How do I find out about Abbeville LFOI airport? Has it closed down?...

Howard wrote:

Caen looks likely.

I know some people here do not agree on this, but Caen has a nice little city center. Visit the mediaval (norman) castle and l’Abbaye aux Hommes, or spend the day at the Mémorial de Caen Museum (permanent exhibit on the 1944 landings as well as on the cold war)

Howard, Abbeville is a favourite stop for British pilots, especially microlight pilots since it one of the few airfields in northern France to retain its Customs status. Especially on summer weekends, it can often have as many G reg as F reg aircraft on its ramp!. Although technically air to ground, Abbeville radio is very well used to British pilots with no more than a few words of French (and often not even that). In fact, in my experience, once they hear that you’re G reg they often speak to you in English anyway.

If you want somewhere that’s full ATC, because you want the environment to be ‘controlled’, then fair enough. But don’t avoid Abbeville purely becuase they are not required to do R/T in English. It’s a friendly place. I’ve been there many times and never heard anyone criticised for their lack of French.

That’s good to know, for me too. Thanks, TJ!

@Howard As said above perhaps not the best for a first venture further into France but definitely don’t write off Abbeville completely!

Nice 1200M Tarmac runway, a pretty french town a short taxi ride away. It also has Customs / Police on 4HRS PPR when coming from the UK by FAX 0322203197

You will need to announce in French but it was quite easy, there are some great french crib sheets online. The airfield was not busy when we visited during the week. The office does close for lunch for paying the landing fee so we paid this on our return. The staff / other pilots were very friendly. I cant remember the landing fee it was around £15.00 inc parking all day.

There is a hotel and restaurant on the airfield. It didn’t look busy when we went but we were a week day and around 2PM. The town is quite nice and a 15euro taxi ride each way.

Approaching Abbeville

Hotel at Airfield – They called us a Taxi.

Abbeville Town

Interesting Local Resident!

Dinard is a great trip if you want to go slightly further – Customs Police there all day just like Deauville no need to PPR. Fantastic walks around the Clifs and St Malo the other side of the estuary there is a regular boat across.

Howard,

In case this helps, here’s a flight report I wrote for such a trip…
http://patrickflightreports.blogspot.fr/2010/04/flight-to-caen-april-2010.html?m=1

This was very early days for Skydemon, and you won’t need Afpex ;-)

I can’t see the hours of opening on the chart?

As it is a day VFR field, I presume it is open during the official hours of daylight?

With regards to customs:

I see it is ppr – 4 hrs.

Does this mean that at this time of year you could use customs during daylight hours with the ppr?

Or is it nominal ie office hours, say 0800 til 1700?

Thanks

No, they are “open” all day. Like most French airfields, they don’t have "opening hours. Same for customs. Customs, like police actually works 24h, but of course, it is still subject to PPR.

Howard,
I agree with Alex, Abbeville is a good place to fly to and no hassle at all…radio is UNICOM 123.5 so start off the call Abbeville…. so that they know what airfield you are calling. Been there maybe 100 times over the past 20+ years and never had a problem with anyone, airfield manager is especially helpful, if its dry park on the grass in front of the hotel/restaurant.

If no reply on radio make calls in broken French and land anyway.

If you want AIP for CAEN ….google LFRK charts, Rocket Route will give you them for free, just click on
LFRK AIC

This gives you opening times/customs/etc. etc.

Here they are anyway….enjoy your trip

https://fly.rocketroute.com/plates/adminview/AIP-LF_LFRK_AIP.pdf?cmd=pdf&docid=400000000061363&icao=LFRK