1. Exactly what documents need to be carried onboard and which of these must be the originals? I will be flying a G-reg Cessna 172 VFR. Everywhere I read I seem to find slightly varying answers.
Hi,
You can find the answer to your 1st point here (if you can read French):
Détail d'un texte
This Order about civil aircraft using is applicable to any civil aircraft flying in French airspace. You may want to check the equivalent UK regulation for additional G-reg specific requirements. For example this Order specify that a F-reg aircraft flying in foreign airspace must carry a document describing the international interception procedure.
The relevant point is in paragraph 6.1. Actually for your flight the concerned documents are those (I believe all of these must be original, not copies):
- the aircraft flight manual;
- the weight & balance sheet;
- the FPL if you filed one;
- the appropriate charts for your trip;
- the registration certificate;
- the airworthiness certificate;
- the noise limitation certificate (if applicable);
- the radio equipment licence;
- your licence and logbook;
- the aircraft's logbook.
(Actually the aircraft's logbook is not always mandatory for F-reg aircrafts inside French airspace but there is some subtleties here and I won't enter details.)
This is a hand-made translation so they don't necessarly match the correct names in english. As TractorBoy pointed, all the aircraft documents are likely to be stored in the same folder.
Also, your aircraft must be equipped with a PLB or an ELT. Which will be the case anyway as you will fly over the Channel.
Of course I'm not an accredited translator so you can't hold me responsible for any consequence etc.
Also I just created a new thread about some French regulation points which seem to be not largely known (or to put it simply: don't do a final approach on an airfield without ATS)
Hope it helped you!