May 2016: A French tour around the Massif Central

In the middle of May, two pilot friends of mine and me made a nice little weekend tour out of the Frankfurt area to Southern France, which pretty much turned out to be a flight “all around the Massif Central”. The aircraft used was our Piper Arrow IV, based at Aschaffenburg near Frankfurt.

Our stops were: Lyon Bron (lunch and fuel), Béziers (two overnights), Vichy (lunch) and finally Troyes for fuel again.

The weather situation before departure was that most of Europe was unseasonly cold for the days ahead. The Alps had some poor weather, as had the Northern Adriatic region. So that was plan A (Losinj) scrapped. Anything north was likely going to be quite cold, so the obvious alternative was Southern France, which offered good weather and temps in the 22-24 degree region, which was perfect.

A first stop was planed at Lyon Bron (LFLY), even though we do of course have the range to go all the way to Southern France in the Arrow IV. Reasons were a) to get some well-priced Avgas sooner rather than later b) to change pilots (three of them on board!) and c) to not miss the infamous French lunch slot (14.30h and you won’t get any food, anywhere).

Up to Lyon, the weather wasn’t too great. A few showers were expected along the route, as was shown by the radar image that we picked up just before our 09:00 local o’clock local time departure.

Yet one more reason to file IFR (it ended up being the only IFR leg of the trip). Here’s the routing:

As you can see, there is a nasty dogleg there, but given that it was a weekend day, I was confident about getting a good shortcut later on.

Here’s our bird, ready to go. Just the day before, it had received a new electric fuel pump – 2k€! That’s what I mean when talking about expensive parts for certified aircraft!

We left with 200 litres of Avgas on board – that’s 5 hours of endurance, which sounds about right for an IFR flight of almost 3 hours. Our cabin loading allowed us a max of 220 litres on board.

The weather in the Frankfurt area was fine. The departure out of Aschaffenburg had to be on a “Zulu” flightplan, but these work very nicely there. The Flugleiter will get you the squawk and the frequency to call. When passing 1000 feet AGL, you call Langen, they identify you and give you the IFR clearance, which is usually valid starting from about 2500 feet AGL. Even if the weather were pants, I wouldn’t hesitate doing this.

Here we are, climbing trough 5000 feet, aiming for FL70 as our final level.

Set up for cruise. Don’t worry, the ASI is definitely off. We “measured” the true airspeeds recently and they are right in the 130 knot ballpark.

The first ATC shortcut, as usual on that routing, was to Grostenquin VOR in Lorraine – GTQ. But still we had that major dogleg in our route. We enquired with Strasbourg, they checked with Bâle (who probably checked with Lyon…) and – presto – we got a wonderful direct to LSE. That’s the VOR right on site at Lyon St.-Exupéry airport!

Remember the showers on the radar image? Well, they were there, but very small and isolated, as was confirmed by the look outside and also by my new ADL140 (which really wasn’t needed here, but a good thing to have nevertheless).

Towards Lyon, the weather was different, with multiple scattered layers of stratiform clouds and very light rain.

On the vectored ILS to runway 34, we broke out at about 2000 feet.

By the way, I flew the LOC using the ancient Century autopilot, which worked fine. Flying the glideslope is all manual tough.

After landing, we taxied to the fuel pumps and brought our fuel load to 220 litres, using the wonderful TOTAL fuel card (€1.71/ltr).
Parking is a bit inconvenient at Bron nowadays. If you want asphalt, you must go all the way to the south of the apron (area Sierra). The grass parking (area Golf) is a bit closer to the restaurant and the terminal, but still a little bit of a walk. One can go straight to the restaurant from the parking area without needing to go through the terminal (which is quite a bit further north).

Inside, it is quite nice.

To all Vegetarians: skip the next photo

In the meantime, we planned the next flight. The weather was now definitely improving at Lyon, which was good, since our third pilot was “VFR-only”.
Here’s the planned route. First a little further down the Rhône valley (up to Valence), through the Ardèche and then more or less direct to Béziers (LFMU). This one here is shown in the “Skydemon 1” chart style, to give you a better idea of the terrain.

After lunch, we walked (landside) to the terminal to pay our very modest landing fee (22€) and then walked back to the aircraft.

Oil still good.

Departure was overhead and then southwest to SA point.

Southern France, we are coming!

Aubenas (LFHO), the main GA airfield of the Ardèche region.

A little south of that is the famous Gorges de L’Ardèche, a beautiful canyon. There’s a protected area surrounding it, but only up to 1000 feet AGL, so no problem.

Here we are. There’s a winding “parorama” road on top of the canyon with many nice views. The Ardèche is particularly famous for its rafting possibilities.

We then proceeded down towards the sea, first passing Alès, then abeam Montpellier and finally, Sète.

I have no photos from the approach to Béziers since I had to help her (the PIC) a little (new aircraft for her, unknown airport, windy conditions…).

Here we are on the ramp at Béziers.

That’s when the trouble began (as always: never in the air, only on the ground!). First, the controller insisted that we taxy across the apron only via the yellow lines (the apron was totally empty…). The BP fuel pump (Peter’s special expertise by now) was indeed dreadful. There are instructions (about 10 items to follow in a very specfic order) written on the side of the card reader. If you want to get the pump going, better just follow these right from the start, instead of experimenting using your “common sense”…

Next, despite having reserved a parking spot, they sent us on grass. We insisted, but to no avail. “Only for the big boys.” (Jason, you hear me?)
The problem: the “grass” parking is a terrible surface, with very little grass actually, but with stones all sizes and shapes. One must push the aircraft on there (taxying on there under power is actually forbidden), which is hard work. Peter woud have been fuming, I guess. A poor experience up to that point.

The positives of LFMU: short distances, rental cars available, lowish airport fees. Check NOTAMs for opening times, which tend to be a bit short before and after the season.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at a beachside place near Béziers, called Valras-Plâge, which was hooving quite a bit.

During some icecream, we booked a hotel in the centre of Béziers (Hotel Imperator, good location, full of retired Brits). A first reconaissance of the old town was made before dinner. Béziers is nice city for a day or so.

Our sightseeing went on the next morning. The theatre:

The Old Bridge:

We then drove to Narbonne, which is 35km further to the southwest. Narbonne does have its own airfield, but of course, it didn’t make sense for us to fly there. Narbonne is even nicer than Béziers. It features a breathtaking cathedral and a wonderful market hall, where had some light lunch (tapas style).

We then drove 10 km to Fontefroide Abbey, a totally restored monastery up in the hills, west of Narbonne. We didn’t go inside and just wandered around a bit.

On our return to Béziers, we drove past Narbonne airfield (LFNN), but were surprised to find out that it was completely deserted on that sunny bank holiday afternoon.

The next morning, we had to fly home since work was awaiting all of us (we woudn’t have minded just continuing our southwesterly heading and fly futher to Spain, Morocco…). The idea was to make a nice lunch stop at some interesting place on the way and then make another French stop before flying back to Germany, in order to allow all three of us to fly one leg. As the first stop of the day, we chose Vichy-Charmeil (LFLV), just north of the Massif Central. The VFR routing was pretty much due north, via Millau, St. Flour and Clermont-Ferrand:

The weather would be good at least all the way up to Vichy. To the north and to the east of that, it looked it bit iffy, but nothing too bad. Having both VFR and IFR in your toolbox really pays off, especially on those flights back home.

After returning our rental car, here we are at Béziers airport, after having pulled the aircraft onto the sacred asphalt.

Only Jetprop and bigger were allowed to park on the apron.

After departure, the first landmark: Bédarieu, with its airfield (mostly gliders) in the background.

And there’s the famous Viaduc de Millau.

Reservoir (Barrage de Grandval), near St. Flour.

St. Flour. Looks pretty, but the local airfield is rather far away, unfortunately.

Still some snow on the highest mountain of the Massif Central, the “Puy de Sancy” (6184 feet).

We climbed to 6500 feet as we approached Clermont-Ferrand, to cross their TMA perpendicular to the main runway (08/26).

Here’s the city of Clermont-Ferrand on the right. In the background, you can see the “Chaine des Puys”, a characteristic chain of volcanoes running all the way along the west of the city. Its highest peak, the Puy de Dôme (on the very left), is 4803 feet high.

We then descended inbound to our destination, Vichy. It’s “A/A-only” on weekends. As we listened in, we heard a couple of aircraft using runway 19, despite the (light) winds rather favouring runway 01 and the “preferred QFU” as per the VAC also being 01… But who were we to argue with French pilots… after all, the runway was two thousand metres long. On “étape de base droite pour la dix-neuf”:

Taxying in. The apron is big enough to host even the biggest Euroga fly-in.

Several of those medium sized French GA airfields of nowadays (Maubeuge, Charleville) have a big, old, and totally defunct terminal building, telling stories of better times, when there must have been some type of commercial traffic in and out of these airfields. Vichy is another one of those:

We took a taxi the the city centre of Vichy (being in France, always an expensive thing at 25€ for less than 10 minutes) but which was entirely worthwhile. Here’s the story about Vichy (no, not about the skincare, the city I mean…). First of all, many will know that it was the seat of government and de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II German occupation from 1940 to 1944. But other than that, it is also France’s most significant spa and resort town, thanks to health-promoting thermal springs. Actually, this is the main reason why it became the seat of Vichy France: it had lots and lots of accomodation on offer (needed for the officers of the army). If you are interested any further, see here.

Anyway, Vichy was severly “en-vogue” in the late 19th and early 20th century and apparently became very wealthy. Thus, it boasts lots of wonderful architecture from that era. If you are into that kind of stuff (as I do) you must go to Vichy.

We had some light lunch in of the restaurants and then headed back to the airport. It was time for the “other” IFR pilot on board to fly, but for the one hour flight to Troyes, it really didn’t make sense to file IFR, so we just went VFR. Outside of controlled airspace (none of the that around in the area) it’s the same anyway.

We knew Troyes wasn’t exactly on our way home, but it seemed like the most sensible place to go to, in order to get some more of that French Avgas and to change pilots once again. This slight dogleg also allowed us to stay to the north of some rain all over the Alsace region, which was slowly moving out towards the southeast.

The aircraft was still there and luckily not blocked by other parked aircraft…

We climbed to 5000 feet this time and crossed various small rivers.

This is the town of Avalon. The local airfield (grass) is just to the west of town.

The city of Troyes.

On final for 35.

As per the current NOTAM, the credit card reader directly at the pumps is out order.

The NOTAM is a little confusing though. The way it is written, it suggests that one won’t be able to get fuel during the lunch break of the AFISO. That however is not true. For refuelling (and paying) the only guy you need is the one at behind the counter and he does not make a lunch break. This might be a useful piece of information for other pilots planning a fuel stop at Troyes during lunchtime.

The weather completely ruled out in IFR flight (TCUs, even CBs, showers, freezing level at 4500 feet), but for VFR, it was quite OK. I filed my flight plan “old style”, via telephone with the AFIS guy up in the tower (it seemed like I woke him up with my call…). Here’s the routing, which was essentially a straight line with just a couple of waypoints thrown in to make the flightplan routing compliant with the French and German regulations and to keep clear of two small restricted areas whose status I could not be bothered to verify.

As you can see, this routing, if flown low-level (as we would do) would cross St. Dizier CTR (expected to be not active), Ochey CTR (expected to be not actice), Lorraine CTR (expected to be active), Saarbrücken CTR (expected to be active) and Ramstein CTR (100% definitely active). VFR flying at its best! About 1:45h enroute.

Troyes airport was as pleasant as ever. And the mentioned “man behind the counter” (the one with the greyish hair) is one of the most friendly “airport employees” that I have come across in France.

We departed on 35 and, with a right turn out, climbed to 3000 feet. What always strikes me in the area of Troyes is the size and texture of the fields. Really quite unique for this area. Also, a rather good place to have an engine failure, I guess.

Lac du Der, southwest of St. Dizier.

River Moselle, meandering its way to Metz.

Here’s the city of Metz and the former military airport Frescaty (which unfortunately has not been opened to GA).

In May, I always love seeing the bloom of the rapeseed fields in Germany, Denmark and France. Unfortunately, its all over now already.

First signs of better weather ahead as we come up to the German border and Saarbrücken.

Here’s Ramstein. As always (at least on weekends) they are happy to have VFR aircraft transit their class Delta, especially if they are N-reg. . I’ve found they are sometimes quite “busy” during the week, but on weekends and holidays, they merely seem to be “on guard”, with nothing going on.

Some first rays of sunshine.

Worms and the Rhine to our right.

Frankfurt airport in the distance.

And here (right in the middle) is our homebase, Aschaffenburg, EDFC.

So…

…that’s another very nice GA flying trip completed. It could have been done completely under VFR, this time. By the way, we had a slight tailwind on each and every leg!