Thanks. So far, pending car rental, it looks like it’s going to be Dole. They confirm PN is enough for immigration, while Chalon will likely be an issue since it’s PPR.
LFGH Dole: Furthest one off, but seems to offer customs. It at least on says that it’s PN which wouldn’t be an issue.
I used Dole a couple of weeks ago. €11 to land, Douanes didn’t bother to meet us. Ryanair fly there 3 times a week so it might be more hassle if there’s a commercial flight there.
I would use Chalon too, overnight there and fly into Beaune the next morning. Dead easy…
LFHNflightstudent wrote:
I would use Chalon too, overnight there and fly into Beaune the next morning. Dead easy…
Chalon doesn’t have immigration which makes the trip less flexible (have to stop at immigration beforehand)
Dole does, on PN only, so will go for that and rent a car from Drivy (AirBnb for cars – really useful when going somewhere where there are no rentals. The one I got is probably about 500m from the terminal). We rented a villa in Beaune so no real point in doing 2 trips, and being able to leave from customs also allows us to stay a bit later.
Follow up.
Summary: We ended up doing
North Weald EGSX → Lille LFQQ (Immigration + Fuel) → Chalon LFLH
Chalon LFLH → Dijon LFSD (Immigation + Fuel) → North Weald EGSX
We were flying in a DA42, which has a relatively low MLW. If you Take off at MTOW, you have to fly for about 2.5h to reach MLW. We were 4 adults so limited in the amount of fuel we could take anyway.
Coming and returning to the UK, we had to stop at Immigation on our first / last stop into France.
The 4 people being employed professionals, it dictated a relatively late departure (take off not before 17:00Z)
There were 5 aiports close to Beaune by order of distance:
Beaune LFGF (No lights)
Nuits St Georges LFGZ (Grass, no lights)
Chalon (Lights on PCL, but no immigation)
Dole LFHJ (Immigation, but lights don’t work out of hours (no PCL))
Dijon LFSD (Everything, but you actually can’t use it out of hours if not based)
Due to need of booking car rental, we needed plan A and plan B to land at same place.
Dole would have been possible (Direct from the UK) with Chalon as backup, but we would have likely have landed with a couple minutes to spare for official night. However, any slight delay would have made us arrive by night and need to land in another city (Chalon) and have no Car. Also, we wouldn’t have a ton of reserves when getting there (as there was some headwind), so while a diversion would have been fine (but likely not legal as we wouldn’t have done the immigation stop), a further diversion would have been stressful.
So, settled as final landing point Chalon, but needing to clear immigation on the way.
The fact that we’d have to do that stop would also mean that we’d have to take fuel, because:
1) the MLW restriction at Immigration stop would likely dictate that we wouldn’t be able to take as much fuel as we’d like
2) I wanted a lot of spare fuel in case there was a problem at Chalon (PCL not turned on / aircraft broken on the runway), in which case we’d divert to Lyon (LFLY)
There was a last minute Notam about it being restricted on that and following day due to some activities (unless agreement with operator), but had been in contact with them about coming / having PCL so didn’t worry about it since had exchanged a few emails about coming.
So, needed an intermediate stop which would have Immigration + Fuel open after 20:00 local on the french side.
2 options came along the route:
a) Lille LFQQ: Closed at 21:00 local (19:00Z), so would still need to make a 17:45Z departure. Initially quoted 70 Euros for the stop (non including fuel)
b) Chalons Vatry LFOK. Seemed ideal when called them (Fuel available with 1h notice, immigration all night), but after I inquired about out of hours fees, they came back to me with : 200 Euros for out of hours Fuel, 150 Euros for out of hours Afis, 40 Euros for lights. Ouch!
Settled on Lille. Nice stop, friendly handling agent, who took us to the terminal where we even got to eat something from the vending machines. Due to that, the stop took a bit long (1h15 on ground), but came cheaper than expected (23 euros landing, 20 euros handling, and JetA1 @1.47 euros.
We were told fueling / immigration could have been delayed, as they use the same fuel truck as for airliners (at least it’s unlikely it runs out)
We then had mostly night flight to Chalon, where I shortcuted the RNAV procedure as it was a clear day.
Landed and had the car keys / documents from the rental agency (ABSL, they have an agreement with the airfield) readily available: 
Airport is open, no rotating barrier or anything, so you don’t have to be stressed about forgetting something in the plane, but might want to lock things a bit more carefully than if you land at somewhere fully fenced.
Next day did a little pleasure flight (low level around the area). Nice to fly over vineyards with relatively low stress about the engine quitting.
Way back:
We still had to refuel (45 minutes in the tanks at that point) and clear immigration.
Chalon doesn’t refuel when not manned (which it wasn’t on the Monday, but we knew that in advance), and during day hours both Dijon and Dole were available with Immigration and Fuel, so it was decided to do the Fuel and immigration at the same place. Dijon was on the way so Dijon it was.
Stop in Dijon was efficient, JetA1 a bit more expensive at 1.87 Euros.
We got a clearance to Climb to FL120. we had a route on a heavind of ~340 which after a while turned to ~360 (to Reims REM), but it was clear that there were big build ups in front so told them about 2 minutes in advance that we wouldn’t be able to turn North.
We were told to maintain heading and advice when able to continue to REM. Next frequency (Paris) was very busy, with Airliners + TBMs (COTAM – French state VIP transport), all on headings to avoid). We were asked to descend to FL90 but told them negative as that would take us in / below the base layer and be unable to see clouds well ahead. They still wanted us to descend so told them FL110 would be fine, and we kept on that heading. Then told them it wold be a negative to REM since built ups seemed to be pretty much over it. They asked us if we could take turn a couple degress right, which we did. View was nice:
Continued on that heading until 2 min before intersecting original route (the part after Reims), and asked them if we could just route CMB, which was essentially setting us up for a nice DCT.
Rest of the flight uneventful, arrived in the UK in sad weather (having departed in bright sun).
In burgundy, we ended up not renting cycles, as there were a lot of nice restaurants / wine tastings booked, and I seemed the only one motivated by travelling by cycle, but think it would be really nice.
I think this is a great place to go by plane from the UK, happy to provide contacts of places / car rental / etc if someone wants details.
Cool.
Noe wrote:
during day hours both Poitiers and Dole were available with Immigration and Fuel, so it was decided to do the Fuel and immigration at the same place. Poitiers was on the way so poitiers it was.
But were you ever in Poitiers or did you confuse Dijon Longvic (LFSD) and Poitiers (LFBI)? Poitiers and Dole are pretty far apart.
Indeed! Not sure how I got that wrong!
Post edited.
Dijon is a nice airport. Too bad it was not commercially viable due to the domination of Dole and its low-costs.
Poitiers is a pretty nice platform too, with very generous opening hours, but 24 hrs PPR for customs/immigration.
Otherwise I would also recommend Chateauroux Deols (LFLX) which has less generous opening hours, short PN for customs/immigration (4 hrs) and NO LANDING FEES!
