Following Peter’s request for more VFR content on EuroGA, here’s a 100% pure VFR holiday trip report! No complicated IR procedures, no stratospheric flying, no built-in oxygen system, and no saturated fat, guaranteed or your money back!
This write-up reports a one-week holiday with my club’s TB10, which led us from Berre-la-Fare (LFNR) up to Nantes Atlantiques (LFRS) with several stops on the way and back.
The plane is a 2004 TB10 GT, one of the very last manufactured before production stopped. It has decent VFR equipment, i.e. GNS430, 2 VORs, 2 COMs, 1 ADF and night VFR capability. The crew was composed of myself (EASA PPL holder + NVFR ~200hrs, no IR), a close friend (same qualifications) and my partner.
We had booked the plane from Aug 4th to Aug 10th, with the objective to reach the Atlantic coast and visit some friends up in Vendée (just south of Brittany). We had identified various locations for night stopovers at close friends’ or relatives, who’d be happy to welcome us at short notice should the weather alter our plans. We’d rather spend money on flying than sleeping, so hotels were to be avoided as much as possible.
With 3 passengers and their luggage for a week, I could not carry more than 140l of fuel, which gave us a comfortable endurance of 3hours + 30min reserve. For both performance and passenger comfort reasons, legs were performed as much as possible at FL065 or FL075, where the TB10 reaches 115kt TAS at 2400 rpm / 23 in Hg for a reasonable 40l/h.
The final routing was LFNR (Berre-la-Fare) – LFCL (Toulouse) – LFBP (Pau) – LFBZ (Biarritz) – LFBP (Pau) – LFCY (Royan) – LFRS (Nantes) – LFLW (Aurillac) – LFNR (Berre-la-Fare).
04/08/15 : LFNR (Berre-La-Fare) – LFCL (Toulouse Lasbordes)
Due to fuel pump failure at LFNR, we made a quick stop at Montpellier Candillargues (LFNG – Total station available) to refuel on our way to Toulouse:
Right-hand base at Toulouse Lasbordes:
The local club offered hangarage for the night:
The next morning we made a local flight around Toulouse, flying overhead Toulouse Blagnac LFBO, to the south of the city and back:
Airbus factory at Toulouse Blagnac LFBO:
05/08/15 afternoon: Toulouse Lasbordes LFCL – Pau Pyrénées LFBP
We left Toulouse under burning sun in the early afternoon. ATC requested we followed the southern VFR transit as published at 2000ft maximum, and Toulouse had disappeared in the haze for a while when we were finally cleared to FL065. The approach at Pau requires a particular focus on Lasclaveries airfield, a restricted parachuting area which is just at the edge of the CTR.
Final RWY 31 at Pau LFBP:
The GA apron at Pau LFBP was nearly empty, and the landing fees sensible: 20eur for 1 landing + 24h parking. The staff was very nice and helpful. We had filed a PPR stating we did not need any handling, so we walked the 50 meters from the plane to the gate. Avgas is available with BP card.
Our neighbor was an Antonov carrying military equipment for the local base:
06/08/15 : Pau LFBP – Biarritz LFBZ – Pau LFBP
We left Pau for a 1h45 trip to Biarritz and back in the early afternoon. My plan was to make a quick touch and go at Biarritz LFBZ and fly back.
Take-off at Pau airport:
Biarritz was very busy so we dropped the touch and go and flew above the airport following the VFR transit, which provides a great sight of the city and the coast:
Biarritz and Anglet. As often in summer it was fairly hazy:
Back at the apron in Pau, I experienced my first ramp check ever! The officer checked every single piece of paper on the plane (licence, medical certificate, logbook, noise abatement certificate, weight and balance sheet, insurance, registration…) and, more surprisingly, lectured me about “flight sharing” sites which (see associated thread here), are at the edge of legality and can be considered as commercial transport. To check that it was not the case, he questioned every passenger separately, asking for their relationship to me!
Tourist bonus- Pau castle. The lighting does not render it justice.
07/08/15 : Pau (LFBP) – Nantes (LFRS) via Royan (LFCY)
This is where things got really interesting flying-wise. We had planned to leave Pau on Saturday 8th to L’Ile d’Yeu LFEY. Yet the forecast was very poor starting Friday evening, with serious CBs growing up above the Pyrenees. So we left Pau on Friday afternoon. From l’Ile d’Yeu to our friends’, we would have had to take a shuttle boat to the coast, but all seats were already booked. So we decided to head for Nantes LFRS instead, where another good friend could provide accommodation. We planned a fuel stop half-way in Royan.
The military areas of Mont-de-Marsan and Bordeaux were inactive and we could fly direct from Pau to Biscarosse (just flew overhead), then we followed the Atlantic coast at 1000ft up to Royan Medis.
Atlantic coast at Biscarosse:
Dune du Pyla:
Incredibly straight coastline:
Royan LFCY is a nice airfield with plenty of parachuting activity, a TOTAL 100LL dispenser and an AFIS. I still have not received the invoice:
Royan locals:
The next highlight on the way to Nantes was the Fort Boyard (An old fort where a very famous TV show is shot every year). ATC advised us of a low-passing Marine patrol “Atlantique 2”, which we crossed just above Fort Boyard:
Ryanair departing La Rochelle:
Nantes Atlantique (LFRS) was endly in sight! We joined the downwind branch at 1200ft, had to wait for a couple of minutes to avoid any wake turbulence from the A320 preceding us, and were finally cleared to land! The runway features a large bump, which is quite surprising the first time.
« F-IK, first on the left and contact ground ». We were finally in Nantes! It is a big airport but very GA-friendly: the local club manages the handling for free; a Shell fuel truck comes upon request. Our neighbour was a N-registered SR22.
Serious commercial traffic here:
Nantes castle:
09/08 et 10/08 : Tourism in Vendée
After 4 days of fairly intense flying, we decided to have some good time with friends in Nantes and visit the « Vendée » area (a first for us).
Road to “Ile de Noirmoutier”, liable to flooding:
Beach in Notre-dame-de-Mont, Vendée:
Windsurf session:
10/08/15 : Nantes LFRS – Berre La Fare LFNR via Aurillac LFLW
For our last day of vacation, the weather was great in Nantes upon departure in Nantes. Some thunderstorms were still active in the morning in the area of Marseille, but should vanish in the afternoon. Since our endurance (plan and crew – it do not like to pee in bottles) would not be sufficient for a direct flight Nantes to La fare, we opted for a stop in Aurillac, where we could check the latest forecast and have a break.
After take-off at Nantes, ATC cleared us through Cognac military area providing we climbed to FL095. At MTOW, the climb was endless. At FL095 our TAS did not exceed 100kt.
(Next time, can I borrow one your TB20s guys? Preferably a GT with full Garmin suite. Send me a PM, thanks.)
Nantes Atlantique at take-off:
Not much to write home about during the Nantes-Aurillac leg : we flew over the most desertic areas of France.
The approach in Aurillac was very straightforward. Nobody in the circuit, direct to final RWY 15. We paid the landing fee at the tower (3.20€). The airfield restaurant offers high quality local meat for a reasonable price and is definitely worth a visit.
Aurillac:
Ironically, the very last leg to Berre-la-Fare LFNR was the more uncomfortable. Our lack of performance prevented us to climb on top (could base was around FL085) and we stayed below the clouds above mountainous terrain in rather bumpy conditions. The only remarkable item was the “Viaduc de Millau”:
In the end, we had a great 6-day trip, flew 1200 Nm in 13:40, visited plenty of friends and family, and all VFR!
Thanks for reading!
Alboule, very nice write-up. :-)
None of my plans to fly to France this year (both the south and the Nantes area) materialized. Hopefully next year!
Very nice report!
That shot with Fort Boyard and the plane is great.
Re your flight back: yes, on certain summer days, there is just no way to get on top VFR, and these flights are uncomfortable. I see you flew a lot in the afternoons. I tend to fly only in the early mornings in summer (preferably between 8 and 11:30).
Re the ramp check, it’s becoming quite crazy in some places in Europe. Despite the rules having become much more liberal now, some authority seem to think (pretend?) they have become more restrictive…
Again, a very nice trip. Kudos also for remaining strict with the fuel load. I guess that – if using only long runways as you did – the temptation is there to just fill up the tanks and go 50 or 60kgs over MTOW. By the way, you write that the Gendarme wanted to see the “weight and balance sheet”. Did he actually want to the the full calculation for that particular flight, or just the latest aircraft weighing report? Ot both?
Nice report. Thanks for sharing.
I too love the photo of Fort Boyard!
Super report 
I remember that long straight beach; my first ever proper holiday was down there, at a place called Vieux Port, near Biarritz, in 1983. A very scenic bit of France, with palm trees and loads of sand. I was there with a friend and we met two English girls; of course he got the good looking one 
That ramp check sounds worrying but more worrying is the stuff he said. It sounds like there is a mounting alarm inside the DGAC about EASA’s relaxation of the cost sharing regs. The procedure of interviewing passengers separately is an old one, used by the UK CAA in cases where they suspect illegal charter ops. They ask each passenger if/ how much they paid towards the flight. In the past, there were various limitations on the advertising of cost shared flights but they have now gone, so the passengers can be complete strangers to the pilot and between them they can pay 99% of the cost of the flight (I think Annual costs etc cannot be included in that, although if you rented the plane then the passengers can pay 99% of what you paid for renting it). It will be interesting how the DGAC deal with this.
A 2004 TB is definitely one of the last ones made, considering they pretty well stopped production in 2002 and any made thereafter would have been assembled from bits made in 2000-2002, and the “2004” date is just the date written into the ex-factory logbook. I know somebody who got a “2006” one and ended up suing Socata And a TB10 GT is even more rare; very few were made, as you can see here, which was the very end of the TBs. Yours is a very nice one, very valuable…
Hello all,
Thanks for your kind comments.
boscomantico wrote:
I see you flew a lot in the afternoons. I tend to fly only in the early mornings in summer (preferably between 8 and 11:30).I also prefer flying in the morning, but this was a holiday during which we visited friends, so we wanted to enjoy every piece of it, including late aperitives, barbecues etc… Not really compatible with early bird flying, and my passengers weren’t keen on waking up early either!
Did he actually want to the the full calculation for that particular flight, or just the latest aircraft weighing report? Ot both?
He just asked for the weighing report. Btw, the officer was very kind and polite and it all went well. But he did check everything. I think we mentioned in another thread this recent note from the DGAC who “recommend the greatest caution” as far as flight sharing is concerned but do not forbid it formally. They’ve launched a working group with the FFA to review the rules.
Peter wrote:
my first ever proper holiday was down there, at a place called Vieux Port, near Biarritz, in 1983.Wouldn’t that be Vieux-Boucau, rather than Vieux Port? Glad to hear you caught one anyway
And a TB10 GT is even more rare; very few were made, as you can see here
It is something I realized when browsing your website Peter, and in fact it seems we have the very last TB10 produced still in Europe (a few have been exported to Indonesia afterwards according to your list; ours (S/N 2203) being the last still under its original registration). The only other Tobago GT I know of is S/N 2094 (which you can see on the picture at lasbordes LFCL in the background). It kind of annoys me that we’re using this rare specimen for local touring on an unpaved runway as if it were an ordinary Renault Scenic and I should bring this case to the club.
Both “Vieus” seem to exist, same location
That serial number site isn’t of my construction… it was created by an unknown person and ceased to be maintained, and then the server shut down, some years ago. The guy (or girl – I mention the details on the site) doing it had pretty good connections, because of e.g. the accuracy of S/N 2121 (mine) showing even F-OIMD which existed for only one flight, Le Bourget to Biggin Hill (which I was on). My guess is that this info came from inside of Socata.
Very few non-TB20/21 GTs were sold because they were very expensive; the TB10 was only about GBP 30k less than a TB20. The ones to Indonesia AFAIK went to a flying school(s).
Very nice indeed!
Alboule wrote:
lectured me about “flight sharing” sites which (see associated thread here), are at the edge of legality and can be considered as commercial transport. To check that it was not the case, he questioned every passenger separately, asking for their relationship to me!
Good grief.
Alboule wrote:
low-passing Marine patrol “Atlantique 2”, which we crossed just above Fort Boyard
That is a great shot!
Alboule wrote:
Road to “Ile de Noirmoutier”, liable to flooding
Isnt’ that the definition of an understatement? It is covered by the sea twice a day!
Alboule wrote:
Beach in Notre-dame-de-Mont, Vendée
I spent some childhood summers there! Great to see it.
