In French visual approach charts (VAC), there is usually a section like the following about the opening hours of the aerodrome:
I assume these are explained somewhere in the AIP, but alas I haven’t found any documentation on it.
What exactly is the meaning of the above, and where could I find out by myself?
Zorg wrote:
What exactly is the meaning of the above, and where could I find out by myself?
Forget UTC/Summer/Winter, just add +1 hour to any time entry in the French AIPs and it will be in LT 
The long version is that in the winter the time to consider is indicated time = UTC time, while in summer it is indicated – 1 is UTC time
So if the AIP says open from 6 to 19
in the winter it is from 6 to 19 UTC ==> 7 to 20 local time
in the summer it is from 5 to 18 UTC ==> 7 to 20 local time
Lots of people have been confused by this…
Jfw is correct. Ibra is wrong.
It’a very poor phrasing. What they are trying to achieve is to only indicate ONE set of times (like: “0600-1900”) and still have both summer and winter covered. In other words, local times are the same in summer and winter, but due to the summer/winter time thing, they would have to indicate two sets of UTC times (as is done on other countries’ AIPs) in order to depict that. Of course, the easiest solution would be to indicate local times, but that is not “correct” in the aeronautical sphere…
So, if they indicate say “0600-1900”, then it means 0700-2000 local time, no matter if it’s summer or winter.
P.S. Note that most aerodromes in France don’t publish any opening hours, but merely ATS operating hours, etc.
boscomantico wrote:
Jfw is correct. Ibra is wrong.
Just do 19h+1h = 20h LT it should work for both summer/winter as did jfw wrote 
The +/-1h on AIP summer/winter cancels out with +/-1h from summer/winter saving in UTC/LT
ajfw wrote:
So if the AIP says open from 6 to 19
in the winter it is from 6 to 19 UTC ==> 7 to 20 local time
in the summer it is from 5 to 18 UTC ==> 7 to 20 local time
But yes it makes sense to have just 20h LT as closure time
Does that mean that if no explicit opening hours are mentioned, the aerodrome is “open” (i.e., usable for take-off landing) during day VFR hours (morning civil twilight to evening civil twilight)?
Yes, in France they will say if there are restrictions. The restrictions for night are having lights (and pre notification for PCL in most of the cases) and in my case immigration.
boscomantico wrote:
Jfw is correct. Ibra is wrong.
They’re both correct
Yes indeed
This is bizzare… why not publish UTC times?
