Do consider Melville Calonne [LFQT].
A very quiet field, now that the Chinese have left, and it has all the ‘bells & whistles’ you need: ILS 22 and RNAV & NDB on 22 & 04. Together with a EU paid club house any field would have given its vote for.
Northern France has 4 airfields within a 30 minutes radius that are all in the Lille TMA, have low MSA and where freezing is therefore of little concern. Those are
The latter will probably charge for approaches – same rate as landing, i.e. 10-15 euros tops. The others will not. All have RNAV approaches. Some have ILS, or NDB.
In Normandy/Brittany, Cherbourg and Dinard are good for training too. Both have RNAV. Dinard has ILS. Both have Customs. Cherbourg has 24 hrs PNR and Dinard no PNR IIRC. Did not look it up.
I was referring to the text pasted below.
Especially the bit where they consider allowing the deal to continue after the winter, into spring if possible.
It maybe too late to make any savings but worth a call.
I’ve recently revalidated my IMC and intend to call them soon to see what they may be able to offer for consolidation.
I need to get our Garmin 530 European Navy database updated.
Do people tend to go for the yearly package?
DIY is download to your own data card or
Take to a avionics shop?
What is the most cost effective method?
I see that data cards can be “fussy”..
I have been recommended RGV in Gloucester,but have never used them. There is also an avionics shop at Bournemouth.
Any recommendations?
Thank you!
Rgds
We have a bunch of GNS 430s/ 530s in our club, and found ist most efficient to do the database updates by ourselves. It’s not exactly rocket science, you just have to buy the card reader for these Garmin data cards once. Maybe you could use it together with fellow pilots?
Avionics shop? I think, if you can use a computer to post on a forum, you can do the updates as well. Why would you want to pay someone for a few clicks? Plus, if the shop isn’t literally next door, you would have to get the cards there and back, producing some downtime.
Our club has one GNS430, one GTN650 and one G1000. As all the aircraft are IFR, we have a subscription with Jeppesen for (approximately) monthly updates.
We do all updates ourselves. It’s really very simple. I shudder to think at the cost if we should ask an avionics shop to do it for us!
I have done updates on G1000 and GNS430(W)
It is simple. For the GNS430 you need a Skybound adapter which is 50 € from Jeppesen. For the G1000 you just need a SD card reader.
The updates are downloaded from Jeppesen using JDM (Jeppesen Download Manager) which will also transfer the update to the card.
I have recently had some problems with a GNS430W card (16 MB Orange label). At first the transfers failed. After having spent some time with technical support the transfers succeeded but the GNS430W refused to read the card. I finally ordered a new card from Jeppesen (180€) and sent in the other for exchange. The new card worked. In the mean time I flew with an out of date database in one of my units.
For the GNS430 I really recommend you keep a spare card in case you run into any issue with an update, instead of updating the card in the unit. Then you can always roll back to a working card with previous cycle
At Rochester [EGTO] there are group of us who use the same guy to do our ‘updating’.
He has the machine at home; whilst we all bought an ‘extra’ card each.
Every 28 day cycle, he loads the ‘spare’ cards at home; and then comes to the hangar and swaps the old card for the new one.
We benefit from a joint subscription from Jeppesen and the convenience that our data is always current.
I would say 5 including LFAV nice GNSS with LPV or LNAV depending your tools 
Northern France has 4 airfields within a 30 minutes radius that are all in the Lille TMA, have low MSA and where freezing is therefore of little concern. Those are
Le Touquet Calais Merville Albert BrayI use the local BBC MW transmitter. Timed NDB till my heart is content.
