AFAIK LFBH has never been 24/7
It definitely has 24/7 police. It is just some combination of job protection / job demarcation.
I doubt very much if its job protection or demarcation. I would imagine it’s more budgetary and perhaps local politics, otherwise the same thing would show up everywhere.
Heh. LFRK Caen is beginning to look generous at only 24hrs notice on weekends!
La Rochelle has approx one EU flight a day, and a UK flight every other day until June. I was there last week. Nobody there unless there is a flight other than the fuel/landing fee guy… €15 for landing & parking for a daytrip. Bus every 20mins to town for €1.30. Its a lovely destination. (I honestly didnt note if the Douane school was still there or not)
If I was coming from the UK or Europe Id probably stop somewhere else first rather than doing the 48hr PN thing. You can fly intra EU from one grass strip to another as long as you file, open, and close a flightplan, without any issue – I have done just that last weekend (and no, no-one would ever know if you just stopped for 15mins, 5mins, 1min or even 5 seconds). UK requires Douanes, but there are 24hr, 4hr & 2hr options the last time I looked.
wrt 14/15 May, Its the FFA “jour ports ouverts” weekend – so many (most) Aeroclubs will be occupied with their FFA open days that weekend – I know ours is. I will infortunately be away at work, or I would have tried to come regardless…
Regards, SD..
UK is just the GAR. 2hr PN out, 4hr PN return. Not sure there is anything that needs 24hrs PN now (used to be non EU flights e.g. CH).
For the fly-in, we know the dates, so just send in the email. This time is it easy. But on a flight which wasn’t planned far in advance, LFBH is de facto closed to foreign flights…
Peter wrote:
4hr PN return
It is also 2hr PN before departure. But off-topic.
On topic: a look over to Germany shows how absurd these 24h and even 48hr PN requirements are. At most airfields in Germany, where a Schengen entry or exit is possible, the PN required for that is 2 or 3 hours. And it’s the same there; the police is nowhere near the airfield, and in that timeframe, they have to receive the data from you, check it, and get out to the airfield. Weekday or weekend.
AFAIK from EU + Schengen you can arrive and depart at any airfield in France.
So those airfields that require PN obviously have some sort of local thing going on. What that is would be nice to know.
What is strange in the case of airfields like LFBH is the requirement for PN for both extra and intra Schengen.
Even stranger is the fact that you don’t PN the airfield but the bse.
There seems to be no National regulation to back this up as far as I can see but perhaps Ibra has found something.
There seems here to be no logic. You can fly direct from Germany, Belgium, Spain to LFFK, LFBN or LFRI for instance with only a flight plan. Yet need a 48hr (at present) PN for LFBH barely ten minutes flying distance away.
I would have though the bse/douaniers would have enough work at La Rochelle to keep them busy as it has the largest marina in Europe I believe as well as a commercial port. So why would they want the extra work of dealing with Schengen flights into LFBH?
I can only think that someone, somewhere is trying to make a point, the logic of which escapes me.🙂
I can only think that someone, somewhere is trying to make a point
Some of it is down to local arrangements between operator and mayor, customs, neighbours and other airports
Some of it is ignorance about the actual law, things have changed a bit where AIP/VAC does not keep up
For LFBH, I think it’s the former…
Yes I think so. Some kind of local “power game”.
Anyway, it is nothing for French pilots, and just 2 emails for all others. Not worth worrying about on this occassion. It’s like not travelling somewhere because they want to see your vaccination papers.
The NOTAM is extremely weird, as one understands once one tries to follow it. I can’t say the weirdness comes from translation, the French version is just as weird. In particular:
It is hard to do any more pointless.
