NDB A RWY 13 Dieppe LFAB

There are 2 reasons:
1) There is only one IAP for a direct landing ie 13
So if the Rwy in use is the reciprocal you need to circle to land and the minimum for that is an MDA of 950feet QNH 630’ AGL.
2) There is no tower so you get the QNH from Rouen and then you must obtain all the other parameters by looking at the windsock, checking out the runway etc before joining downwind or if others are in the circuit and you know the parameters from them you can join the downwind circle to land directly.
Note the minima has been added to because you are receiving a non local QNH. Eg vis 2400m.

Dieppe no longer has an AFIS, it used to be until last year…

Without ATS, in theory you are legally restricted to circling minima column in French AIP plates but if it’s permanently without local ATS, then only circling minima will be published (and usually there are two version one with local QNH and one without QNH if ATC have feeds from some weather station in the airport)

Both NDB & RNP in Dieppe are restrictrd to circling minima only in the AIP plates: they are without local ATS all the times without local QNH (no STAP station and “the runway in-use is unknown” to ATC and decided by PIC by visual inspection or talking to other pilots):
- The NDB is a timed NDB without DME, the minima on these are usually high as FAF & MAPT are calculated using stopwatch
- The GPS approach is actually an LPV200 but it has been cut to circling minima without ATS: it still coded as straight-in RNP and will annunciate LPV on final and works fine down to 1ft (at least what I observed when flying it last month)

It’s fully in uncontrolled airspace & uncontrolled aerodrome, fully under pilot responsibility but you have to call Rouen ATC (used to be Lille ATC a year ago) to inform them that you are flying it, strictly speaking you don’t need clearance or local QNH,

PS: I used to fly there regularly from London out & return: Lille ATC managed it efficiently and PAF immigration police were relaxed (crew only flights could land before Brexit with simple PNR as Dieppe had some special concession), it was usually less busy compared to LeTouquet & Calais, although now it’s useless without AFIS as you can’t go down to 200ft DH and you can’t land there from UK after Brexit…

Ibra wrote:

I used to fly there regularly from London out & return

It is very sad that due to cost-cutting there is now no longer ATIS at Dieppe. Dorothée Romary, the ever helpful girl in the tower who took over from Gérard Stephan, the affable and co-operative manager who did so much to make this field attractive for visiting pilots, have both, sadly, moved on.
This mean that the field must now be “FR seulement” for R/T.
Likewise, fuel is now 2 hours PPR.
For a field which once had Customs and a wonderful welcome, + an RNP Approach, making it – and the town – a nice Day Trip from the UK, it is now a shadow of its former self; which a “No Landing Fee” fails to compensate.

For a field which once had Customs and a wonderful welcome, + an RNP Approach, making it – and the town – a nice Day Trip from the UK

Indeed, it was a brilliant airport & city that did lost all of that, hopefully it will keep it’s RNP even without ATS

I did 6month internship in the electrical station at Penly and lived in the town 13 years ago and flew some microlights there in the summers, always good to say hello to some connections in the airport and the town…

Ibra wrote:

hopefully it will keep it’s RNP even without ATS

Looks like it. ATS has been gone from Dieppe for a while now, and since the IAP is published, and not NOTAMed unavailable, you could fly it today, if you wanted.

And why not? France does not strictly require ATS for instrument approaches, so the loss of ATS should not be a reason to drop the IAP.

On the loss of ATS: knowing how much AFISOs cost, and how little there is going on at Dieppe, it is understandable they dropped it.

The bad bit of it is that they decided to prescribe French for the A/A at Dieppe, which is a choice of the airfield. This indeed makes it unavailable for people who can’t even make the basic position reports in French. The loss of customs (rather: of the border crossing point) makes it unavailable for UK departures/arrivals.

And why not? France does not strictly require ATS for instrument approaches, so the loss of ATS should not be a reason to drop the IAP.

Yes no need for ATS and GA can still fly it but they still have some small running costs to absorbe and maintain it, mostly obstacle surveys every 3 years? ( @gallois may know how this works as LFFK has a similar RNP with no ATS and CTL minima only, residents users only)

The cost of keeping up an RNP approach ranges between €3000 – €6000 a year. It has to be flown (each IAF plus the MAP) by a DGAC approved outfit at least once a year and NOTAMs, administration and any AIP changes have to be made. But I don’t know the actual breakdown of the costs so don’t know where all that money goes. Dieppe may of.course have to do a bit more as the NDB, IAP is still there and valid, so that will need checking too.

Thanks for the figure, I bet NDB costs them 10 times more

It has to be flown (each IAF plus the MAP) by a DGAC approved outfit at least once a year

That looks like a lot, maybe as it’s flown by non-GPS aircrafts with INS/IRU for RNP APCH?

I can’t see that restriction on equipment = EGNOS like say RNP13 at LFAT

I had the impression for flight inspections (after first validation),
- ILS is 6-12mths depending on accuracy specs and operational coverage once in 3 years
- VOR every 3 years or 5 years depending if it’s VOR or DVOR
- RNP non-GPS with legacy LNAV & BaroVNAV once in 5 years
- RNP GPS+SBAS and LPV never (approach is self checked on-the-fly 2nm before FAF)

In GPS + SBAS, one only need to check his plates specs matches the database code, what do you get from the annual flight?

Obstacle surveys happens at every trigger NOTAMS or once in 3 years, but one reason why LPV needs regular updates was highlighted by NCYankee in another post (changes in it’s FAS coding data block)

Obviously, when I talked to a flight calibration engineer from a famous UK outfit, he mentioned continents drifting 10cm per year, so they do become material after 5 years !

https://www.icao.int/Meetings/webinar-series/Documents/Day2-2%20Technologies%20and%20methods%20Frances%20uses%20for%20NAVAIDS%20FI%20and%20FP%20validation.pdf

It might have something to do with people sticking wind turbines everywhere these days.