Originally Posted by RoyHudd
Cracking country for wine, women, countryside and cuisine.
Sadly France is 3rd world for aviation.
The bad experiences of French ATC are many, during my aviation career. For example, I formerly worked for Streamline, and once found myself vectored onto final approach at CDG, despite the Flight Plan giving Le Bourget as our destination. With no other traffic in the sky, so no big risk. But the attitude of the CDG controller was that no blame could be attached to himself, once I convinced him that our headings were obviously in error.
Originally Posted by Ignition Override
Several years ago our 100-seat jet was mysteriosly vectored to final approach at Hurlburt AFB, instead of Eglin AFB (VPS, with Fort Walton Beach terminal), by Pensacola Approach Control. THe north/south runways have the same alignment. There are several military bases in the area, but civilian traffic goes to just one AFB. We had numerous small deviations around some smaller cloud build-ups.
Luckily the layouts/ramp parking areas of these two bases are opposite.
Well it's nice to see that nobody's perfect even the mighty US Air Force...
EHHHMMM, or should I say that this proves without a doubt that The USA are a third world country for aviation ???Let me think
Originally Posted by RoyHudd
Recent experiences with French ATC make me beware of their non-professionalism, and most importantly, the prevalent attitude of avoiding responsibility. Near-miss with 2 military jets in formation over the Bay of Biscay being the latest dangerous incident. No agreement to report the episode, simply a nonchalant attitude that the military 2-ship had "probably forgotten to utilise their transponders." Very sad.
I despair.
First, the way to have the controller to report this is very simple just say Airprox, but maybe you were too busy to bother with all the paper stuff ?
Second, if you're fluent in french perhaps you should take a look at the "RCA4compatibilité CAM/CAG" and you'll probably realize that filing an airprox with military jets probably would make you feel better but that's pretty much it... And there's no need for the controller to try and avoid responsability as when not in contact in controlled airspace the responsability is on the military side...