Your story of the approach to Tours rings some bells from a trip we did to Barcelona a few years ago, where Tours was our first fuel-stop.
dublinpilot says:
I'm curious about the "Report point E" termonology.
This is common at a lot of French (and some other European) airfields, particularly the larger ones. "E" would be said as "Echo" and would typically indicate a point to the East, W Whiskey West, November-Whiskey northwest etc. At Tours they seemed to have dozens of the things... from memory e.g. NA being like NE but further out for example (I don't have the plate to hand). The idea is that it enables controller to clearly/easily direct VFR traffic to approach via known locations.
At Tours they have a lot of MIL training (I believe it is in fact a civil field but that certain early jet training is done there under contract). Loads of "Alpha Jet" activity. On the day that we arrived, we approached via (say) NE, expectyeing to simply be given a right base join or something - but we were directed first to N then NW then NC (or whatever - guessing now!) then W, S, etc etc. Much shuffling of paper in the front seats looking for these points which, as Whirly says, don't always seem to correspond with geographically notable spots (at least not at first glance when at low level). At the same time we were being told to remain at 1100', which confused us as this was low versus the terrain... controllers accents were also confusing us... eventually we realised it was 1100' on the "Fox Echo" (QFE)... All of a sudden, after being again asked to confirm we were definitely at 1100', we were told "standby for Alpha Jet formation to pass overhead 1500'" i.e. just a few hundred feet above! IT was a great view, and suddenyl we understood why we were being vectored all around the houses!
Since then I've always paid more attention to the VFR reporting points near large French airfields and anticipate that I may be asked to track to/from any of these. The system works well, and is easy once you know about it - it's just a bit different to what happens around here so something of a surprise the first time
Andy
