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VFR France for Dummies (me in this case)

Mooney_Driver wrote:

If you feel uncomfortable talking, then stay with airports which have English RT, at least to start out with.

Absolutely, that’s what I feel inclined to do, to be honest. Many thanks for your suggestions for airfields. They are much appreciated!

Peter wrote:

Valentine’s day was officially terminated, by the EuroGA “old fart council”, 9 years ago

The day I first met my wife, we both made it clear that the 14th Fev would never be celebrated, so I’m in Peter :)

EGSU, United Kingdom

Fernando – go for it.

I am a UK based pilot now, but did trained and got my PPL in Switzerland 20 years ago. I started flying in and around France very early on and loved it.

There are loads of small airfields in France, eerily quiet most of the time.

Just get your ass over there and start flying place to place. For the first few places pick them for ease of airspace for the cross country routing and for nice quiet airfields at the end of the flights. Speak English with Enroute ATS – if you try French they will come back and overwhelm you with unintelligible high speed French, so just speak English.

At the destinations, pick quiet ones to start and announce in English. Most of the time someone will try to help you provided you act humble, and only in extremis break out your few french phrases as noted a few posts back, and they can be further simplified:

Staying in French provincial towns is always an experience – hotels often suck unless you find a cheap chain one – Ibis, Kyriad, F1 etc. – but un steak frites and un demi de rouge and all will be well.

Go have fun.

Upper Harford private strip UK, near EGBJ, United Kingdom

Just get your ass over there and start flying place to place

Straight from the horse mouth

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

johnh wrote:

Bonjour de G-XXXX. Nous sommes un en provenance de a nnnn pieds au <nord/sud/whatever> du terrain pour un aterissage piste .

(name of airfield) G-XXXX bonjour. Un (airplane type) approchant du (direction) à (altitude) pieds pour un complet.

IMO also important “going around” is “remise dez gaz”. And after leaving the runway:

G-XXXX piste dégagée

Before entering runway for departure:

G-XXXX je pénètre piste NN

or

G-XXXX je m’aligne piste NN

and for takeoff

G-XXXX décollage piste NN

johnh wrote:

De G-XXXX vent arriere [downwind] main gauche/droite piste

G-XXXX vent arrière main gauche/droite piste NN.

Note that while in English one says “runway one three” with digits, in French it is “piste treize” as whole number. When using digits, one is “unité”, not “un”.

ELLX

@Fernando, yours to judge. If your wife is not microphone-shy and can reasonably well speak on the radio, you can use https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/manuel_phras%C3%A9ologie.pdf for her to learn basic phraseology and you could be good to go in practice (as opposed to in theory/rules).

Just don’t scare her with that big PDF, extract the few pages that are relevant, and from these pages the few phrases that are relevant and show her only those :)

ELLX

G-XXXX piste dégagée

and not, as I once said without thinking, “F-XXXX sorti de la piste” (which would mean leaving it where you shouldn’t).

Incidentally the forum ate all the text I put in angle brackets, which explains some gaps that shouldn’t be there.

LFMD, France

lionel wrote:

Just don’t scare her with that big PDF, extract the few pages that are relevant, and from these pages the few phrases that are relevant and show her only those :)

It´s an excellent PDF but a huge overkill for VFR. It would be nice if there was one which gives the VFR specific stuff, or did I miss a chapter in that PDF?

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

johnh wrote:

Incidentally the forum ate all the text I put in angle brackets

type &gt; for > and and &lt; for <

Last Edited by lionel at 08 Feb 21:11
ELLX

The OP is in the UK and unless he spends some days flying around France, he won’t need to speak any French when airborne, because practically all French airports which can be flown to from the UK need to be customs+immigration capable and these will have English speaking ATC (or AFIS). Same before brexit; it was immigration only then but for France there is no practical difference.

IME, where French is needed tends to be on the ground, on e.g. fuel pumps, card machines, etc. There is no requirement for any ground staff to speak a word of English, at any international airport. Sometimes this leads to completely comical situations. But nowadays one can translate with a phone… which tends to not work with machines.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I am on the same boat (sorry plane ) as @Fernando and would love to join the Tuesday session.

United Kingdom
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