Not obscure at all. It‘s reported in GEN 1.3.
Ah sorry, pilots „never“ read the GEN parts…. I give up.
gallois wrote:
A funny thing is that OpenFly lists Pontarlier to Shoreham as one of its most frequent charter routes.🙂
I had never heard of OpenFly – very interesting business! I’m guessing those guys have a lot of insight into all this PPR/PN confusion.
I honestly know nothing about Open Fly. Some French aeroclubs use Openflyers to reserve aircraft and in trying to go to that Google took me to Open Fly and the Shoreham Pontarlier thing just jumped out at me.
But in the interest of trying to be costructive Pontarlier does not appear on the list of PPF (points of passage frontalier) airports for France.
At present there are complications for PPFs in France even regarding Schengen and or other EU countries. Like many other Schengen countries there are currently suspensions from certain countries to certain areas of France.
Currently shown on the list of Schengen suspensions is one until November due to the rugby world cup. It would not surprise me in the least if there will be one for the Olympics and one because of immigration, the current war between Israel and Hamas, and the knife attack in Arras. (Please note these are only suppositions at present). All countries must declare the suspensions and the dates they are effective, to the EU.
Certain changes to PPF airports will apply Nationwide, some just to particular regions and airports. For GA the main effect is a change to PNR or PPR timings at certain airports.
The PNR/PPR hours in advance is in some cases set on a National level and in other cases by the prefect in whose region the airport is located.
IIUC who decides what and where is a function of who owns/manages the airport.
Whilst UK remains outside both EU and Schengen GA pilots will have to enter via a PPF airfield, most of which also have customs alongside the police. It doesn’t always work the other way round.
This being France where local mayors have as much power or possibly more than the prime minister, in their commune, sometimes, special arrangements can be made🙂(I will put it no stronger than that and will have nothing to do with backhanders or state sponsored enterprises, Peter. Local mayors just like to be helpful, if they can). Eg La Roche sur Yon LFRI managed to get PPF negotiated due to a number of pilots living at Vendee and Atlantique airparks flying back and fore the UK every week.
I believe Niort LFBN can also organise PPF for certain occasions.
IMO as apart from huge international events, hosted here, as long as people feel the need to kill people who do not agree with their beliefs, on French soil or anywhere else for that matter, the situation with regards to Schengen suspensions will only get worse. That in turn will have a knock on effect on the PNR hours in advance notice for PPF. They will become longer as staff who had been redeployed due to the introduction of Schengen are no longer in place. Staff shortages will play a greater and greater role as their budgets will have been used elsewhere.
Well, being honest, having read the aip for LFSP I would have assumed that I was fine landing there if I took off from the UK or Ireland.
I tried to give some detail to what is behind what is sadly a mess and has been changing every 6 months or so since 2015.
It is difficult for SIA to keep up with the change that would need to be made to the AIP.
The best advice on government web sites it to double check by telephone with the aerodrome, if possible or with the PAF.
Or just make sure that if you are not arriving from a Schengen country is to phone the central PAF at Roissy.
In the case of LFSP this is a case where customs is ok (at least to an from Switzerland) but immigration is not as it is not listed as a PPF.
That’s not to say that in typical french fashion an acceptable solution could not be found. It’s a municipal field IIRC.
another info re LFSP Pontarlier, R/T is required, and is French only… a Swiss German friend of mine wanted to be sure and phoned the field, only to told to first learn French before even thinking of flying there…
Dan wrote:
another info re LFSP Pontarlier, R/T is required, and is French only… a Swiss German friend of mine wanted to be sure and phoned the field, only to told to first learn French before even thinking of flying there…
I guess they will probably respond to someone speaking English in the pattern like they do for guys that take off on the wrong runway! :D
Last time I landed there I used my perfectly fluent French (ha!) and the other guy in the pattern, a local flight instructor, switched to English! I guess he was tired of my bad French hurting his ears… 
Btw, Pontarlier made the move to „FR-only“ rather recently. I keep track of these things (for this website) and it wasn‘t FR-only a couple of years ago. My impression is that the number of FR-only airfields in France is slowly increasing. Probably, all it takes is one unfortunate „event“ involving am FR-only pilot and an EN-only pilot, after which the airfield operator decides to put the „FR-only“ remark into the AIP/VAC.
For all I know the current list of FR-only, non-ATS airfields is:
Soulac-sur Mer (LFDK), Les Mureaux (LFXU), Lessay (LFOM), St. Flour (LFHQ), Ussel (LFCU), Lille Marcq-en-Baroeul (LFQO), Villeneuve-sur-Lot (LFCW), Marmande (LFDM), Gaillac (LFDG), Villefranche-Tarare (LFHV), Macon (LFLM), Bagnoles (LFAO), Pontivy (LFED), Vesoul (LFQW), Maubeuge (LFQJ), Montpellier Candillargues (LFNG), Nîmes-Courbessac (LFME), Nogaro (LFCN), Saumur (LFOD), L’Aigle (LFOL), Guiscriff (LFES), Graulhet (LFCQ), Fumel (LFDX), Fontenay – Le Compte (LFFK), Charleville-Mezieres (LFQV), Castelsarrasin (LFCX), Bourg (LFHS), Bernay (LFPD), Ancenis (LFFI), Amberieu (LFXA), Chambley (LFJY), Revel (LFIR), Gray (LFEV), Strasbourg-Neuhof (LFGC), Amiens-Glisy (LFAY), Challes Les Eaux (LFLE), Bordeaux-Leognan Saucats (LFCS), Pontarlier (LFSP).
About 4 years ago we (2 aircraft) went to Île d’Yeu LFEY, another FR seulement… I made my position reports etc in French. My friend in his own mount in English since French ain’t his forte.
Long story short, that was not a good idea. At all. After landing there was a major raw between parties, with plenty of steam let off. He was warned of having operated illegally into the place, and having endangered other traffic.
Just another story guys…
I never got a reply from LFSP… Who is surprised? Can anyone phone the airport?
Let me attempt a serious reply to Bosco’s “I give up” (standard English meaning: “you are in idiot” ) post above:
Yes, the reality is that almost nobody will read AIP GEN. It is a load of stuff which doesn’t apply to practical flying. And much of the “information” is present by omission, not by inclusion. Due to crap PPL training everywhere, it is even a struggle to get pilots to read AIP AD witness all the posts on national GA chat sites and FB asking “how do I fly to [airport x]” but nowadays most thinking pilots are aware that AIP+NOTAM (meaning AIP AD and AD NOTAM) is the way to go and it gets you 99% there in most civilised countries.
On the VFR scene (the bulk of GA) people use airfield guides like (in the UK) Pooleys, and nothing else.
The key issue (and the purpose of this thread) is a most unwelcome drift to essential information being published elsewhere e.g.
and I don’t know what can be done about this, because none of the powers to be are interested in promoting flying; their only interest is in publishing official data and they don’t care at all whether anybody can work it out.
