No flight plan either 
It is a system which most of mainland Europe finds weird but it works well and works together with UK’s dodgy weather, UK’s IMC Rating (which without the extensive Class A would otherwise be a de facto IR, with all the huge political complications of “devaluing the IR”), the lack of funding for GA services (except where required by ICAO i.e. FIS, or desirable to keep a lid on CAS busts e.g. the funding of Farnborough Radar), and the often substandard PPL training. However I think the last bit is fairly common in a lot of other places… The IMC Rating has an excellent safety record, but is disliked by some outside the UK who are used to a more taxpayer funded rigorous system.
Back to France, I would expect most IR holders in France (whether French or not) to not be flying below the general FL065 Class E base. Doing so exposes you to the vast number of military restricted prohibited etc etc etc areas which ATC sometimes implicitly clear you through and sometimes not. Flying above that level, on the “airways” shown on the 1M SIA chart, avoids nearly all of this stuff, validates via Eurocontrol, given you a decent radio range, puts you above low level cloud, etc.
… but during the winter, would also put you into icing.
Below FL60, as Guillaume stated, the pilot would have to perform a very good preparation of the flight to anticipate the restricted areas and TMA/CTR on its path. In south east France, you wouldn’t go anywhere if intended to fly 3000ft OCAS only.
What should be considered is the moment for flying. During week ends, lots of the military areas are actually inoperative.
One reason why out of CAS IFR is not very popular in France is the 3000AMSL minimum altitude. It means that flying westwards, your minimum altitude is 4000ft, and eastward 3000ft. At that altitude you will have to fly through class E airspace (TMA’s). Although it’s generally possible to obtain a clearance to transit under IFR through a TMA, it’s not a common practice. Most people will transit in IMC in a class E airspace without telling anyone, a typical situation being flying with visual references but to close to the clouds. When that happens to me I request an IFR clearance “for separation from the clouds”. I usually obtain it.
Another reason is the military zones constraint. Most of those zones require a clearance to transit VFR, which is in general easy to obtain, and are forbidden to IFR, and when they don’t go to the ground, their floor is generally to low to fly IFR below them. The workaround is to transit VFR if you are far enough from clouds.
All in all it makes it a very busy flight to fly IFR out of CAS in France: you must know your airspace, your safety altitudes, be ready to change your plan at any time (what If I don’t get my clearance etc.) change from IFR to VFR and from VFR to IFR, in addition to checking ice and weather in general. With a thorough preparation it’s doable but not comfortable.
Agree with the answers above that when flying IFR you generally want to get above at least FL50/60 for most reasons such as fuel efficiency, avoiding bumpier weather at lower altitudes in summer, more time to react in case of engine failure etc.
The main two reasons for IFR flights at lower levels would be (a) icing and (b) lack of fuel efficiency in case of very short flights. And maybe add (c) in the UK whereby London TC generally does not take you into a lot of their airspace below FL70 but the London TMA base is as low as 2,500ft (although two weeks ago I was flying through the LTMA west of Heathrow at 4000ft) .
So on a non-icing/winter day I would be very happy to cruise in France at FL70 or higher which is at or above MEAs. Although flying at 5000ft or lower in France would require a lot more work and planning if you need to take care of terrain and other issues in uncontrolled airspace, there is at least the option to fly IFR (with more planning workload than usual) vs not flying at all. I suspect (contrary to the UK) that the TMA clearances would be generally relatively easy to deal with, especially as the TMA controller is normally also the controller providing FIS in uncontrolled airspace (e.g. Seine APP) and is able to see you on radar anyway. This is based on my limited flying experience in France on a couple of flights whereby Seine Approach cleared me direct through uncontrolled/controlled airspace over a longer distance and I would just weave in and out of controlled airspace, the approach controller was very relaxed about it.
So IFR flights outside CAS and in and out of CAS definitely work in France (as mentioned by various posters above), just filing an IFPS-acceptable flight plan filing seems to be the issue.
Does Italy suffer from the same issue? I saw that the DCT limit is 0nm but seem to recall that Italy also allows IFR in uncontrolled airspace?
Wolfgang
A part of the reason for the problems is that France has implemented a MAX DCT = 10 (at least in some airspaces) to stop people doing hacks to get around it The reason the hacks continue to work is because Eurocontrol doesn’t validate legs specified using coordinates, or the VORrrrddd notation. You just need to keep these below 10nm.
However I don’t think ATC can see your route displayed if you use that notation. We had a thread on this previously but I can’t find it. OTOH someone reported that his ATC unit can see your filed route as just a straight line through his sector, no matter how the route is specified.
There is another thread on e.g. Skydemon filing VFR flight plans using many waypoints in that notation, and making life hard for ATC. An ATCO from Hungary, IIRC.
2-3 years ago, autorouter had proposed to me and I had accepted a route through a military zone.
I’m almost 100% sure that I had not accepted rerouting.
Most military zones are Class G when not active, forbidden to IFR when active. So it’s perfectly legal to cross IFR a military inactive zone.
The military zones can usually be activated without notice.
My plan was to cross the military zone if not active, and otherwise to follow the airway.
The filed flight plan was through the military zone, I’m 100% sure of that.
I had no warning message from autorouter.
Yet the ATC had not the plan I filed.
I discovered that when I approached the last fix before the military zone and called ATC. They told my my filed flight plan was on the airway until destination. Is it common practice for French ATC to change your filed flight plan without telling you? I don’t know.
But I think that they don’t care at all about what you filed, they just clear you through the most direct route in controlled airspace, and it’s up to you to request to leave controlled airspace, even if it’s what you filed.
In France, i’ve Pretty often seen my flight plan modified without notification, specially for departure from home base.
Exotic route filed with autorouter was not really the taste of MARSEILLE, and would just give a more standard routing inflight. (Both Route and altitude)
Reviving that old thread here to ask, whether something has changed over the years in France? We’re planning to do Frankfurt to south-west France (like Biarritz) IFR next week (proceeding into Spain) and are thinking about options regarding weather. If weather does not allow for flying on top, we would stay below ice, which could be, according to forecast, 0°C around FL60. I’ve read also all the information on www.fliegen-in-frankreich.de
In that case, best option seems to be to file e.g. the route along G21 in FL80 (lowest possible west-bound) and to inform ATC that FL80 is not possible due to ice. We would fly OCAS, and would have to accept high workload due to quite a lot of restricted areas or TMAs on the way.
Any suggestions here? @Boscomantico ? @PetitCessnaVoyageur ?
Just file FL80 and go down when you wish if you get icing, have a look at AIP, NOTAMS for RA and TRA if planning to fly IFR in Golf, for CAS ATC will clear you through as long as you are IFR above 3kft (it’s always better to file higher for things to validate and go lower if you have to during flight, just tell ATC you are happy with uncontrolled IFR and you maybe back again, usually they keep you for 2kft-3kft or hand you over)
G21 is Echo airspace FL55-FL75 depending on segments (maybe reason why you need FL80), you need IFR clearance to fly above FL55 but I think the flight may go OCAS but it should be ok down to MSA,
- for RA OCAS, it’s likely you get though but there are few with “contournement obligatoire VFR/IFR when active”, check ENR5.1
- TMA CAS is easy, they let you drive through IFR as long as you are above 3kft with a radio (except Paris)
Supplementary question…if I have an autorouter generated (I.e. valid) flightplan which takes me along an airway which passes through the Paris TMA restricted area, will this be allowed in practice? Specifically this piece: RINTI B3 VATRI (at FL090)
