All a bit long winded on the RT sometimes in France but they more than make up for it by giving nice long direct routings which cut the RT load right back down again. Generally enroute ATC in France is pretty easy and relaxed, TMA is a different matter!.

Makosa: Thanks for the confirmation! I hope they change this requirement soon.


Ziggy: Yep, I've noticed that as well!


Yes, very strange phraseology. :ugh:

There is one more thing that is strange in french airspace. I regularly get a radar heading of 25 degrees (or more!) off track for traffic separation, and this for quite a long time. In the rest of Europe I hardly ever get vectored more then 10 deg. off track. I recently visited Maastricht ATC, and one of the controllers told me that he'd been told during training that if he had to make an A/C turn by more then 10, he had probably made a mistake earlier. Does that mean that french ATC make a lot of mistakes, or do they simply have different working methods and procedures?

PS: It is certainly not my intention to pick on french ATC. As Max Angle said: Amen to that.

Depends on the geometry of the airspace and the confliction. That said, if any 'instructor' is limiting his trainees to turns of only 10 degrees, he's painting himself and his trainee in to a corner.

Well concerning 10 or 25+ degrees turns, I guess it all depends on the sectorization, the conflicting points, and the traffic flows.

We are told not too turn planes more than 30° unless for a quick avoiding action.

Moreover if you want to turn a plane just 10° to resolve a conflict, you have to do that well well in advance, and our sectors (I speak for Paris ACC) are maybe smaller than in the rest of Europe (due to the high traffic volume).

Makosa said

Interestingly JAR Ops 1 Subpart P 1.040 presribes the use of English in Ops Manuals unless national law states otherwise.