On French airfield charts, you may be puzzled to see the radio frequency marked as A/A or Auto-Info meaning that the airfield is ‘uncontrolled’ with all communication being air-to-air between the pilots operating in the local area.
This generally applies to small airfields without a control tower though many larger airfields revert to being uncontrolled outside of normal operating hours or when the controllers have pressing alternative commitments such as lunch.
Under these circumstances, you, as the pilot, must announce your intentions over the radio and, with luck, another pilot will respond with the relevant airfield information.
It is important to appreciate that many small airfields use the common frequency of 123.5 MHz (130.0 MHz in mountain areas) so it is vital, in these cases, to prefix radio calls with the name of the airfield that you are addressing.
When approaching an uncontrolled airfield, normal practice is to announce your time of arrival in advance and then fly overhead the runway at 1500’ agl to establish the runway in use from the windsock or from other aircraft operating in the circuit.
While there are no standard circuit procedures for French uncontrolled airfields, circuit directions and heights are generally marked on the airfield charts—at airfields supporting a range of aerial activity, there is likely to be separate information for powered aircraft (Avions), Gliders (Planeurs), Ultralights (ULM) and Aero-Model flying (AEM).
If no circuit height or direction is shown on the charts and there is no indication of these from other traffic, the convention is to fly the downwind leg at 1000' AAL and make turns to the left.
Note that some airfields (for example, Marmande) specify a ‘preferred’ runway which should be used unless there is a pressing reason for doing otherwise.
When waiting for departure, you should hold clear of the active runway, including any turnaround area, while other aircraft are landing.
Where no holding points are marked, the rules require aircraft to hold at least 30 metres clear of runways up to 1000 metres and 50 metres clear for runways >1000m.
Generally speaking, radio traffic at uncontrolled airfields is conducted in French.
Most small airfields have fuel available and a friendly helper to advise you on the location of coffee and other ‘facilities’.
If you smile and seem friendly, you will have no problems at all.
At larger airfields, such as La Rochelle, the ATIS frequency will provide the relevant airfield information and indicate whether the tower is closed (NB ATIS in French-only means that the airfield is presently uncontrolled).
To be clear, you can still land at a large airfield which is temporarily uncontrolled but you need to make the relevant radio calls.
If you have any doubts, contact your nearest large FIS (Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse etc) who will offer help and advice in English.
Although I have always found the French controllers polite and extremely helpful, they are busy people and it helps to keep your radio calls short and precise—they need to know your full call sign, aircraft type, departure airfield and destination.
If they need anything else, they will ask you—which is a blessing for UK pilots who are used to providing everything short of their inside leg measurement.
NB: Se also our article on French radio calls at uncontrolled airfileds.
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