Hi,
I just returned from a trip to Royan Medis, an airfield I want to recommend wholeheartedly for their location, amenities and perfect customer service.
We arrived in excellent (hot) weather. Over the French plains – we routed via DIK and POI we had to circumnavigate a few isolated CBs in FL85 but after Poitiers there was nothing but blue skies.
My wife who doesn’t like to fly brought the car and and my older daughter so I only had to transport the three younger kids. The trip took little over four hours by plane (against the prevailing westerly winds) and close to two days by car (including a night in a nice hotel on the way).
At Royan which is French only we saw the later infamous record flyer
We enjoyed the local beaches but also the entire area from La Rochelle and the Ile d’Oleron in the North to Bordeaux and St. Emilion in the South (where the adults enjoyed the local liquid produce)
I can recommend the La Rochelle aquarium..
..where Nemo and Dory share a home
They tend to hide some of the impressive historical buildings (and don’t get me wrong Jersey for example has made the German hospital a thriving tourist attraction)…
U boat bunkers at La Rochelle at La Pallice
On the way back we escaped the incoming storm front just in time – that’s the way: cloudy skies for departure
..and enjoyed French hospitality in the form of a loaned Total card so we could fill up for EUR2 cash
We passed Saintes in 3000ft (no chance to get higher due to military activities on a Friday)
and were alerted by Seine information of traffic 200ft below
Two questions if you’ve read to here:
1) how can one get better information about the restricted areas over France? Skydemon only says all-weekdays and 24h or closure according to NOTAM. This is really frustrating when you call up i.e. Avord Approach for a crossing clearance and all you get is an autmated reply that all their stuff is inactive. Ok, better than the oter way round..
2) I have some more pictures of the nice SR22. Do you guys reach out to other owners/pilots to exchange air-to-air pictures? How?
Have a good start into the new work week
mrfacts
Great report Mrfacts 
Yes the La Rochelle aquarium is brilliant – probably the best one I know anywhere. The city is also really scenic and a photographer’s paradise.
I have some more pictures of the nice SR22. Do you guys reach out to other owners/pilots to exchange air-to-air pictures? How?
You have to find somebody to do a formation flight with… preferably somebody who can use a camera 
I once did a flight for photos but the other guy didn’t have the flash card in the camera, realising this only after landing!
Also you need to be well organised (and not cowboys) so you don’t bump into each other. There is a variety of methods – we can start a new thread on that, perhaps? I am no expert but others here have done it a lot.
Peter wrote:
ou have to find somebody to do a formation
I think mrfacts was asking how to find the other pilot (based on registration which he probably captured) and send him the photos.
Indeed, I am after the information on how to exchange pictures of the chance traffic one encounters from time to time.. For G-registered aircraft there’s G-INFO as a starting point. Is there a similar database for French planes?
This may be stating the obvious but google is normally pretty quick in establishing where some plane is based. The reason it works is because most people don’t fly very far away from home (don’t do long away-from-home trips) so the plane spotter sites get the most pics where the plane is based.
The much more powerful tool is google / images rather than google / web which is what nearly everybody uses. Google / images is also great for locating aircraft parts by part number, partial markings on parts, etc. Also good for finding people
If the aircraft is N-reg then the registered owner will be on faa.gov but for European based planes that normally just gets you the address of the US trustee owner. This is the method airports use to send bills to people who for whatever reason did not pay before departure, and it is a right PITA for the real owner, because the trustee might charge for passing on the letter. So don’t use this for tracing an N-reg plane unless it is something desperate
My CAA used to publish such information but has discontinued it – over concerns of privacy, like as not. Actually I am surprised to see G-INFO giving full details of aircraft owner’s identity and street address, even if it is a private person and not a company. I am sure they are breaking some rule or other.
I am surprised to see G-INFO giving full details of aircraft owner’s identity and street address, even if it is a private person and not a company. I am sure they are breaking some rule or other.
That has often been questioned but the UK CAA says they are exempted from the Data Protection Act because some UK law requires that data to be public. I can’t comment – have no idea.
The usual solution is to use a “different” address. I used to use my accountant but he got a bit fed up with passing on the various stuff which also gets sent to that address by CAA-related organisations (GASIL/GASCO?). I tried to get these people to mail to my real address but they refused. Now I am N-reg I don’t get any of it anymore
For France :
http://www.immat.aviation-civile.gouv.fr/immat/servlet/aeronef_liste.html
Luxembourg has a PDF file online.
As for airspace : NOTAMs (and AZBA for the graphical counterpart of the low-flying-no-limit military zones)
I never plan OCAS in France as I never have been repelled, even less by the military. Once I was even called to let me see a Xingu departing from the base which was about to cross my path a few 100ft lower.
So that’s it ! Best case scenario, you call and you get the answering machine, worst case scenario they will tell you how to pass through their airspace.
