Trip report, night flying to Paris

Had to be close to Versailles yesterday, a place 10km away for Toussus LFPN. Decided to take the plane as the opportunity for night flying is relatively rare these days.
The plane, a DA40NG is based at North Weald EGSX

I was flying a DA40NG

Having not done any night flying this year, this seemed like a wonderful opportunity, especially since with decreasing temperatures, it’s just going to get harder.

Preparation:
- Destination airfield was Toussus LFPN. There was really no point in getting to any other airfield, and St Cyr wasn’t available since due to Work constraints I wouldn’t be able to land during day hours. Toussus ATC is notamed to close earlier than in the AIP, and night activity is reserved for based aircraft, except if you get an authorisation from the DSAC (some kind of sub entity of DGAC). Turns out this was relatively straightforward (trickiest part was to find the email). They basically want to know that: 1) you are familiar with the airfield procedurees 2) you speak french 3) your plane is not too noisy (copy of noise certificate). Got this authorisation the day after I applied, so it might have been an issue for a same day trip. In no case you are allowed to land after 20:30 UTC (we were planning to land about 1h-45min before that)
- Immigration stop. 2 airfields are on the way, Rouen LFOP and Le Touquet LFAT. From previous experience, the IFR routing LFAT → LFPN brings you almost over LFOP, so thought i’d go for LFOP straight away. They have a 6h notification period for customs, by email, which I did a few days in advance.
- Kept looking at the weather. I basically wanted to see no fog, no thunderstorms on the way (especially in the night part), and icing well above the ground. 2 other people wanted to come with me, and for that I wanted to be able to cruise on top (tops below icing level), otherwise it might have been to uncomfortable for them.

With the weather a go on the day, left work a bit earlier than usual, and set airfield. Took a bit longer than usual (1h with Uber, instead of 30-35 min on the motorcycle).
Filed flight plans with excellent Autorouter as usual, 2 legs EGSX → LFOP, LFOP → LFPN. Very large overheads on both. I was expecting to not to have to fly these large overheads but couldn’t file the 2nd leg as early as I wanted (it had to be after estimated landing time of the 1st leg). In the end, not a big issue.

Quick passenger briefing, life jackets, and off we went.

quickly broke through layer which was only maybe 500ft thick. Still enough to pick a tiny bit of ice at -1/-2 degrees, but nothing worrying, especially when option to descend.

Beautiful views on top, being close to sunset time:

Had I not had passengers, who were curious about systems (so I spent the whole time explaining things about the plane, procedures, etc), this would have been a great tranquillity / poetic moment:

To spoil that, routing was being a bit less than ideal:

I knew that landing at LFOP was to the southwest, so I really didn’t want to be placed there. Spoke to London control about more direct routing, and they said they were going to see with Paris. They came back and I couldn’t understand a thing, so just asked for next frequency (which had to be repeated a couple of times due to broken transmission).
When talking to the french, requested immediately a routing direct ROUBO is possible. That’s 8nm away fromt the threshold on the ILS at LFOP. They mentioned that that might take me in uncontrolled airspace, which was fine for me. It was great to just have a very long base leg to the ILS, and we were cleared for the approach miles away, with no one else in the vincinity.
They gave me some taxi instructions after landing, but I replied (in french) with a “are customs there, otherwise we don’t need to go to the terminal”. They gave me instructions to taxi on the taxiway along the runway, and that probably I wouldn’t need to go. Minute after, good news, taxi back to runway holding point, no problem in bringing flight plan forward, and off we go after doing pre takeoff checks again. 6 minutes on the ground which wasn’t bad!

Next flight, massive overhead again.

This time, it’s getting really dark, and they put us at FL70, right in a max 500ft layer. Requested level change, up to 80 we go. Upon reaching, and getting impatient with the routing, asked them if we could get a more direct, OK to transit though class E. Request comes quickly, direct Toussus. (Thanks to Aviathor who had suggested me pushing for these directs a couple month back).
Toussus was using 25R, with the ILS that brings you over Paris. Having not done a night approach in a while, I preferred to do the ILS (than a visual apprach or GNSS 07 with visual manoeuvre), and also not least because there wouldn’t be many opportunities to do this beautiful approach by night).
Took TSU 072 radial, with the OBS function (had nav mode to TSU, then changed AP to HDG maintaining same heading, changed to OBS mode, selected the radial, and just when the CDI was centered, changed AP back to NAV mode).
Long outbound leg, which was explained by the fact that someone was doing an approach at Villacoublay (under our approach path), and it being a COTAM flight (french VIP/GOV transport, COTAM 1 is president, but here it was COTAM 0010, so not sure who). We even caught the eiffel tower glittering:

Routing:

In the end, we arrived before ATC went home, which was great as this way we landed on the approach, and even managed to get refueled. Uber into Versailles and dinner at a nice Portuguese restaurant. Uber cost 8 Euros while taxi would have cost probably over 30 (because they start counting when you call them).

Return was the next evening, with a departure around 17:30-18:00 local. Landing planned at Southend since they have night + approach and reasonable fees (perhaps shouldn’t write that part online!).
Had initially planned return via LFAT, as routings seemed VERY direct (whether they would have happened remained to be seen but it would have been a nice way to find out).
However, it ended up turning out that
1) these seemed to be convertive activitly over the coast of Le touquet LFAT.
Garmin rain radar (sadly didn’t have a screenshot) showed lots of orange stuff.

2) direct routings via Rouen or Le touquet were similar in time.

So ended up going LFOP again.

This time, reasonably soon in the STAR, asked direct routing, ok to transit through E. Had to – again – request different altitudes, to avoid the thin icing layer.

Got some of these nice “Orange” views:

After confirming runway on ATIS, requested also if possible to start descent towards the approach side of 04 (no instrument approach), and switch to Rouen. Long base leg again, for only visual approach of the trip.

Tracking stopped, so I wonder if IFR was cancelled (I didn’t request so)

This time didn’t ask about customs, since a passenger had to go to the bathroom anyway and seat switch.

We were greeted and told we handn’t given notification to customs, which was right. When changing the stop from Le touquet to Rouen, completely forgot needed to tell them. The person was nice though, and called customs, scanned our documents (one of them US passport), and let us go (after paying fees from both days. 2x 10 Euros for landings, and 31 Euros for light (the previous day)).
Interesting thing is they said customs can normally go for the time slot you tell them you’ll arrive, and that if you arrive early, the airport might not be allowed to let you go before that, so to always file earlier than expected!

Quick look for final flight (sadly no screenshort), and Gamin still shows tons of stuff on the coast from le touquet.
When requesting clearance, told them didn’t want to fly filed route, and wanted to fly direct Dieppe (DPE), with after something like direct LYD or DVR. Clearance came quickly, Omnidirectional departure direct DPE.

Very large difference of light above and below layer

Initially cleared FL100, when switched to Paris, recleared to 60 only. Quickly cleared back to 120. I wasn’t really willing to do the whole flight there (night & unpressurised), so upon reaching 80 and being above the layer, asked to stop climb at FL100.
After a while, they asked if I could route RATUK (basically over LFAT). Night becoming darker, and still seeing some convertive clouds,

, and told would ideally want a routing LYD or DVR. Even better reply came, “Cleared to destination, FL100”.
A bit too good to be true I thought, but nicer than a big detour. By then I hadn’t even reached DPE I think. Swiched to London when coasting out which was quite early I thought.

Pitch dark by then, but the layer was oviously super thin, temperatures high (-2 degrees at FL100), no so concern. Dimmed the G1000 to about 1% only, and reduced lights on all intruments, to enjoy the night.

Mid channel gave me a direct ATSAP (east of Southend EGMC). This wasn’t ideal, as ATIS indicated Runway 05, so Ideally wanted to be positioned to the West of the airfield.
Funny thing, once with Southend and having requested positioning for 05, they tell me it’s going it’s ILS 23, and make me confirm twice. Asked if things had changed since last ATIS, and they said something along the lines of they were going to check the wind but it was ILS for 23. Minute after, apologies, and changed to ILS 05. In hindsight, should just have asked for the winds and decide then. There was 80 degrees crosswind so might not have mattered.

(notice much better dimmed display)

In the end, Trip ended up Cheaper than 3x Eurostar, and on the return leg we even beat (door to door) by about 1h the person that was coming back by train! (on return probably even lost about 30min with the immigration stop, which sadly we can’t avoid these days).