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Bimbling in NW of France: Treport, LeTouquet, Abbeville, StValeryVitteFleur, Rouen (and FR airport accessibility discussion)

On UK side, I expect that number to be around 0.001% in places other than Calais, LeTouquet, Lille with AFIS & ATC

If you add the fact that most big tarmac places now have 48h PN for flights with ETD/ETA being strictly enforced (plenty of evidences from my personal experience) I would expect those numbers to go as down as 0.0000001%

There are many reasons why some airfields are FR Only: it makes lot of sense on Unicom or SafetyCom 123.5 or in airfields busy mixing training, gliders, microlights, helicopters, parachuting…on other dead airfields having VAC/AIP entry does not make sense, let along put “FR Only” on it

Last Edited by Ibra at 01 Aug 09:03
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Used to be many many more Brits. They used to fly all over France. The English expression is “death by a thousand cuts”; you can google it CV19 finished off many more – all around Europe many of the “regular tourers” have gone. Another topic though, not here.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I detest this, for non-UK pilots. I don‘t know any pilot on the continent who has stopped flying in the last two years. And many who continued.

European pilots in fact have in the past rarely flown to the small non-ATS airfields in France (mainly as they want English ATS), but those who did still do, no change.

Last Edited by boscomantico at 01 Aug 10:27
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

boscomantico wrote:

European pilots in fact have in the past rarely flown to the small non-ATS airfields in France

Just my personal observation in non-ATS airfields: plenty of microlights from Germany, Netherlands and Belgium not that many aeroplanes

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Yes, of course, the German microlight crowd tends to like small aerodromes, without many rules and where they can“ just fly“, roam about, fuel up with jerry cans, etc., and without any Flugleiter telling them what to do and not to do. It’s a fascination for German pilots.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

I have been member at the LFFk club since 1993. Over the years the number of visitors from outside of France each year has remained approximately the same. The largest of a very small group is Belgian pilots, followed by Swiss and then German and a few Brits. The last couple of years there has been a reduction in visitors from outside the hexagon. The reason is mainly down to the fact that for 2 weeks each year aerobatic master classes were held here.
By far the largest external group were Swiss pilots bringing Extras or CAP 232s.
These classes have been canvelled for the last 2 years.
But we were still not talking large numbers.I would imagine that LFAT gets more Brits in a day than we get in a year and that includes those based here. It has nothing to do with PNs or Brexit or Schengen.

I have excluded 2 days in the last 30 years where the club has held special open days “Fruits de mer” and “jour des huitres” when on each occasion we had around 150 aircraft from all over Europe who came to celebrate with us.

Last Edited by gallois at 01 Aug 12:26
France

I would imagine that LFAT gets more Brits in a day than we get in a year and that includes those based here. It has nothing to do with PNs or Brexit or Schengen.

For sure it is 99% to do with most of France being 24/84hr PN for customs/immigration. How do I know this? I organise meetups Trying to organise one at a 48hr PN airport is

(with apologies to Sisyphus)

And that is why I have largely stopped bothering. And equally a lot of “old Brits pilots” who have been doing mainland Europe for 20-30 years have chucked it all in. The hassle just mounts up. The trips I did in 2003, via France, were care-free, cheap, no PN, no hassle except the nuclear prohibited zones. All that is gone. Now it is hassle and €€€ all the way except LFAT.

It’s not brexit related (well, not officially; individual attitudes of course do come into these things, like when flying an N-reg in some places) because UK pilots always needed immigration, now they need customs as well, but in France all airports are either none or both (1 exception IIRC).

Thankfully LFAT is wonderful

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

For sure it’s not to do with 24hr or 48hr PN.
Back in the 90’s there was a lot less of that. You just arrived at places like Le Mans, Poitiers, La Rochelle etc with only a flight plan.
As I wrote the number of Brit visitors here has not gone up and it has not gone down.
Which would indicate to me that it is having no effect.
The residents seem to be happy stopping off at places like Angers, Laval, Le Mans or wherever and giving the appropriate PN but in summer they seem to be doing the trip weekly so I suppose they’ve got used to it.

Last Edited by gallois at 01 Aug 13:04
France

Peter wrote:

Thankfully LFAT is wonderful

gallois wrote:

It has nothing to do with PNs or Brexit or Schengen.

The destination is definitely very nice but it’s still very convenient stop for 2h PN and ATC reasons !

Funnily enough, I am using LFAT regularly for my UK flights with passengers, especially when I have no clue of ETA or PAX until the morning, the last time on my way Lee-On-Solent to Cherbourg with 2 PAX, I decided to chunk Cherbourg and go via LeTouquet after some funny email/call from operations in response to my request to delay my arrival by 3h while I was eating fish in Solent beach. Strictly, speaking most airports now, including where I am based, needs everything to be casted in stone by Friday at 12am for ETA and the exact list of PAX, this is lot of hassle if one is doing random plans…again, this does not impact ‘just Brits, anyone who has done some recent flying in/out of France should be able to confirm, within France, it’s ‘la vie hereuse’ as you can see in this post

If flying alone, it’s different flying experience though (better not to post these things online )

Last Edited by Ibra at 01 Aug 13:15
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom
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