johnh wrote:
LFMQ – also the middle of nowhere, and I think quite expensive
I flew to LFMQ about a month ago and paid just under 40 Euro for IFR approach/departure and 1 night parking in hangar. Remote location indeed but price- and experience wise I thought it was absolutely OK. If you prearrange transportation you should be fine. There is a 24h PPR requirement for immigration (also from within Schengen).
Re. LFMQ – I thought their prices for short trips were perfectly reasonable, but parking > 24 hours starts to add up: https://www.aeroportducastellet.com/docs/price-list-en.pdf (compare the “GA package” (up to 24hrs) to the separate “parking fees” section)
Lack of space on the apron?
I don’t think so. It just belongs to the Circuit Paul Ricard HTTT and often receive Racing teams. So they are used to welcome jets and policy is to get the most of it.
If you like the “small airfield” flavor, you may try Vinon (LFNF), it’s lovely and full of gliders, UL and experimental, is cheap and welcome planes (550 hard runway, but a lot more in grass).
But again, it’s far from everything (except the atomic research center of Cadarache and the ITER reactor – in work since ages). You push a little bit north-east and you have some scenic place to fly over (lac de Sainte Croix, Alpes, …)
The apron has space for 5 fly-ins and an air expo at once. That can’t be it. I also expected higher fees for my trip based on their website but once I was on the ground a lot seemed to be “OK” or “no problem” despite the mandatory “oh la la” and “hmm” upfront. Probably not very predictable, absolutely an acquired taste and probably works best if you speak French. But that’s what I paid – the landing alone should have been more going by their price list.
As a matter of fact, there are quite a lot of French airfields that charge approx. 40€ per 24 hours for an SEP. It does get pricy after a few days, so yes, when you intend to stay for a week or two, it does make sense to do some due diligence on parking fees beforehand.
you may try Vinon (LFNF), it’s lovely and full of gliders
LFNF terrifies me. It’s a VERY busy glider field. It also has more distinct runways than I can count up to, all but one of them grass. Just to make it more fun, it has a prohibited zone in the traffic pattern (obviously not literally, but if you don’t pay attention while you’re in the pattern you can easily end up there).
Drifting a bit about Vinon, there is a good restaurant and whole lot of very french stuff about aviation: a mix of UL/gliders/experimental and RC, flavored by Prohibited next to it and military not far. A lovely playground.
And the 4 runways.
but to simplify:
R28/10 is usually taken by locals and visitor, as dominant is usually west or eastbound. Pattern is south of it, so really on the P10 border (and gendarms do watches you :D). the 550m concrete band (now with a DTHR) is a good place if you want to learn short landings, as it’s followed by grass runway – only on R28, because at the end of R10, there an hole!
When weather is cloudy, it’s more the R20 or 16 (but 20 is longer).
When it’s sunny and convective, you probably have a lot of gliders around (plus the tractor that doesn’t really care of you, he will TO on 02 and land on 20 or 16.
boscomantico wrote:
AFAIK, Fréjus LF8352 has never allowed any non-ULM in. And even ULMs (based elsewhere) often get denied permission.
Correct, I’ve tried several times without success
I’m based out of LFNF Vinon and have flown into most of the mentioned airfields. Looks like you’ve got most airfields covered by others in the thread already, but a few extra things…
restricted airspaces down here are most often inactive
Depends. R138 is ALWAYS active (I’ve heard that it is very occasionally inactive, maybe Xmas day or something).
R95 (and all of its sub-spaces) is always active during the working week. But if you call them on 122.2 they will just about always let you in, just tell them where you want to enter and exit and an altitude. They speak English and French. Entry and exit should use named points, which (I think) SkyDemon will show you (e.g. enter at PL, leave at DG).
At the other extreme R196 (huge) is “active by NOTAM” – I have only ever seen it active once, and that was only at night for two days.
