There are blue circles like this on practically all French VAC. It’s one of the reasons you end up flying downwind where, ironically, you have zero chance of making the runway if the fan stops. It also means that if you don’t have SDVFR you need significant local knowledge before you can fly just about anywhere. (SDVFR makes it easy by showing you where you are relative to the blue circles).
For example at Dax (LFBY): fly upwind until abeam the three lakes. Turn crosswind then turn downwind at the lakes. Fly direct to midway between the agricultural college and its associated barn. From there fly just to the right of the big red and white pylon. Turn just before abeam the pylon and aim for the highway bridge then the scrapyard. Turn final just past the scrapyard, to align with the little hut in the middle of the field containing the NDB.
I promise, I am really, really not making this up.
johnh wrote:
There are blue circles like this on practically all French VAC
Are they listed as “Prohibited” in AIP?
Flying in “P-area” could go as far as 1 year prison & 50k$ and losing aircraft, it’s rare to get there but some have paid 10k$ 
https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI000023078240
No, they’re not, nor even R. P areas in France are pretty scarce and generally small, typically around nuclear and other hazardous installations, and don’t go up very far. R areas, otoh – there are hundreds, and all over the place.
I’ve no idea what happens if you fly through a blue circle and someone manages to get your tail number. I suspect they bitch and moan to the airport, who in turn do the same to you.
What happens is you get a note from the DSAC and then if you are a member of FFA another discussion starts about safety and obeying the see and avoid rules versus some bloke sitting in his garden claiming you have flown over his place 10ft inside the blue circle at less than 1700 ft. Then they get the radar or GPS tracks out to see if it is true and if it is they want to know why and at LFPN there are parallel runways, with circuits using both runways at the same time and the blue circles are not on the ground so there is no visual indication of the blue circle like a red blob or something so you have to look inside at the GPS to see you are avoiding the blue circle by which time you smash into the other aircraft just in front of you on the other runway circuit.
They are a menace when some di**head who moved into the area long after the airfield was built can hold the safety of pilots at that field in his hands.
The blue circles have no meaning in law. They were originally intended to help an airfield get along with its neighbours by asking those pilots to avoid overlying due to noise.
They have not taken into account that many modern aircraft are much quieter so some hear noise when it doesn’t exist.
At one airfield someone even reported a glider for passing over the edge of one of these blue circles.
At DAX at least the turning points are visual markers so that you can keep looking out of the window to avoid the over flight.
These blue circles are going to kill someone one day.
Apologies for the rant. But if it doesn’t kill someone it certainly threatens GA at those airfields with neighbours who see profit from its closure.
gallois wrote:
The blue circles have no meaning in law. They were originally intended to help an airfield get along with its neighbors by asking those pilots to avoid overlying due to noise
Yes no legal meaning but labelling them as prohibited areas seems unprecedented to me?
One thing is banking the wings to fly around the circles at min(1.4*VS,100KTS) is way “too noisy” (intensity & exposure) than flying straight & level but the idea of those circles and the remarks I highlighted were about “appearing to do something”
Noise levels actual or perception depend on temperature, wind, time of the day, clouds & visibility…should we adjust the size & shape of the blue circle?
I have flown in a gliding club where we had published flight paths for tugging gliders these were adjusted and diversified depending on day conditions
We also had neighbor noise complaints on winch only days (no aero-tows), I think it was about whistling of gliders? or B747/A380 at FL380?
The blue circles are geographic, just a circle around a town or village, so don’t move or adjust with the wind.
The problem with a town or village, seen from the air as opposed to some distinct building or mark is that a town is like a blot it spreads out in all directions so what marks out the boundaries of the circle is difficult to identify whilst allowing for wind, watching for other traffic and of course the subject of this thread, where to put down in the event of an emergency which would not allow you to return to the runway.
I was referring to an actual glider at around 2000ft and circling to find the pump (thermals?)
Why would you want to fly around the circles at 100kts, especially those on the climb out or approach at LFPN? Unless of course you want to antagonize people and cause problems for everyone.
IMO most pilots try to keep their noise and environmental impact down, we all know what is possible when we don’t . Complaints to the airfield, to the mayor, to the DGAC etc.
IMHO many of these blue circles are a step to far in pacifying neighbours who will only be pacified by the total closure of the airfield.
They are also a threat to safety, particularly to VFR and GA.
I was chatting to the guys at a local glider field (Itxassou, LFIX) the other day, and he said the neighbours complain about the noise of the gliders! I suppose what really happens is they see them and then imagine the noise.
A few years ago I had an (ex)friend who was moaning to me about the airliner noise over her house. I looked and on the STAR they were passing at 14,000 feet. One of the several reasons why this person became an ex-friend.
gallois wrote:
I seem to remember the AIP contains a derogation from SERA on this particular subject.
It was carried over from a 2014 regulation.
How does that work? The UK (prior to Brexit) was eventually forced by the EU to increase minimum cloud clearances and visibilities in class D airspace (the long standing arrangement was for under 3000’, 140kias, VFR in airspace D had to just be clear of cloud). How has the French regulator got away with keeping this derogation which is contrary to SERA?
(The UK class D airspace rules have been reverted now, but that’s only because the UK is no longer in SERA, which obviously doesn’t apply to French airspace).
At the surface of it, the rule is clear – SERA allow CAAs to give permission to operate BELOW the minimum heights, but do not grant them a right to set a HIGHER minimum height at all. I could not find anything in the SERA itself that would allow the ‘competent authority’ (national CAA) to do that.
However, there also is guidance material for SERA.3105 which says “In cases where it is considered that the minimum heights specified in SERA.5005 and SERA.5015 are not sufficient, the competent authority may establish appropriate structures, such as controlled, restricted or prohibited airspace, and define specific conditions through national arrangements. In all cases, the related Aeronautical Information Publication (AIP) and charts should be made easy to comprehend for airspace users.”.
I will leave the intricacies of how guidance material can grant a right that the underlying rules do not, but this is not a “derogation” from a rule. I would also not want to argue in court if France has established “appropriate structures” with their general rules about minimum heights, and exactly how to read the word “and” in that sentence…
Cobalt wrote:
However, there also is guidance material for SERA.3105 which says “In cases where it is considered that the minimum heights specified in SERA.5005 and SERA.5015 are not sufficient, the competent authority may establish appropriate structures, such as controlled, restricted or prohibited airspace, and define specific conditions through national arrangements. In all cases, the related Aeronautical Information Publication (AIP) and charts should be made easy to comprehend for airspace users.”.
Yes it’s ENR 1.2.7, see Capitaine post, but it’s not using appropriate structures (e.g. airspace)
https://www.euroga.org/forums/flying/1241-glide-clear-rule-se/post/298738#298738
The AIP isn’t even the ultimate information on which min altitude one needs to fly and where “ville/agglomérations” sits is given solely by the IGN VFR chart (who has this one when flying?)
