Calais LFAC ATC withdrawn

For certain people who refuse to learn some basic radio phrases in French, no ATC = closed…

Anybody can learn basic phrases (even Spanish ATC can learn to say “report established” etc) but then you are tempting fate for when somebody speaks back to you in French because then you need to actually speak the language properly. And that isn’t a trivial undertaking.

If it was as simple as learning phrases, you could have the standard phrases on an audio player (nowadays you would use a phone for that, like for everything else) and have buttons displayed on the screen marked “G-ABCD downwind” “G-ABCD left base” etc and then (illegally, but this would be far easier than learning French) wire the 3.5mm jack to the aircraft intercom. Or just hold the phone speaker close to your headset mike…

Come to think of it, if aviation voice was as easy to understand as the same voice spoken in the street, you could use the phone to do voice recognition and display the stuff as text on the screen. Unfortunately it isn’t, partly due to crap equipment and partly due to people not speaking properly – a lot of the time, I cannot make out the English ATIS at French airports.

Can you get an ICAO English proficiency certificate for a voice recognition product?

Now there’s an idea for a novel aviation product

It would be necessary to record the phrases in heavily accented French, otherwise you are inviting a response in conversational French which will then kill off the whole proposition….

I wonder if their ILS is operating?

For certain people who refuse to learn some basic radio phrases in French, no ATC = closed…

I think I understand and talk French well enough to get an ICAO language proficiency level 5 or even 6. But unless someone enters that number in my license (have not yet found out who that could be) I will not say a single word in French over the radio. Especially not when flying commercially which is what I do most of the time. If they don’t want or need our business, there are plenty of alternatives not too far away.

I wonder if their ILS is operating?

The last revision of Jeppesen contains the approach plate and there is nothing in the current NOTAMs about it not operating.

Lille would clear you for the approach even on Sundays with no ATC. And the LPV is there until NOTAM’ed off and deleted from databases.

I was due to go in there next week. Either have to work on my French or do Ostend.

I’ve saved the Jepp plates anyway, for the GPS approaches which can always be flown in OBS mode

So long as you have a clearance through restricted area.

But unless someone enters that number in my license (have not yet found out who that could be) I will not say a single word in French over the radio

Why? You don’t need that. An English LPE covers you for FCL.005.

As I read it, what next was referring to French language proficiency. I seem to have read , probably here, that it is not entered on one’s license but rather issued as a separate document.

Would you not only need level 4 LPE? Which would be a pain every few years to renew but for frequent travellers it might be an option.

Are the french prosecuting yet?

I have found out that I can do BZF in Germany, even without native language and that will allow me access to GE only. Surely something exists in France where you could just do the basic radio course?