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France: straight-in IFR joins prohibited (a VFR circuit is mandatory?) if tower is unmanned

Ok Guillaume. I agree with you.
At least two people in the world know the rules now (those rules don’t seem to be widely known, even in France)
Are there other countries with detailed regulations on how to join VFR and IFR at uncontrolled airfields?

Picking up this old thread, this thread is relevant and there is no clear consensus on how low one can fly that “VFR pattern”.

Also relevant is this and this (although the latter refers to “circling minima” for which there is no support in the regs).

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The “circling minima in the absence of AFIS” appears on plates (e.g. LFQB which might be the GA airport Guillaume sometimes services remotely.

It’s not clear if you can ignore that part if you get a local QNH…

EGTF, LFTF

That‘s for a classic circling though, i.e. for when you circle in order to land on a runway other than the one the instrument approach leads to.

Here, the topic was the visual maneuvre which is required by french regulation after instrument approaches at airfields without an active ATS (in order to visually check runway condition etc). For that, you must first fly overhead the airfield. And this overhead maneuvre must be flown at an altitude above the published circuit altitude.

In other words: an instrument approach at an airfield without active ATS becomes essentially nothing more than a basic cloud break procedure.

Last Edited by boscomantico at 23 Jul 07:47
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Denopa, that is well spotted. Does “Absence ATS” refer to the regulation which is the subject of this thread? I checked e.g. Laval LFOV, as another known case of an occassionally unmanned tower, and that has the same

Otherwise, I would have said that I don’t think this regulation is implying the standard Circle to Land as defined in the IFR world, with specified minima. If it meant that, it would have said exactly that.

I think the requirement of this regulation would be met with a “low level circuit”. Then, this thread was a discussion of how low that could be.

How is this regulation enforced in the case of a deserted aerodrome?

Perhaps @Guillaume knows more specific info.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

boscomantico wrote:

Here, the topic was the visual maneuvre which is required by french regulation after instrument approaches at airfields without an active ATS (in order to visually check runway condition etc). For that, you must first fly overhead the airfield. And this overhead maneuvre must be flown at an altitude above the published circuit altitude.

Where do you find that regulation? The only mention of this I can find in AIP-France is “The approaches procedures are compulsorily followed with a circling for which minima are possibly increased and published.”

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

The expression used in French, “manœuvre à vue libre” (or MVL), is the same as is used for “circling”, which to me suggests that the regulation really considers that the two are the same. Let’s say one is a 180° circling and the other a 360° circling :)

I find the regulation, either inconsistent, or at least not worded in the best way possible. One the one hand, the paragraph about “parameters” (5.1.2.2) says you must do a circling unconditionally to examine the aerodrome (signals area, wind sock, surface state), but on the other hand the paragraph about integrating into the aerodrome circulation (5.1.3.3) says you must do a circling if possible, considering the meteorological situation, thereby leaving the possibility open of an approach done below the minima for a circling. Either that is plainly inconsistent, or it leaves you open the possibility of ascertaining the state of the surface and wind direction otherwise (e.g. by phone and/or an automatic STAP) and then do a straight-in approach (including below circling minima).

The URL given in 2015 by Guillaume for the regulation is not valid any more. https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000359157 should be more permanent. local copy

I also note that these rules are not integrated in the complete SERA document of the DGAC, which is supposed to put in a single coherent document the SERA hard law, the EASA AMC/GM on SERA and the French variants, add-ons and implementation details of these. Instead the whole regulation is linked to separately on the air law in France (SERA and RCA3)​ page. The general presentation of this page basically says that SERA says what pilots should do, and RCA3 says what ANSPs should do. Which, in my opinion, makes it very unfortunate that other rules for pilots are hidden away into another link to another older regulation, that one can wonder whether parts of it have been, or have not been, superseded by SERA.

Last Edited by lionel at 23 Jul 08:42
ELLX

Thanks for the analysis.

Interesting… I made a local copy and dropped it in.

FWIW, I spoke to a French pilot who advises me that this reg is not enforced unless somebody complains, and usually the complaint would be from somebody in the circuit, when you land straight-in from an IAP.

it leaves you open the possibility of ascertaining the state of the surface and wind direction otherwise (e.g. by phone and/or an automatic STAP) and then do a straight-in approach (including below circling minima).

Indeed; also in some situations it can be blindingly obvious that there cannot be any other traffic (e.g. cloudbase too low over the runway itself but not in the area of the approach path, info from other ATS unit(s), etc).

Someone mentioned above that Germany has the same regulation…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The 2 circle to land minima shown above could be slightly different because the annotation (1) may give further information. Eg in example 1 column 3 shows what to do in the event of there being no station from which to obtain the qnh. Column 2 might be the circling minima for absence of ATS when you have the field qnh.
Example 2 clearly shows the minima without ATS.
If we are talking about landing on an Airfield in France in the absence of ATS, the rule is you descend on the IAP to the circling to land minima (quoted on the plate) or above, you then carry out a visual circle to land on the reciprocal runway. If the reciprocal runway is not the runway in use, ie it is the one which would normally result in a straight in landing following the IAP, one recommended method would be to descend on the IAP to circling minima or above fly up the runway centre line at that minima followed by a circle to land on the runway in use.Circling to land is not the same as a vfr circuit, however one must retain visual references at all times. If visual reference is lost you must immediately initiate a missed approach procedure by first flying overhead the runway.

France

We can like it or not, but the regulator in France wants pilots to first assess the aerodrome from the overhead (VFR or IFR), when there is noone there (TWR or AFIS) to do that for you. I am not saying this is without alternatives (see the US for example), but it makes SOME sense, and is reasonable. SERA does not go into all that detail on how we should approach airfields.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany
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