@Peter I remember these routes being only for helicopters, which adds sense if you talk about glide range being an issue. I have flown it in a fixed wing when the terrain to the north of Nice was socked in. They did keep us at 500ft.
I can relate to tinfoilhat as I found it extremely difficult to navigate to Aix VFR. All Info services were unmanned and there was a lot of traffic routing around all the zones in that area. If you haven’t experienced that you really don’t understand what he is talking about. Only ever had that feeling elsewhere flying VFR around the Paris airspace, confined to 500 ft AGL due to Class A above, and zones and traffic everywhere.
Then I also find it funny how tinfoilhat is being lectured about VFR routes (but not openly saying what is wrong with that) only to then tell the audience here something most apparently didn’t know about flying in France. There is some really good advice in here, but the hard part is separating the good parts from the unnecessarily condescending stuff that seems to be rooted in cultural and linguistic misunderstandings.
tinfoilhat wrote:
What do you do at SW when two planes are on a collision course and you have a mountain at 1610ft to the north.
Turn to the right and pass each other. Same used to happen in Sydney Australia on Victor 1 at 500ft down the coast past the Heads and Mascot airport.
tinfoilhat wrote:
What do you do at SW when two planes are on a collision course and you have a mountain at 1610ft to the north.
According to the map the 1610’ peak is 2-3 NM away?
tinfoilhat wrote:
What do you do at SW when two planes are on a collision course and you have a mountain at 1610ft to the north.
It’s funny you know… I was flying VFR around Europe 2002-2005 ( example ) and I never followed any “VFR route”. I just turned up approaching CAS, usually at some reasonable level like FL080, and asked for clearance. A lot of European ATC has a policy of “no transits” but many are fine. I’ve never seen any evidence that ATC actually want somebody to fly these routes, despite them being on the charts. I did get the “500ft” bit going past Nice (it’s in the writeup I linked to) and did expect it due to past pilot reports, but it didn’t “click” at the time it was a published route. It’s scenic allright but ridiculous from a risk management POV.
Peter wrote:
It’s funny you know… I was flying VFR around Europe 2002-2005 ( example ) and I never followed any “VFR route”. I just turned up approaching CAS, usually at some reasonable level like FL080, and asked for clearance.
You can get clearance for anything. We fly aerobatics in CAS (due to way oversized controlled airspaces, but that’s another matter). In Norway the VFR routes are meant to direct VFR in and out of TMAs for take off and landing mainly. They are not meant for crossing, which you do above the TMA. It looks to be a similar thing in France, low level in controlled airspace.
You can get clearance for anything
In Norway, maybe
We have had many good threads on ATC policies around Europe.
They have a published VFR corridor at Aberdeen, where if you ask for a clearance through the zone, they will route you to the VFR corridor – almost every time. Now, the corridor routes down the coast, with a ceiling of 1000 AGL. Traffic both ways, so it can get a bit of a turkey shoot. Last time I was in it, I had three head on conflicting aircraft travelling North. I, and I am assured many others, have raised complaints about it, but no one really wants to know. GA safety in a VFR corridor. Wonder what the CHIRP stats are?
Peter wrote:
I have never heard of VFR routes.
They use them in France. Strange you never heard of them.
mh wrote:
Furthermore, it seems that you weren’t taught to prepare and execute a cross country flight to an airfield new to you by yourself. In any case it seems as you missed out a good chunk of practical navigation during your PPL training.
Is it so hard to understand that there are differences between countries? Isn’t it why it’s recommended to get a local to show you how things are done around there? I think it’s a better approach than thinking you know it all, you have a PPL after all. 
Martin wrote:
Is it so hard to understand that there are differences between countries? Isn’t it why it’s recommended to get a local to show you how things are done around there? I think it’s a better approach than thinking you know it all, you have a PPL after all.
The use of VFR routes is not the point. He said, that “I trained in the UK where it is all class G with very small neat zones of controlled space around the airfields and I finished my PPL with the ability to fly in to an airfield solo in the afternoon that I had flown into with my FI in the morning.” At some point the student has to learn how to prepare a flight where he hasn’t gone before. Not just with an FI as a safety net, but on his own. So usually I would do a couple (depending on the studend) preflight plans together, then just check his planning for dual cross country flying. Then we prepare a solo cross country together and after that he has to prepare and execute a flight to an airfield, where he hasn’t been before. Including gathering all needed information. If there are compulsory VFR routes, then they would be part of the planning. But I think flight training is incomplete, if the instructors hasn’t enabled his student to fly anywhere on his own. That is not “Don’t ask the locals”, but “ask them yourself… I won’t ask them for you”.
Oh, and I usually don’t blame the student for this, but the instructor.
