Flying and living in France
I moved to the Limousin area in October 2002 with the dream of working as a Flying Instructor in France and enjoying the beautiful countryside from the backs of my beloved horses.
As an experienced UK pilot, I mistakenly believed that everyone in the French aviation world would speak English as a consequence of the recently-introduced Joint Aviation Requirements (JAR)
My house-hunting criteria included an airfield within reasonable commuting distance and I was lucky enough to find a property with two in the local area.
The first was the Limoges International airport (Bellegarde) which was in class D airspace with regular Air France and Buzz (now replaced by Ryanair) services.
The airport also supported two aero clubs so I arrived full of enthusiasm to investigate the possibility of teaching at one of them.
As the first club was closed, I moved on to the Aéro-club de Limoges where a very friendly instructor, who spoke a little English, informed me that all tuition was done in French which was an unforeseen hurdle as I had taken the “cooking” option rather than French at school.
I then investigated St Junien which is an “uncontrolled” airfield with a 600 metre tarmac runway and a very active aero-club.
In common with many small French airfields, they use a ‘Unicom’ radio frequency where pilots advise each other of their intentions and pass on airfield information, as required.
Although the friendly club President immediately took me flying to view the local area, it was unfortunately the case that all training and the radio calls were done in French which made me realise that I needed to learn the language if I were ever going to teach flying in France—so much for the idea that “English was the international language of aviation”.
For the next few months, I immersed myself in the renovation of my new home when, out of the blue, I received a lunch invitation from the President of the Aéro-club de Limoges who was keen to expand club membership and wanted to discuss the possibility of my teaching English-speaking students.
I subsequently commenced my teaching career at Limoges, much to the chagrin of the control tower whose excellent English (usually spoken to international flights) did not really extend to calls for glide approaches and other manoeuvres not normally executed by Ryanair!
As I began to make progress with my first pupils, I was perplexed by the issue of ground examinations whose papers were only in French.
I therefore contacted the Civil Aviation Authority who were extremely helpful and advised me that I must register as a British JAR facility which would enable my pupils to take the English papers.
To cut a long and boring part of the story short, I eventually gained permission from the DGAC (French equivalent of the CAA) to conduct training in English for the issue of a JAR PPL.
This would not have been achieved without the assistance of the CAA policy department and the tremendous help of AOPA’s Pam Campbell who brought-up my issue at every meeting of the JAR council over a 2½ year period.
In this connection, I would like to thank Monsieur Mesure of the DGAC and everybody at the Aéro-club de Limoges who gave me their tireless support in resolving this problem.
So now, after five years of flying in France, I am hoping to smooth the way for all English-speaking students and pilots who wish to fly over here.
The most important thing to know is that all of the large ‘controlled’ airports have English speaking controllers.
At weekends, public holidays and (occasionally) lunchtimes, some of the smaller airports may close the service and revert to French-only air-to-air communication on the tower frequency.
The ATIS frequency usually informs you of the current status.
However, throughout the country and at all times, there is a first class radar-based Flight Information Service with very helpful English-speaking controllers.
In the absence of a reply from your chosen airport, just go to nearest large FIS (Paris, Nantes Bordeaux Toulouse etc) who will help and advise you.
Any change of regular airport opening hours is usually advised in NOTAMS.
Although you may generally transit class D airspace, remember to give plenty of advance warning as controllers may be busy with commercial traffic.
Never enter class D airspace with radio failure, even if it is your home airfield.
If you have already received landing instructions when radio failure occurs, you may continue but always change to transponder code 7600.
I have always found the French controllers to be very courteous and helpful.
For example, I was returning to Limoges from Quiberon and experiencing strong headwinds giving rise to concern about my fuel state.
I contacted Nantes flight information who telephoned several airfields to discover that I would be unable to refuel en route and suggested that I return to Nantes where they vectored me in and switched on the runway lights as conditions were poor.
They even waived the landing fee on that occasion.
On the French charts, there are many restricted military areas and corridors which are usually active on weekdays and unrestricted during weekends/public holidays—if in any doubt, always check with the local controller.
French landing fees are much lower than in the UK and the smaller airfields do not usually charge at all.
At the very busy Toulouse Blagnac airport (home of the Airbus), I was charged 10 euros with as much free coffee as I could drink!!!
One last word on the French people themselves who are always friendly and very helpful.
Many times, when arriving at an airfield around lunchtime, I have been offered recommendations on the best eating places and have often been given a lift to the restaurant of my choice.
