AIUI
In both aviation and marine, the radio may be operated by a non qualified person if using the correct terminology and user the supervision and presence of a suitably qualified person.
(Don’t have access to the hard evidence)
Re-capping from above, are we definitely saying that an English speaking PPL cannot use French phraseology and visit a French RT only airfield?
I need to know as this will be an issue for me in a couple of weeks.
are we definitely saying that an English speaking PPL cannot use French phraseology and visit a French RT only airfield?
If you are going to an FR-only airfield you need to be sufficiently fluent in French to communicate with other aircraft in French. I’d you go to a DE-only airfield in Germany, you need to be sufficiently fluent in German.
GA_Pete wrote:
are we definitely saying that an English speaking PPL cannot use French phraseology and visit a French RT only airfield?
Absolutely not. During the week small airfields are often deserted. At weekends you need enough French to understand position reports and runway in use, and be able to communicate same. Parachuting is popular, but SIV(FIS) will usually warn you about it.
Simon
We have had this French radiotelephony guide under Articles for years, very helpfully produced by Jojo here I believe.
This sort of guide is obviously for those who cannot speak any significant French, so presumably it is thought (or was thought at the time) that flying to an FR-only airfield without being a French speaker in any normal sense was legal.
Whether it is wise (from the POV of you not then understanding if anyone talks back to you, or the whole legality of it) is another debate and I think it’s been pretty well done earlier in this and other threads. What Aviathor is saying above is that it is illegal to use such a guide while not being a French speaker.
As I have written before, many if not most of Fr seulement fields are non towered non AFIS fields. Much of the time there is no one to speak to.In the past, many of these airfields did not require any radio.Over recent years that has been changing and some now also carry the message radio mandatory on the VAC. Why? I do not know but I imagine it is believed by the powers understandbe, to be safer. The radio messages you need to use are in reality blind position calling, although on the VAC it is sometimes marked as A/A. People do talk A/A especially if there are gliders around or someone might ask an aircraft to repeat its position. An English accent normally stands out at these fields and if there are any other aircraft in the circuit they will try to make allowances. You probably will not understand everything that is going on at any such airfield, anywhere in the world whatever language, there are usually some people with bad radios, poor radio technique, or strong unintelligible to you accents. France is no different, the answer is, at fr.seulement airfields is to make blind calls of your position at the usual times, in the usual phraseology, but using the French language and then keep a good look out as you would do at a non radio field.
Bordeaux Jim has I believe written that it is not necessary to have FLP and I consider him to be an expert in the ins and outs of language proficiency.
The airfields I have written about here are those that have a frequency of 123, 5. I have been taken to task on this forum for not giving the legal text behind the impression I gave some people that I was saying that 123, 5 is French only. I must take care how I write things in future if I do not wish to spend a huge amount of time ploughing through pages of legal text. So for Aviathor, what I meant to say was that because 123, 5 tends to be used at small club managed airfields which are marked fr.only it seems obvious to me that most chatter on this frequency will be in French.As the majority of those same pilots might not speak any English if you go onto that channel speaking in English, you are likely to get the reply ‘repetez s’ il vous plait, at the very least. On the other hand it could turn into an episode of ‘Allo Allo’ in reference to an old British tv series which the older inscribers to this site may understand.
Other airfields which become fr.only when the ATS goes home or is at lunch can be handled in a similar manner. Where the fr.only becomes more difficult is when there is AFIS in fr.only and no mention of English spoken on request. In this case I can only suggest contact someone to find out how strict that is, otherwise your French will need to of a good enough standard to understand what he is saying to you, obviously.
Here is the legal text (although consolidated by DGAC with disclaimer) and phraseology guide in French/English.
First the facts.
Fact 1 – French regulations say:
Dans les espaces aériens exploités par l’administration française, les langues utilisées sont :
* La langue française ;
* La langue anglaise, sauf indication contraire publiée par la voie de l’information aéronautique
So you may use English, except when it is explicitly mentioned you cannot. In other words, if you want to abide by the law, it is not because there is nobody around on a weekday that you can do whatever you want. In the same veine, it is not because nobody is looking that it is OK to steal a banana.
Fact 2 – FCL.055 does not require you to have French LP if you have English LP. In other words, if you have a “foreign” license w/o FLP, you can still use French R/T
Now, where it get more blurry is how well you need to speak French in order to do so
So legally, it is up to each and everyone to judge whether they speak French well enough. I think there are other aspects that may be taken into consideration, like how busy the airfield may be. as has been pointed out, many of those fields are quite sleepy, including towered/AFIS airfields outside of ATS hours.
[ local copy ]
Aviathor, is that the same legal text that goes on to say that other languages can also be used if it is deemed to be expedient as a matter of safety?
I assume that to mean, for example, a French AFIS or ATC in say the Strasbourg area who possibly speaks German as well as he/she does French can communicate with a German pilot in German if they feel it adds to security.
Peter wrote:
To fly to an FR-only airport, does the PIC have to be French speaking, or is it allowed to have a French speaking passenger? If the latter, does the passenger need to have a PPL?
I found the answer in the FR regulations I quoted earlier:
2.3. Utilisation d’un interprète
Si le contrôleur et le pilote ne peuvent pas utiliser une même langue, l’exploitant d’aéronef peut être autorisé à faire appel aux services d’un interprète. Celui-ci doit être qualifié pour utiliser la radiotéléphonie et doit connaître les expressions conventionnelles et usuelles.
The interpreter must be qualified to use R/T and must be familiar with conventional and commonplace expressions.
Although I do not have any reference, I would assume that the same applies in other countries as well since some kind of R/T license is required, although it is now often part a of pilot’s license instead of being a separate license.
Aviathor wrote:
l’exploitant d’aéronef peut être autorisé à faire appel aux services d’un interprète.
Just for people that don’t speak French and getting ideas, this says “the operator can be authorised to use an interpreter”. Which, to me, sounds like the French CAA (DGAC) is legally allowed to authorise it, but it is not “anybody can take any interpreter and then it is legal”. Maybe the DGAC did issue a general authorisation for all of GA under a specific set of conditions, but that does not come out of the quoted text.
The interpreter need not be a pilot.
If you have a French-speaking pilot (such as yours truly) in the RHS anyway, just transfer to him PIC responsibilities when approaching the airfield :)
If you have a French-speaking pilot (such as yours truly) in the RHS anyway, just transfer to him PIC responsibilities when approaching the airfield :)
That, however, opens up the possibility of an action if the RHS is not legally capable of being PIC (which could be not on the insurance).
Obviously the chances of a problem are very remote; it depends on whether something goes wrong and you draw attention…
