I am no longer a Channel-crossing virgin. We went to Caen this past Friday and returned Monday. I found the AOPA website, www.peter2000.co.uk, and the Flyer and EuroGA forums immensely helpful for trip planning and execution. Please excuse the spelling and grammar. I wrote this in haste.
I had to wade through endless forum posts and websites to glean information on how to transit the channel. I am going to list more details in this report than most probably want to read. This is to help other pilots that were in the same position I was in prior to my crossing.
About the trip: VFR Departure point: Great Oakley airfield, Essex Destination: Caen, France Plane – G-reg PA28 Archer, 5 hours of fuel Time en route: 2 hours each way, headwinds both out and back.
I sent an email to customs at Caen the night before our departure. The email address is found in the AIP. It read: Préavis douanes Bonjour, Je voudrais faire une notification préalable de notre arrivée: identification de l'aéronef: G-XXXX Type d'aéronef: PA28 Piper Archer L'aérodrome de départ: Great Oakley, UK (ZZZZ) L'aérodrome de destination: Caen Carpiquet date d'arrivée: Vendredi, 23 Août 2013 le temps d'arrivée: 11:30 a.m. (09:30 Z) nombre à bord: deux Le nom du pilote: Nationalité: Numéro de passeport: Adresse: Nom du passager : Nationalité: Numéro de passeport: Numéro de téléphone du pilote:
I received no email reply (nor did I expect one).
The outbound flight was planned using SkyDemon and the route of flight was: Direct RINTI Direct RATUK Direct LFRK (Caen)
I chose to route via airways intersections mainly because I have a Garmin 430 in the panel and it’s fairly easy to load the intersections into the flight plan.
Takeoff from Great Oakley was on 09 and then straight east to avoid the Red Arrows Air Display restriction over Clacton.
Initial contact was with London Information to open the flight plan and get a basic service. We crossed the FIR boundary at RINTI at FL55 and contacted Lille for a Flight Information Service (FIS). We were given a new squawk code and cleared to climb to flight level 75 (we requested this). After turning the corner at RATUK (near Le Touquet), we requested a climb to flight level 85 to comply with the French semi-circular rule. We were told to contact Paris for FIS. Initially the controller puzzled us by informing me that we would be in Paris Class A airspace at FL85. I assumed I had made an error and we descended to FL65. Later he apologized as he hadn’t realized we were routing offshore direct toward Le Havre. He assumed we were headed along the coast I guess. Next was a freq change to Deauville. We requested, and received clearance, to transit their airspace at FL65. We were also asked to report over/abeam Le Havre. I asked for descent at Le Havre and was told to report 3 minutes from the Caen CTR. The CTR is the surface control area for the Caen Airport tower. I recall reading a few past posts by others stressing the importance of studying the VRP (Visual Reporting Points) on the AIP diagram. I am glad I did as the controller’s initial reply upon radio contact was to report at NK, which is ~ 5 Km north of the airport.
Landing was uneventful. Caen is a lovely airport. The fuel is dispensed across from the tower and a Robin was fuelling so we taxied in behind him and awaited our turn. The lads from the fire station do the fuelling and are really friendly. After fuelling we contacted the tower again for taxi instructions and were told to taxi to a stand below the tower. The only problem is that the stands have no tie downs, and since we were staying over the weekend, I was concerned about leaving the plane sitting on the apron. I went into the operations room in the terminal (airside) and paid for the fuel. I asked the gentleman about parking and he kindly phoned the tower and asked if I could park in the grass. The tower said ‘oiu’. After sorting the airplane out we entered the terminal with no customs/immigration to greet us and check our passports. I had pre-arranged a taxi through THP Transports via email (in English) and the driver was there on time to drive us to the Hertz car rental at the train station in Caen. It was 20 Euros to the city centre. Hertz was closed until 14:00 so we walked to the hotel (Mercure city centre) and checked in.
We spent the next two and a half days touring: Caen castle, Pegasus Bridge, Pointe du Hoc, Utah Beach, Bayeaux, and Mont du St Michel. Food was a mixed bag. Mostly wonderful meals except one disappointing experience in the old part of Caen (tourist district). Food was cold! We planned to depart back for the UK at 12:00 local time (1000 Z) Monday. Sunday evening, whilst connected to the hotel WiFi, I used the AOPA GAR iphone application to file my GAR. I have the app installed on my iPad. The app is somewhat difficult to use the first time as it doesn’t seem to be easy to follow the sequence. I submitted the GAR and received what I thought was confirmation by a ‘thumbs up’ icon and my GAR details listed next to it.
Monday morning I filed the flight plan using the OLIVIA website. It was simple and easy to use. After breakfast we determined that we could likely depart earlier so I went onto the OLIVIA website again and using the DELAY button I brought the departure time FORWARD to 09:30Z. By the way, there is free WiFi in the Caen terminal.
We dropped the hire car off in the car park below the control tower and slipped the keys through the slot at the Hertz desk. The security staff checked our passports and my license and wrote our details down on a passenger log form. After a careful preflight and pre-start briefing we fired up and I contacted the tower. The controllers reply was ‘let me check I have your flight plan’. Terror comes to mind. Thoughts of running around trying to re-file a flight plan were conjuring in my head. About thirty seconds later the controller came back with ‘I have your flight plan, taxi to runway’......etc. Shortly after takeoff we contacted Deauville and requested a climb to FL75. This was granted and we were on our way back. The route was the reciprocal of the inbound route. Deauville passed us on to Paris, and Paris in turn passed us on to Lille. We amended the route slightly and crossed the FIR boundary at TUKVI intersection. We descended to FL55 to avoid the base of airspace. After a brief chat with London Info we changed to Manston for a traffic service. Manston was immensely helpful. Manston handed us over to Southend , who were just as helpful with a traffic service. Landing was exactly 02:00 since takeoff. As we taxied in I noticed three blokes standing next to the hangar. The lads from Customs/Immigration were there to meet us. The first question I received in a stern tone was ‘Did you file a GAR?’ My reply; ‘Yes, and I have confirmation here on my iPad’. They hadn’t received mine! The tense atmosphere dissipated. The agents told me that they have had numerous instances of pilots filing GARs online and then the agency not receiving them. They finished checking our passports and we were free to leave.
In summary, it was a wonderful trip. France is amazing and the people are wonderful. The controllers are very helpful. We already have our next trip planned for October!
Tips:
1) Learn how to pronounce the major towns/cities/airports/VORs/etc along your route. It will help with understanding the controller’s accents. 2) Take a laptop, iPad, smartphone or suitable wifi enabled device to file flight plans, check weather, etc. 3) Fuel upon arrival. It will be one less item to have to deal with on the day of departure. 4) Don’t arrive between the hours of noon and 2pm unless you already have made transport arrangements. 5) Book with a hotel chain, such as ACCOR, which will allow cancellation on the day of arrival. It removes the ‘get-there-itus’ syndrome. 6) Study the VRPs on the AIP diagrams and know where they are.
May I ask what a GAR is?
Great trip JJBeall.
Flying abroad is really simple - one of the great "secrets" of GA.
May I ask what a GAR is?
This is one example from my website - not the latest one but it is a simple small PDF.
The UK uses these, in essence, instead of "Customs" airports. Actually we do have Customs airports too but by sending in the GAR you can fly to/from abroad from any farm strip. It's a very good system.
Nice trip report. It isn't as difficult as it might seem, though having a checklist of paperwork items to submit beforehand can help as a reminder for the first couple of trips.
The hard bit (for me) is using the HMRC form to claim fuel duty back. If you can not mess it up like I seem to continuously do, it makes flying per hour much cheaper when you fly to France, than any UK destination. With my flying partner I handle the flight plans, GAR forms etc., and he handles HMRC. That suits me just fine :-)
The hard bit (for me) is using the HMRC form to claim fuel duty back. If you can not mess it up like I seem to continuously do, it makes flying per hour much cheaper when you fly to France, than any UK destination
I often wonder why the drawback form asks for the information it asks for.
The three recent fillup details they ask for do not necessarily bear any relationship to how much fuel you are entitled to claim for.
I have just sent in about 20 drawback forms and they rejected one of them. Evidently, they were looking for the "total quantity of fuel loaded" to be greater than the "quantity on which drawback is claimed", but you might have bought fuel on more than the three occasions for which there are boxes!
So basically you need to make sure that you can come up with three fillups whose total exceeds what you are claiming for, and they should be happy.
The only thing which actually counts legally is that you are claiming drawback only for fuel which was bought in the UK and for which drawback has not been claimed already, but there is no way to prove that on the form provided.
Remember you have TWO YEARS in which to submit the form. I have just lost a load of money by doing mine too late for some trips...
Quick question on the side: In a bind, can you just LIST the info required by the GAR form in an email and fire it off to HMRC? In other words, if you can't fill out the form and save it (say on an iPad) then can you list it out in an email?
