Guillaume,
Thanks!
It was a straight-in approach to rwy 19 (not circling). LNAV non-precision. Unless i am totally mistaken, minimums sit at 960 ft.
Another question about the obligation to do the overhead join in France is: how do you deal with glider-winch lauching or parachuting? The AIP does not state any deviation on approach procedures for these cases. Could it be that all airfields with such procedures are “NORDO not allowed”, so that traffic can coordinate?
An overhead join is not mandatory in France (although it’s what we usually do).
If you catch up messages which indicates the runway in use, you can join the downwind.
Usually, you will get these messages when there is glider-winch lauching or parachuting.
That’s explained in French in “4.1.3 Note 2” of the above text
Also in France every ATCO everywhere can see your flight plan, immediately AFAICT
Not sure that is correct. I have had Orange Approach look for my flight plan for a while before finding it. So although they may access it, I believe they will have to search for it if it has not been addressed to them.
Don’t file the flightplan to B, as that makes continuing to A (in case the winds/shortcuts do play ball) more complicated.
Isn’t that what RIF in section 18 of the flight plan is for? (Never actually tried it.)
Airborne again,
I have been toying with such an idea. How would RIF work?
You’re mentionning that you use the “carte Air Total”
It’s a must to have in France. It’s free, you just have to place a deposit with them (200 euros for a small plane)
Until last year, you had to have a French bank account to get that card.
Thanks to SEPA you can from now on have it if you have a Euro Account in an Euro Country. It works with Belgium, it should work with Germany, Ireland etc.
You may also want a BP card if you do not already have one…
Yes a BP card is very useful, specifically in Spain. It’s not free though if you don’t use it enough.
BP’s market share is increasing in France (Biarritz & Pau recently). It’s useful in France because there are many unmanned fuel stations, or manned only during French business hours (ie never during lunch time).
BP’s card is international and you can get it wherever you live and use it wherever you go.
La carte AirTotal was de facto only available to French residents until last year. As it’s free even if you don’t use it, don’t hesitate to apply for it. There are many unmanned fuel stations in France. You may land at 3am at an unmanned airfield using pcl, refuel with your carte Total, and continue your trip.
Interesting about AIR BP.
I have had one for about 10 years. Back then some airports took cash only, some only Visa, some only MC, and the AIR BP card was handy in some places (Spain was one) where if you had a company name on it and said “commercial” 3 times in a loud John Cleese voice, you got avgas free of duty and VAT 
That trick stopped working about 8 years ago and works now only if you show them a piece of paper with “AOC” on it.
AIR BP was also useful because the price was set by BP centrally and you were less likely to be ripped off (southern Europe, again…).
Today, every place takes Visa, and I struggle to use mine. I manage to get it accepted maybe once or twice a year. However I recall it was useful at Poitiers last December in an unmanned fuel pump – but nobody could work out how to work the pump (non-obvious, and everything labelled in French) so the fuel man had to come anyway 
There is no annual cost, AFAIK.
The TOTAL card is widely reported as useful in the small French airfields but most of them cannot be flown to/from from the UK so I can’t speak for them.
