EGLM to St Cry (LFPZ) Paris - help and experience sought

[nick ritter]

Hi

I would be most grateful for any advice and experience on my proposed trip from EGLM to St Cyr (LFPZ) this coming weekend

My understanding is that St Cyr hasn’t got customs, so I need to stop en route for this as I enter France

I was planning on stopping at Dieppe on the grounds that it appears en route and has a VOR to track etc as I cross the channel

From Dieppe I was going to fly almost direct to St Cyr coming down to stay below the 1500 controlled airspace as I approached Paris

I am planning to return from St Cyr later in the afternoon back to EGLM

Do I need to stop off on the way home, at an airport like Dieppe to clear customs before returning to the UK? Or can I go direct from St Cry back to EGLM?

And then with the flight plan – do I just file EGLM to LFAB for the trip out? And then on the way home LFPZ to EGLM? Or if I need to stop just off at a customs airfield from say LFAB to EGLM?

If anyone has made the trip recently into St Cyr – I would love to here any advice or experience that you might be willing to share

Thank you in advance – Nick

Edited to correct spelling

[neilgeddes]

I don't think Dieppe has on-site customs. Check the French AIP entry. You'll need to clear elsewhere such as Le Touq, Calais, Deauville. Have fun!

[Jan Olieslagers]

According to navigeo.fr, customs upon prior request.
Infos douane : PREAVIS 2H00 PENDANT HOR AFIS OU DERNIER JOUR OUVRABLE AVT 1500UTC TEL: 33 (0)2 35 84 14 40
and that is confirmed in the "Carte VAC":
9 - Douanes, Police / Customs, Police : HOR AFIS : PN 2 HR 02 35 84 14 40
En dehors HOR AFIS : PN 24 HR ou dernier jour ouvrable avant 1500. Outside HOR AFIS : PN 24 HR or last opening day before 1500. "opening day" better translates as "working day", I reckon.

Be warned that officially Dieppe R/T is in French only - but the same applies for LFAT Le Touquet and LFAC Calais, and I heard quite good English from both towers recently.

As for the flight plan: I hope you are aware there exists no such thing as a multiple-leg-flightplan. If your flight consists of three legs, then you'll have to file three flight plans; except for those legs that do not cross FIR boundaries, and are entirely outside controlled airspace.

[Legalapproach]

Over an hour and a half and no Pprune pedants yet so I'll do it.

Do you mean St Cyr?
:ok:

[Jan Olieslagers]

Ah! I must admit I was at the point of asking the ICAO code for this nebulous St Cry - luckily for me not all pedants have quit pprune.
And at a second glance the ICAO was there all the while, no need even for pedancy really.

[patowalker]

Normally, you can use English at Dieppe. Don't know when you are planning to fly there, but you might be interested in the message below from Gerard Stephan, the AFIS officer.

From: Direction aeroport <direction@...>
Subject: Re: Arrivals Friday 7 October
To: xxxxxx

Date: Saturday, 10 September, 2011, 9:45

Mr xxxxxx, Bonjour.
Unfortunately, I will be not in Dieppe, on 7th Oct.
The tower will be closed from the 5th to the end of october.
But, if you decide to visit Dieppe on 7th oct. it would be better to send me a mail at least the 4th before noon.
The details I need are followings:
Type and registration
name of captain
POB
Date and ETA Dieppe/ Departure field
Date and ETD Dieppe / Destination field
The only problemwill be to refuel if nobody is in the aeroclub.
Best Regards
Gérard STEPHAN


You also have to leave France from a Customs airfield, so cannot fly direct from St Cyr to the UK.

[Johnm]

For your trip I'd clear customs at Caen or Rouen if Dieppe is difficult. Caen require notice by 1700 on the previous working day, Rouen 6 hours notice, so similar in practice.

You need to clear customs both ways in my experience that will imply landing, paying a small landing fee and taking off again!

You need to file a flight from EGLM to your customs field and vice versa but you don't need a flight plan for VFR flight within France.

[Fuji Abound]

I would go to L2K if I was you - and you can track the VOR and then the coast if you wish.

You will have some class D around Beauvais and Pontoise to negotiate - in my experience both give an excellent service and there is no need to fly below 1,500 feet as almost certainly you will get whatever clearance you request.

Otherwise it is straight forward; hope you have a great trip.

(PS Rouen is fine if you dont mind the longer crossing and depending where you are coming from - sadly there is nothing there these days - use to be one of the best resteraunts at any airport in France :uhoh:)

[dublinpilot]

Be warned that officially Dieppe R/T is in French only - but the same applies for LFAT Le Touquet and LFAC Calais, and I heard quite good English from both towers recently.

Jan,

I was quite surprised by your comment, so went and checked the AIP for each of these airfields. None of them are French only while air traffic services are being provided (all have some form of air traffic service).

However like all French airfields (at least I think all) once air traffic is closed, it reverts to air to air which is French only.

I do accept that this can happen without warning and during periods when ATC should be on duty, so a pilot should obviously be ready to self announce in French if necessary.

dp

[Fuji Abound]

Dp

I have almost never heard French only at these airports (other than in the circumstances you state) and I have been going there for 20 odd years. In fact their Franglais is usually very good.

[Jan Olieslagers]

DublinPilot, you are absolutely right, I was over hasty when interpreting AFIS : 119.0 - Absence ATS : A/A (119.0) FR seulement/only.

[IO540]

In Europe, every airport capable of accepting international flights (usually this is evident from "Customs" being available) will have English (*) speaking ATC - at least during the hours when Customs is available.

(*) may be poor English but that's life :)

However, there is no requirement for any ground personnel to speak English. I remember this at a few places... Bastia/Corsica, Zaragoza... At Zaragoza even the tourist info desk could not speak English; no doubt they are another Spanish wheeze on100k euros/year. Worst-case, it can literally take an hour to even find the office where you pay for the landing, though this is very unusual.

And if an airport is not international then you do need to speak the local language if you want to fly there. At many, they do speak English. but they don't have to.

Also, in general, if an airport has an instrument approach, you are likely to have English speaking ATC anyway.

[derekl29]

I recently flew from the UK over to Persan near Paris, my first cross channel flight.

We filed the flightplan from the UK to Pontoise to clear customs. Once in radio contact with them we asked if there were any customs on site (I understand there quite often isnt). As it happened customs werent there, so we were able to request a touch and go there, and once airborne again we closed the flightplan. No need to do a full stop landing unless customs were there.

The R/T was all in English, handed over from London Information to Paris information mid channel and we stayed with them until close to Pontoise where we called up Pontoise approach, also a fairly easy place to spot as well.

The only thing to watch out was just having to stay below the class D, from memory at 1,500 ft around a lot of Paris.

On the way back, having stopped elsewhere in France, we landed at Deauville to file the flight plan for the trip back to the UK, as it was after 5pm on a Sunday we couldnt get the code for their free wifi to file the flight plan electronically but there is a phone there to dictate the flightplan over the phone (they say give 30 mins notice) but by the time we'd done the pre flight checks and called the tower up to request taxi, they already had the flight plan. Again, their English was fine, and we went straight from them to Paris Information, London Information and then onto Farnborough radar.

[patowalker]

In Europe, every airport capable of accepting international flights (usually this is evident from "Customs" being available) will have English (*) speaking ATC - at least during the hours when Customs is available.

Not quite. Abbeville LFOI doesn't even have AFIS, just A/A in FR only on 123.5.

[Jan Olieslagers]

A/A in FR only on 123.5. which frequency is more or less the French equivalent for what they call Unicom across the pond?

[IO540]

Not quite. Abbeville LFOI doesn't even have AFIS, just A/A in FR only on 123.5.

I have no personal experience of LFOI but I think this has come up before and I think you will find LFOI is English during Customs hours and "potentially non English" outside Customs hours.

I cannot imagine them having Customs and not speaking English.

[Fuji Abound]

They spoke English when I was there last.

[patowalker]

I can assure you there is no Abbeville radio and English is only heard on auto-info 123.5 when monolingual Brits are on frequency. This sometimes elicits a response by a bi-lingual local pilot.

Abbeville is a favourite entry port with UK microlight and VLA pilots because it is a user-friendly place.

[Jodelman]

In Europe, every airport capable of accepting international flights (usually this is evident from "Customs" being available) will have English (*) speaking ATC - at least during the hours when Customs is available.

What about Amiens - customs airfield but FISO in French only and they will tell you so in no uncertain terms if you try to speak English.

[IO540]

They must have some "interesting moments" with foreign flights.

It is not AFAIK a breach of ICAO (because ICAO lists several languages as usable) but is de facto a breach of international practice for Europe and the USA.

Maybe the locals use it for non Schengen departures, mainly?

[patowalker]

French rules state that English can used, except where where an indication to the contrary is published by AIS. The Amiens plate indicates FR only. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.