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France VFR charts -again

Piper Archer,

You can see all the P,R,D zones on a half mill chart, but there is no information about their activity, whom to contact to know whether they are active or not, or even to request a clearance to enter them, or what kind of restriction or danger you face. They want you to buy the mill chart as well, so they split the information.

SE France

They want you to buy the mill chart as well, so they split the information.

Isn't the 1M SIA chart published by the French Govt while the IGN chart published by somebody else?

Or is there some unwritten "opinion" in the French CAA (the DGAC) that everybody should have both types of chart?

Do French pilots who fly just locally ever buy the SIA chart? There doesn't seem to be any point in it for purely VFR flight in the local area, if you know the right phone numbers and can speak French.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

SIA and IGN are both state agency. SIA is DGAC (CAA) whereas IGN is the national geographical agency in charge of the maps. Million charts are published by the SIA. half million are published by the SIA AND the IGN. The IGN actually publishes the charts are provides the background. The SIA provides all aeronautical information.

Unless you only fly your pattern, you need the million chart because you need to know which number or frequency to call to request a clearance and to know the activity of the zones. Only the military highspeed corridors have an answering machine with a phone number to give you their activity the day before. Although it happens that they finaly are inactive whereas the answering machine said they would be active. The booklet sold with the million chart and the half million would be fine with all needed information, but the booklet is not sold without the million chart. Pilots who fly airways also need the million chart since the half million has no information about them.

SE France

Back from my Belgium/Northern France trip, it is still difficult to give any guidance on which VFR charts are "best". This is mainly because charts are a very personal thing.

On a more general note (i.e. does not onlxy apply to France) a VFR pilot who is doing a lot of travelling in Europe has to make a decision nowadays: paper charts or ipad charts.

Re "ipad charts": This is the obvious "modern" choice. Nowadays, it just doesn't make sense to buy a load of VFR charts for various countries each year. Going completely "ipad" is real tempting.

In order to do this, there are now basically two choices. 1. Skydemom, and 2. The new Jeppesen VFR-Software. Re Skydemon, I have just used their 30 day trial offer and really came to like some aspects of it. You get charts for all of Europe, always up to date, all in one package. I really like the ability to define the "layout style" to match your preferences (I set it to "german ICAO standard", which is what I am most used to). Also, you can define maximum altitudes for displaying (or hiding) airspace information. If you are comitting to a "low level VFR flight", just set maximum altitude to, say, 4000 feet. That will declutter the map very nicely (even the french and belgian ones!). Re the new Jepp software, we still have to wait and see a little. As opposed to Skydemon, you can - of course - only have the Jepp layout. I played a bit with it at Aero, and found the integration of their VFR half mill charts with their VFR approach charts was indeed a neat idea. They will have to add more countries now, but generally, the software looks like it's well done.

So, back to the paper vs. ipad question...it is still not easy to decide. Whilst I do like the ipad and its capabilities, I am also a big fan of paper charts. There simply are still things you can do with a paper chart that don't work on the ipad. A paper chart you can spread out on the table and really get "the big picture" in the planning phase of any flight. So much easier to get an overall understanding of routings and distances, etc. OTOH, getting paper VFR charts - even for only half of Europe - will cost more than a subscription of Skydemon...

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Hi there you wrote "..IGN, SOME CALL IT .. ICAO-charts" the 1:500'000 charts ARE the ICAO chart. ICAO is the only and single official source. You want to fly in eastern region. But didn't mention where. The french Eastern boarder covers more then a half of continent and crosses at least 3 completely different meterologic zones. From about Maastricht /Strassbourg on down direction sout there is the Alsace, a mountainous region. Furter down southward is the Jura, from Basel to Geneva. Attention: crossing boarders needs a vfr flightplan! Don't do it accidentally. Beyound geneva then begins the french or western alps with montains up to 15'000 ft and winds often up to 65 kts. I know the aerea very well . It is a bad idea to do VFR in the Alps , the Jura or the Alsace. The conditions for light aircraft are fundamental different then in the plateau.

Correction: It is a bad idea to go vfr with only 1:1'000'000 or "sectional" charts. And without meteo consultation. Please respect METAR / TAF and our system called GAFOR. In the Alps it is strongly recommended to file vfr flight plans due to higher risks

Sorry, but still one remark: When I was crossing the alps, I was often detecting GPS Failures or missplaced positions up to 1 NM! This is due to few sigth to satellites wenn you fly down a valley at say 12'000 ft witch climps left and rhigt up to 14'000. Then you have plainty of signal reflections that erreonouses your GPS. I flew with Garmin 550, Garmin96C and built in King. All 3 have been wrong the same time. So: visual orientation!!!!

When I was crossing the alps, I was often detecting GPS Failures or missplaced positions up to 1 NM! This is due to few sigth to satellites wenn you fly down a valley at say 12'000 ft witch climps left and rhigt up to 14'000. Then you have plainty of signal reflections that erreonouses your GPS

I can believe that, but presumably when doing that sort of flying, you should

  • be in VMC, and
  • know the area well

I have crossed the Alps many times but always well above the terrain; usually FL160-190. There was just 1 exception, when I flew with an experienced local pilot, Wangen-Lachen to Sion. Very scenic!

It is a bad idea to do VFR in the Alps

I would not agree with that statement as written. You just need to pick a day with decent weather and low winds.

The winds should be evident from the MSLP charts.

I have done a number of Alps crossings VFR, before I got the IR in 2006. The biggest problem by far with those were ATC restrictions, with the classic one being Swiss ATC not allowing VFR in their Class C, whose base is FL130, so you are flying only ~1000ft above some of the terrain. It is very scenic indeed

but you really must have as little wind as possible and I would say below 10kt. And obviously no cloud cover.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Swiss ATC not allowing VFR in their Class C

I never had that problem, they always let me fly as high as I wanted - but my ceiling is ~F150

The bigger problem was that on the italian side they wanted you to loose ~10000ft within a few miles; but that seems to have gotten better too lately.

LSZK, Switzerland

Sounds like that policy has changed, which is good. It was completely stupid to keep traffic down to FL129 when there was so obviously nothing in the 15000+ feet of airspace above.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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