Has anybody been recently? I am planning to visit a few castles and this seems like a good base with car hire in the town.
There is a Notam about the runway being closed at certain times. Are there any complications regarding the military use? Does anybody have a rough Idea of cost… Is it standard very reasonable french fees or hyped up Biarritz style charges?
Thanks Alex.
We have been there 1,5 year agon. It was easy going, no hassles with the military and the fees seem to be typical french, because I have nothing extraordinary saved in my mind. Nice town. We had a few good days there.
Arrrgh forgot to ask. With no ATS at weekends is it Possible to depart?
Generally (in France), if no ATC is there, you just depart and call a controller in the air and tell them you just departed. There is no need for ATC to be there on the airport.
But some times you need to give PN in order to have them leave the PCL on (Colmar comes to mind as one example). So read the AIP carefully.
We went last summer for the Son & Lumiere at Amboise. We got a taxi into Tours for lunch then another cab to Amboise. Some photos here:
Landing and parking for two nights came to €43. Highly recommended.
Thanks for all the responses…you can always rely on EuroGA!
@chrisparker Son et Lumiere looks great i didn’t know you had a blog! You O2 mount looks good!
Thanks Alex_ !
A few years back I was caught in Tours because I didn’t read the NOTAM.. I had arrived on a Sunday and had some work with at the region’s IT department about five minutes from the airport so the plane was the perfect means of transportation. I stayed at the local Mercure and all was perfect until I wanted to go back to Germany on a Thursday.
When I got back and wanted to pay my fees the guy in ops was incredulous: “didn’t they tell you on Sunday (they did in fact ask me when I had planned to leave again) that the runway is closed today?” No, they hadn’t.. “Well, we need to check with commandant ..” I forgot the name.. but two hours later and after a lot of coffee they told me that I could take off with special permission.
So I can only report good things about the airport, the friendly personnel and it’s infrastructure but don’t get caught unaware. Days when Ryanair fly are safe.. other days less so..
