I am now planning a flight to Caen, routing southwest from the Isle of Wight to ORIST and then the Cherbourg peninsula, avoiding the NOTAM’d parachuting etc at Cherbourg airport. I hear that people flying north to south usually speak to (non-radar) London Information and then change to a French (radar) FIS service (e.g. Brest Info), but I’d much rather have a radar service over water on the English side before switching over to French (radar) FIS.
How do I get a radar service on the English side on such a route (or is London Info in fact a radar service across the channel – I know it’s not elsewhere.)
Is there a Military radar that I can talk to?
Help please.
Thanks
Howard
London INFO is not a radar service, but you can use LARS (lower airspace radar service). A coverage map is in UK AIP ENR 6.1.6.3 – here is the current version:
Alternatively, if flying IFR, London CONTROL is your friend in CAS. The right phraseology to use is “Request joining controlled airspace”.
Thanks. I know about LARs and use it a lot in mainland UK. I didn’t think to look to see if it extended over the channel. Plymouth Military will be perfect for my planned flight.
What do people do in the gaps – where there is no LARS coverage across the channel and they are flying VFR?
H
Quite difficult under VFR, since with the demise of Manston even doing the short crossing via Dover/Lydd is now non-radar.
The problem is solved if you go IFR – but I suspect that wasn’t your question.
Thanks Peter_G for confirming what I thought.
I do have an IMCR / IR(R) so I guess, following the advice of Ultranomad above I could fly IFR in VMC and call London Control. I wonder if they would talk to me if I had filed a VFR flight plan.
No they would not.
London Control will handle you only if you have an IFR flight plan files in the Eurocontrol system AND it has been filed for a “decisive” IFR level which places the flight into CAS (Class A) which is likely to be FL080 or above. In practical terms London Control is not relevant unless you have the full IR.
But that’s not the issue here.
Here, flying VFR, you just get around to calling up London Information as you leave UK airspace, and they should hand you over to the French FIS (Brest Info, maybe) and that’s just it.
Forget a radar service from the UK end. Much of the time you can’t get one anyway, over land…
The French will have you on radar (they have a very uniform radar cover) but it’s not really relevant. You just fly…
Then you call up Caen Approach, or maybe Caen Tower directly.
Actually you could just leave the UK and fly across the Channel and call up Caen, and forget London Info, but for some reason that isn’t “the protocol”. It works fine for Shoreham to Le Touquet though, and has been, ahem, tested many times 
I think we had a thread here debating what is the point in talking to an FIS unit when crossing borders. I don’t know if there is any. They teach you that in the PPL but what is the point?
Hi Howard,
(My first post!)…
Not sure if this is useful, but last October on my first solo x-channel crossing I flew from Lee on Solent to Cherbourg. This was VFR on a weekday and I used Plymouth Military LARS. It was super easy as there was very little traffic on frequency.
More importantly, the radar service continued all the way across the channel… so I was in radio contact the whole time. I was flying around FL60 I think. When I reached the French FIR then Plymouth asked me to freecall either Brest Information or Deauville. It took a couple of minutes to find a gap in the chatter to speak to Brest – in hindsight should have gone straight to Deauville. But I was essentially in radio contact with someone the whole way across the channel.
I suppose though this is only useful on weekdays with the LARS is active, but might be of help anyway.
Cheers,
Dave
Thanks everyone. I think we need to lobby for better radar coverage in the UK and satellite weather data too like they have in the US. Hurrmph!
Dave I’ll try what you suggest, except that it looks like the weather is going to scupper the flight I had planned for Thursday. Useful info nevertheless and thank you.
H
Depending on the route, I would just stay with Solent/Bournemouth.
You won’t get a radar service with London Information, obviously, but they will give you a squawk nonetheless, so “someone” will see you on their radar screen if something bad happens, if this makes you feel more comfortable.
Unless you are IFR there is no other option but I really wouldn’t worry about it too much, just file and get going, you will be talking to Caen before you know it.
