You’re just wanting to visit the nougat quarry (this is just north of Montelimar).
Indeed, love nougat!
Count me in but let’s not forget the most important ingredient for a successful fly in location is a willing and capable organizer…and that seems to point to LFMD.
I understand access via the aeroclub is not so cumbersome as the VIP terminal , if not for an international flight, can that be used for a Saturday local flight?
Since there will be lots of us around, pushing the aircraft onto and out of grass should not be so difficult, you don’t need to taxi over it. Last, if essential, a couple of hard parking slots can be secured for a price.
I’ve asked the airport about hard parking. We’ll see.
Access will be via the main security gate (PARIF). It’s only a short walk from the grass parking. If you tell them you’re from outside France, even Schengen, they will most likely send you to the police at the back door of the main terminal. There’s no communication between ATC and security, just saying. (That’s the PIF/PAF/PARIF of my message a few days ago). To get back in you just need to show them (any) pilot’s license.
I’m also interested to come.
I’d love to come as well, but I don’t know yet if I can make it on a particular weekend in April, whichever gets picked. I will probably take a few days off and go skiing with the family between Easter and the May 1st “long weekend”. So Apr 12-13 or May 10-11, outside of this window, would work best for me. But if it’s going to be another date, I’ll be trying hard anyway to schedule things so that I can come.
I met with the lady responsible for all this stuff this afternoon.
- weekend of 26/27 April should be fine – there’s nothing major going on in or around Cannes that weekend
- the sooner we can get numbers, the better. Once visitor parking is full, the airport gets NOTAM’ed “no visitors” and that’s that (I’ve never seen this happen, but it would if 40 visitors suddenly showed up)
- there are 25-30 visitor spaces on the grass, and a tiny handful of hard spots
- if you absolutely must have hard parking, you can go through the handler (don’t yet have their info). It is €54 + VAT, and they probably have a parking charge as well.
tiny handful of hard spots
These pics from 2017 show there is enough tarmac to park hundreds of GA planes:
We are talking about the same airport? Cannes LFMD.
Yes of course. But the 1rst 2 pictures shows the Tango parking, where planes are parked temporarily to get drained of passengers, and then moved to Park NE / H14+16 by the FBO, at a price tag for jet-owners.
The last picture is taken near the HS3 point of the vac chart, and shows beginning of Parking L (facing H4) and M (grass, just behind), then Golf (ahead of M). You can definitely park on L when arriving, to my knowledge, but parking L is usually occupied by private owners, you “may find” some places facing H4/5/6 but nothing ensured. H7 is a no-go as there are planes from Cannes-Aviation air school moving all the day.
Parking E is in front of aeroclub hangars, but there will be close to no place available and moving traffic all day. I would say no-go as well.
Parking A in front of A3 of R17 is easy as hell (but grass), near avgas and close to the runway, and is usually occupied by club planes during the day, but sometimes ground ATC places some planes here, very easy because it’s close to terminal, 8 places, but only half available during the day, at best.
To sum-up:
Grass Park: M and then Golf if no place, or A if there are available places.
Concrete: L in front of H4/5/6 if places available. In front of H4 is the best because close to terminal or even close to pilot-reserved entrance (“parif”).
In front of H4 is the best
Speaking as a regular user of H5 – do NOT park in these H spaces. They are in constant use by the owners/users of the hangers, and just because a space is free now doesn’t mean there isn’t someone planning to use it ten minutes or two hours from now. At the very least you will make someone very cross. You may also fnd your plane has been moved somewhere, for example to the graveyard beside the southern end of the runway.
Visitor parking for <2T is M (grass). For >2T, or if you don’t want to park on grass, then request handling where, for a fee, they will put you somewhere on hard-top.
Been there before but would definitely be interested…..
