Flight to Corsica

[Roundouthigh]

I am flying down to Corsica, in a PA 28, in a weeks time via Dijon, Cannes and then onto Bastia. If anybody has stopped off at any of these airports and has any comments or suggestions they would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance and safe flying.:)

[Three Wheeler]

Last trip I did to that part of the world a couple of years ago was to Corsica via Dijon and Cannes. My last experience of Dijon was they are not the most helpful controllers in the world (Civil/Military field) and I seem to remeber its an automatic responder on the approach freq. at weekends- probably worth a call in advance to see what the current state of play is. If you are stopping the night in Cannes there's a Campanile hotel in the entrance drive to the airport which isn't at all bad, pool, pleasant outdoor restaurant, used to be about £38/night for a double, don't think the cab was to expensive to the town centre. I went to Ajaccio the last time, but routing across is pretty similar, IE via MERLU, make sure you've got an up to date plate for the low level VFR routes/VRP's around Cannes/Nice as they'll get shirty if you don't know where they're talking about. If you've got time on Corsica, get a car and drive to Corte in the middle of the island, its the old capital and is worth a visit.....have fun.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

You must have the chart that has the lat. and long. for the VFR reporting points.

Enter them in your GPS before you do anything else as the French are adamant about you going to these points.

You will find the airspace for VFR in all of France to be quite restricted. However once you have the reporting points and altitudes for transiting, especially in southern France it is no problem flying there.

Ajacio is great, especially for visiting pilots.

And of course the food in France is world class.

Cat Driver:
..................
:D The hardest thing about flying is knowing when to say no.:D

[DFC]

France has some of the least restricted airspace for VFR flight in Europe.

The airways are class E up to FL115 so my recomendation based on experience is to stay VMC and get as high as possible......keeps you out of the low level military areas.

If I was doing that route again, I would do Le Touquet, Lyon Bron and then Bastia. How direct a route towards NIZ area is up to the weather and MSA.

DFC

[VORTIME]

flew into Cannes last year, just keep well away from Nice and you'll be fine. Stop in Albenga if you get a chance, Aero Club Savona are based there.Once there, beautiful places to go include Alassio and Porto Fino(?) .

[VORTIME]

actually, I'm just back from this region. Had a week of solid haze, vis rarely better than 3km in a col. Seems to be quite normal this time of year (8th time there!!), temp a lovely 30C. The southern riveria is very mountainous and sometimes difficult to see in the haze...

[carb]

I'll be down in Nice for a few days in August. What chance of renting a C172 or Pa28 at Cannes for a couple hours of flying? How are the costs... and language problems?

Found some relevant flight school websites but couldn't make any sense of it, I learnt German instead of French at school!