Planning my first flight to Cannes

My experience with Lyon is those two times. So hard ror me to judge if it’s easy or not. But I would expect to be let through if I:
- file a VFR flight plan with the route I shared
- call them 10min before boundry
- sounds competent on the radio

And you really need to take charge of this yourself. Don’t expect FIS to hold your hand and hand you off in time or to negotiate the transit for you. Watch your position, when you are leas than 10min from the TMA call FIS:

“so and so request to change frequency to Lyon APP for zone transit”

and then call APP

so and so VFR from Troyes to Cannes, with flight plan, xNM NW from UBEXU FL75, request zone transit via UBEXU, next Lyon VOR and ROMAM.

Expect to maybe lower to FL70, they did that to me. That’s all I can say.

@Fernando I flew that route (from LFOK instead of LFQB) 2y ago, that was actually my very first long cross country in france…

Here is the route I filed (it’s VFR but kept most point IFR point as it makes it easier to see in the avionics for me than bunch of user points. But as Johnh said pretty much straight to MTL then east and south around with LFMD join via WL. It possible some the R zone will be activated. Some did when I flew the route, but ATC helped me around.

LFOK D280B ARSIL MTL A3 PERUS 43°35’00"N/6°12’00"E LFMD

And here is the flown track log with all the waypoint, detours around airspace etc if that helps.

The problem is that if you are considering transiting R zones, youneed to have some idea of how likely you are to get approved. MOSTLY it’s not a problem but you can’t count on it. “Activated by NOTAM” can mean anything from “a couple of days a year” (like R196) to “active 9-5 Mon-Fri permanently”. R138 is NEVER open, and it’s infinity-ground. You can generally transit R95, call Le Luc on 122.2 and they’ll let you through, though you should try to enter via one of the designated points such as PL.

Or you can stay above 5500 and go through the Class E, talking to Nice approach. I’ve never tried this VFR, but it ought to work.

Or you can thread your way through the narrow corridor between R95 and R138. i did this when I ferried my 182 from Toussus – i figured a route from MTL all the way to Cannes that didn’t go through any red stuff. It’s possible but takes a while to figure out, That’s why I decided to get a French IR!

It’s MUCH easier at the weekend when most military stuff is inactive – R95 for example.

In practice they’re pretty accomodating. A few months back I flew from Cannes to Nimes in a Super Cub, the whole thing at 3000. It looks like a red-stuff nightmare but we got cleared in practically a straight line all the way, in both directions.

Hazek’s routes MIGHT work – I haven’t followed them in detail – but the only way to be sure is to enter them into SDVFR and see what it says (or, much more tedious, do the equivalent by hand).

Indeed SDVFR is your friend. In the Rhone valley you can fly (almost) as low as you want, but need to avoid the couple of P zones around nuclear plants (celing around 4000ft). If you’re afraid of airliners in Lyon TMA FL55 is perfectly doable (might be under TL as well). There are also I hear a lot of gliders (including – again hearsay – in CAS without radio contact).
I would advise to first do a route based on terrain (i.e. avoid the 3000m Southern Alps peaks), and then working your way with R zones as required (but mostly expect to go through) :

• NOTAMed zones should be a non-issue once you’re done briefing (go through or go around depending on the presence of an activation NOTAM)
• zones with “real activity known by xxx” should be good as well, but be sure to check activity before entering and have a plan B for going around / above / under.

While planning to fly there (I did not go there yet), I went as far as noting who to call for every R zone crossed or nearby, directly on my paper chart (and on a separate piece of paper) just in case. For a lot of the zones FIS will know if they’re active or not, so it may be overkill.

I’ll be glad to hear updates about how it plays out !

You probably saw this already, but for Cannes you are required to do a tiny online test/bruefingb before flying there. Its v easy and its on the airport website.

Its mostly to make sure yuou keep precisely to the required track for the 17 VFR approach. They want to make sure you avoid sensitive areas.

You don’t need to do it if you’re vfr but you MUST avoid the blue circle areas on SDVFR or (I guess) Skydemon. Otherwise you will be in mild trouble.