn this into subjective comparative analysis of two countries. Otherwise we will end up with another war in Europe, which the EU was supposed to put an end to
I agree on subjective matters but re UK airport food it is surely objective. Res ipsa loquitur.
Peter wrote:
– example –
Is that a 1:1M map? I find the 1:500k IGN ones very readable, personnally. I don’t fly VFR a ton in france these days, but never bust controlled airspace / had any issue due to map misinterpretation. The one time I did, sadly I can’t blame the map and anyone else but me! (I wasn’t on any ATC frequency)
I’d be (genuinelly) curious to see how this would read in 1:1M
I think a lot of it is also being used to it. I personally dislike the US maps (sectional charts) but only have looked at them to do the PPL theory (which I ended up not using as didn’t go for full FAA PPL when CBIR was released) and for the Instrument Foreign Pilot test. I much prefer the CAA and IGN ones.
But… I never really took the time to get used to them. Never saw anyone complain so, rationally I have to assume they are probably good!
