Thanks Aveling!
Very interesting to see that route. It actually makes things a lot easier approaching from the north like that. Any reason not to request a direct transit of the Provence TMA/Orange CTR?
(Btw – can someone explain how to copy/paste a member’s profile name so you can address them @… ? I’m obviously missing something really obvious, hence multiple editing!)
You can just type it, with the @ at the start of it.
Or you can swipe it and copy it from the banner to the right of the poster’s post e.g. here
which avoids spelling mistakes.
Note that there must not be a full stop ( . ) immediately after the username. This is a highly unfortunate consequence of the fact that when this notification feature was implemented, some users had already created usernames ending with a full stop.
No spaces are allowed in usernames; on pre-existing ones they were batch-replaced with the underscore ( _ ) years ago.
It is best to not over-use this feature because the referenced user gets an email notification, and people can get quite irritated by that. We used to have a guy here who used to do it all the time, most likely deliberately. Most regulars read the forum regularly 
and will see your post anyway. I personally use the @username form mainly in cases where the user rarely if ever visits the forum.
Regarding the question about Belgium, when I used to do my long VFR flights, 2003-2005, I would leave UK airspace at say KONAN, FL075 or so, and call up Brussels and they would let me cross Belgium at that level. I would be talking to Brussels Departures mainly and they would give me vectors as needed. So no need to scud run low down. I was VMC (VFR) and usually with clouds below.
jgmusic wrote:
Any reason not to request a direct transit of the Provence TMA/Orange CTR?
No, but I’d mentioned Cannes and they just assumed a direct routing, not considering weather. Actually it looked OK and so I went with the flow. If I’d been more specific in my request I believe they’d have given me clearance overhead Marseilles as described in a thread on Flyer some time ago.
A factor was that I’d not been able to establish the rules for the Calanques Protected area which spans the former VFR route from Cap Croisette. If anyone has the answer to this I’d be glad to know. In the event, I was able to avoid it.
Thanks Aveling, really useful. I was considering a stop in Marseilles – have you landed there before?
No, never at Marseilles. A search on the other forum will throw up some info.
Thanks Aveling.
I landed at Marseilles last year (IFR; <2t aircraft); handling mandatory; handling was 100,- EUR, disbursement fee 12,19 EUR and airport fees 81.28 EUR.
