denopa wrote:
By the airport agents? So you can’t move a flight plan forward for example if you’re ready earlier?
Moving a flight plan forward is the equivalent of cancelling a flight plan and filing a new flight plan. For filing flight plans, the German AIP would give you required lead times. If you upset the officers (depart over the heads as they arrive), this would be used against you.
I am with Aviathor here — Peter was obliged to present himself until either checked or EOBT. I still don’t understand why one can’t file the plan so that an early departure is highly unlikely and then just use a series of delays to adjust it?
Loss of internet connectivity perhaps?
The police had 1.5hrs to turn up but they waited till eobt minus 10 mins or so. I do understand the strict point about waiting till EOBT if police processing is required for the flight (first time I have heard of it in 16-17 years of flying around Europe!) but I think most normal people would see what happened at Avignon as a really blatent abuse of power / the police making some point. BTW I would just as happily criticise British police if they did something like this, but they tend to be far more polite.
Also, especially in France, it is extremely common for them to not turn up at all, so pilots just hang around until it is “obvious” they won’t turn up, and then depart in accordance with the normal margins.
I can assure you that I would never dare to leave the apron even one minute before EOBT on a German airfield if I am subject to an immigration and/or custom check and it is a random one. Neither would anybody else I know.
Peter wrote:
Loss of internet connectivity perhaps?
Haven’t had that issue in the last five years, not in Europe, not in Africa. Also at least with autorouter, you can use SMS for delay as a fallback. You can also call AIS.
172driver wrote:
lionel wrote: two police forces, one is called “Police Nationale” and the other “Gendarmerie Nationale”.Not entirely correct. The ‘Gendarmerie Nationale’ is technically part of the military, they are *not * police.
It is entirely correct. See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/police%20force for the definition of “police force”. The Gendarmerie fits in that definition. Also in French (see http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/police/62149, emphasis mine):
ensemble des forces du maintien de l’ordre
Not “one of the order-maintaining forces, while there are others”, but “all of them”.
Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcement_in_France
There are two national police forces called “Police nationale” and “Gendarmerie nationale”.
And https://www.senat.fr/rap/r07-271/r07-27129.html
L’existence dans notre pays de deux forces de police, l’une à statut civil, l’autre à statut militaire (…)
And http://www.eurogendfor.org/francais/organisation/les-forces-participantes/membres
Le statut de Membre peut être obtenu par tout pays de l’Union Européenne possédant une force de police à statut militaire (…)
And the French gendarmerie is a member of that.
I’m with Peter here. If an inspection of him and his plane where all that important to the police, they could have turned up earlier than at the last possible moment. This really is a pointless show of force.
Really amazing.
The rules are clear:
Certain members of customs and/or police have the duty to check you on departure, depending on the departure and destination of flight.
The flightplan and/or prior notice to above mentioned institutions provides a EOBT until which the check can be carried out.
You are required to wait until that time. EOBT is just what it says written out: off block. Not in the air or on the taxiway ;-)
Many of us are flouting one or the other rule occasionally. No problem, but if you brought yourself in a difficult situation by doing so, just live with it and the consequences.
Why the whinging, why blaming the guys who might get in trouble not doing their duty?
Maybe they were late, whatever… leaving before EOBT was the root-cause – everything else is decorative stuff around it. ATC is also not responsible for these checks…
denopa wrote:
By the airport agents? So you can’t move a flight plan forward for example if you’re ready earlier?
Not if police or customs have been notified and have the right to attend. In a number of places like EDMV there is now 24 hour notice so once I had to end up going to Luxembourg to leave earlier.
ch.ess wrote:
The rules are clear:
The rules are anything but clear – that’s the problem. Much has been made in this thread of the need to remain available until EOBT – but I think nobody has pointed to any regulation requiring this.
It seems to me that two different systems are being muddled up. The police/immigration officers/ customs agents etc do not depend on flight plans for being notified about a flight that is subject to their control/ inspection. They require specific notice to be given directly to them, usually by fax/email. That notice gives them the time of departure, not the EOBT, which is purely for ATC flight management. I normally provide a departure time to them 30 minutes before my EOBT, in case I’m ready before and ATC are happy for me to depart. It hasn’t caused anyone any problems yet (but then I’ve not departed from Avignon…) And if they did object, I’d be able to point out that I have specifically advised them I would be departing earlier. That said, I would not depart earlier than the advised time, even if it looked as though they weren’t turning up.
This topic is not trivial because the departure time (and the arrival time for that matter) which you email to the handler or the airport for PPR/PNR purposes is generally approximate only.
And that is quite normal. Plans change, and almost nobody re-emails the handler or the airport. You file the flight plan and assume all interested parties see it. You also assume the “airport” has some contact with the police; this is obviously necessary because the arrival time can easily be plus or minus 1hr, due to winds etc.
So the police must be “plugged” into the system in some other way. They prob99 monitor flight plans – same as just about every person who “owns a desk” at every airport (outside the UK) has a screen showing the flight plans. Even a small GA airfield has these screens. Or they have an agreement with ATC to be notified of actual movements (not the case in the UK).
In the UK, at GA airfields, it is different and these screens are rare, being normally confined to the tower only, often not even there, but flight plans are visible to anybody involved in “national security”. I had an interesting conversation about this but won’t post it here because it is off topic.
Chess – see my post #42. The police were IMHO probably acting correctly, but it was an abuse of their position. Maybe they were playing pokemon and forgot…
Peter wrote:
And that is quite normal. Plans change, and almost nobody re-emails the handler or the airport. You file the flight plan and assume all interested parties see it.
At these German airports they usually make it very clear when youcontact them that you need to tell them the specific time you want to leave. It has nothing to do with the flightplan per se. They usually send a specific form to notify police and/or customs.
