Le Touquet LFAT under threat (but they have new ILS approaches)

There is already two marinas one east at Etaples and one at west LeTouquet, I don’t think there is much success there as I think it is hard to compete with sea front marinas

There is already two marinas one east at Etaples and one at west LeTouquet, I don’t think there is much success there as I think it is hard to compete with sea front marinas

Those are not marinas. They are just places to ‘tie up a boat in the river’ ;-)
When I say marina, I’m taking secure location, pontoons for craft upto 60ft, Fuel berth, Bars, restaurants, clubhouse, supplies shop etc. :-)
Anyhoo, the success of such a venture is beyond my skill set to calculate. I just was being selfish ;-)
Yes Peter Calais is a dump in comparison.
I have made full use of all that L2K has to offer over many visits and hopefully will continue to do so.
However if I ever need to clear customs/immigration into France in changing WX (I’m vfr only atm) Calais is Cheap, Close/convenient, quick and friendly.
I always keep them in mind as it has worked so well for me on a number of occasions. :-)

Peter wrote:

Problem is that Calais is a dump of a town, whereas Le Touquet is really nice.

This is not fair. Calais and Dunkirk suffered tremendously during the war and were largely destroyed – no wonder they aren’t as pretty. The people are great and businesses in town deserve support.

JasonC wrote:

The people are great and businesses in town deserve support.

I always had this in mind when I am alone as only interested in flying, Calais/Cherbourg seems to have a lot of goodwill that deserves lot of support, obviously, when flying with someone who wants to do “tourism” it tends to be LeTouquet or Deauville

Peter wrote

One thing which always surprised me about these “huge” airports in the north of France (Le Touquet, Cherbourg, Caen, etc) is how negligible the French traffic there is. They all have aeroclubs but they are deserted. They really do rely so much on Brits.

Flying around Europe one gets interesting insights into the relative vibrancy of the economies of the various countries. France vs UK vs Switzerland always fascinates me.

France has the best infrastructure for GA – airports everywhere, with very low fees, many of them the beneficiaries of huge amounts of public money in the name of various futile job creation schemes, but woefully little GA traffic. UK has lots of airfields, but as us UK residents know all too well, very high costs in many cases and under threat all the time from home builders and private owners maximising revenue at the cost of traffic numbers. Switzerland also has lots of airfields in a tiny country, but many managed by clubs and very GA friendly. UK and Switzerland have noticeably much, much busier GA airspace – a testament to much more dynamic and entrepreneurial economies in my view.

This AIP SUP says that LT NDB will be removed, so new ILS procedures are drawn to anticipate this change.

So not so much an improvement Airplanes will have to be RNAV equipped (I don’t knowluch about this).