So eventually I figured since we need about 70nm and 38 mins in warm wx to climb to our FL190 cruise altitude, we would be crossing a few ATC boundaries in the climb out of LFAC/LFAT which would be messy with ATC.
Furthermore, we had some tailwind and good, cold wx if up high, not so down low, so we wanted to fly high.
Wind also favoured a more western route, so we chose to stop at LFRS Nantes instead, also showing some support to the suffering local aeroclub.
Handling was easy with Nantes Aeroclub but for a couple of items:
a) You need to PPR the police of your requirement to clear customs or else they may not be ready …specially at lunch time.
b) Fuelling (Air Total card accepted) was difficult amidst all the busy commercial traffic workload. It required a lot of begging not to miss our second delayed slot.
Both can be arranged via the aeroclub.
If not done yet, please express your support to the Aeroclub with this petition
I did obtain a very straightforward EC routing and Jersey ATC was helpful as ever, not least since were already at cruise altitude by the time we got to the FIR boundary, which always helps.
This way we managed to average over 200KTS LFRS to EGPN or exactly 3 hrs for the 603nm including the RNAV approach using the 20KTS tailwind component to help for a change (we seem to always be fighting headwinds)
