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Stuart Morton writes:
I wanted to ask if there were any Francoflyers who have come across any training organisations in France that would be recommended.
I am thinking in particularly of post-PPL training?
Do you know if/when I get my UK PPL would I then be able to do the further ratings in France.
NB Stuart is a professional photographer, currently training for a UK-issued PPL at Limoges but lives in the South of France.
From the English side of the Channel the aviation scene in France appears idyllic, plenty of airfields in scenic locations, good facilities, moderate costs and all in uncrowded airspace blessed with good weather and French food and wine on tap.
Is this really flying heaven?
In comparison with the UK there are certainly many pluses. In France local aviation continues to receive financial and general community support to an extent which would be quite unthinkable in the UK. An airfield is viewed as an asset to the locality rather than a bloody nuisance.
Airfields here are not under threat from land-grabbing property developers as building land is plentiful and thus cheap. Many houses here are, in any event, self built on plots provided by the Commune with all services laid on. The French are individually practical and frugal although the same cannot be said of the French State.
Of course this is only one side of the story. There are some Cbs building. For some time the economic situation in France, particularly away from Paris, has been much worse than the French would ever admit. France is also subject to the same global factors as the rest of the world, which no amount of protectionism can stave off.
Sarko was elected because a high proportion of French people feel privately that some radical reforms will be necessary to continue to pay for the very good health service, state schools, roads, and railways which are all part of what makes France a civilised place to live.
Perhaps the biggest drain on the economy is the massive state bureaucracy. This employs one in three French workers. Not that Sarko is about to do a Thatcher as that would still be political suicide in France but I suspect a little more economic realism and belt-tightening is on the way. This will probably mean less support for minority activities like flying.
At a less political level, and particularly outside Paris and the Public Sector, wages and salaries seem to be considerably lower than UK equivalents. The French are understandably concerned about the security of their jobs and pensions. Pilots are finding it harder to justify the costs of flying while domestic costs are rising even though club hire rates are probably only 66% of the UK average. In consequence, flying clubs are facing seriously reduced flying hours.
The Clubs are responding. The emphasis is already shifting from Group A to ULM’s for obvious economic reasons. Believe it or not French maintenance regimes for certified aircraft are even more complicated and expensive than in the UK and there is a shortage of qualified aero-engineers. In consequence most newcomers to aviation are flying three axis micro lights at the established aero clubs or weight shift at the increasingly numerous dedicated sites.
As a Brit retiring to France, I have been cushioned from the state of the French economy and the difficulties I have encountered have been more to do with my lack of understanding of ‘the French way’ than economics.
In the UK we have become used to a society dominated by commercial considerations, whereas France remains essentially a socialist society irrespective of the composition of the government of the day. A flying club in France is just that, a club. The majority are run on a ‘not for profit’ basis unlike the UK where flying schools tend to be normal businesses aiming to make a good profit. This sounds like it might be good news but hold on a minute! Things here can be difficult for a Brit to grasp at first and not just the language.
Even when standing in a half empty hangar you must not be surprised if questions as to the availability of hangarage are met with the shake of the head. It is easy to form the impression this is just plain obstruction or Gallic dislike of strangers, particularly foreign ones. Actually that is probably not the main reason. The constitution of the club as a not for profit organisation may well prevent it renting space to non-members.
So you have fallen into the first trap by asking the wrong question. The question should have been “ Is it at all possible to be considered for membership of this magnificent club which is clearly without parallel in France and thus the world” It seems that you must never ask directly for what you actually want and it is quite impossible to use too much flattery of the club, region and country in that order.
Not at all like the UK where all you have to do is slap your wad on the table and get your arm snatched off. Nothing so vulgar in France. There are rituals and customs to be observed and due respect to be humbly offered. You are expected to know how to approach these things and, if not, well you are obviously not membership material. (Now I come to think about it, just like Jackrells!)
Again there are parallels with the way French society in general operates. In front of the vast seemingly-impenetrable wall of French bureaucracy there is a person with the key to the back gate if you can just find them and persuade them you are worthy. For many important domestic issues this may well be the nice lady in the Mairie or equally the bloke fiddling with his plane in the hangar.
In my case I knew none of this, I was just plain lucky. On one of my pilgrimages to the usually-deserted local airfield I stumbled across Jean-Rene struggling alone to reunite his rebuilt Continental with his Jodel. Pitching in to help proved to be my salvation and Jean-Rene subsequently guided me through the minefield. He is a Breton and as such will always be, to an extent, a stranger here in central France. Having experienced difficulty himself, he was unusually sympathetic to my plight. Now we are firm friends,
Anyway you get the picture. Good game, not easy. If anyone is thinking about a move or is just interested in any particular aspect please contact me.
Richard Arkell
richardjuliaclub-internet.fr@club-internet.fr
In my case, the answer was “not a lot”—flying has always been an expensive business, the aircraft of successful clubs are rarely available at short notice and the club will usually insist that you undertake a ‘check ride’ if you haven’t flown for a while.
The upshot was that I flew sporadically for several years and then allowed my licence to lapse”—to get it back, I effectively completed the PPL course again (in about 18 hours) and was obliged to re-take the ground examinations.
For me, everything changed in 1986 when I was offered a one-sixth share in a Piper Cherokee 160 which had been operated on a ‘syndicate’ basis for many years—I wasn’t previously aware of aircraft syndicates though there are a quite a few operating in the UK.
Suddenly, I was able to fly whenever I wanted as the aircraft was hardly used in the week and any conflicts at the weekend were always resolved amicably—often, by the conflicted members flying together.
Taking the aircraft away for a few days was never an issue, even if I only put a few hours ‘on the clock’.
Being based at Redhill, the aircraft ‘knew it’s own way’ to Le Touquet and Deauville—try taking a busy club aircraft to France for the whole day for less than 2 hours-worth of billing.
In essence, I moved from flying little more than the bare minimum to maintain my licence (at the time, 5 hours every 13 months) to flying around 40 hours annually which is quite a lot for a Private Pilot.
I was also able to ‘park’ the aircraft at Southend for a couple of weeks while I completed my ‘IMC Rating’—I also completed the ’Night Rating’ over two evenings.
Of course, this sort of advanced training is a lot more effective in a familiar aircraft.
We had a ‘bit of a setback’ in September 1992 when the aircraft suffered an engine failure on final approach to Redhill at night—probably due to ‘carburettor icing’ which was a common problem with Lycoming engines.
With traditional courage and 'true grit', the pilot wrestled with the controls to steer the aircraft away from the M23 which was only half-a-mile away.
Fortunately, nobody was hurt and the insurance paid-out quickly so the group purchased a rare Fuji FA200-160—there were just 14 Fuji aircraft on the UK register at the time.
Although similar in performance to the Cherokee, the Fuji was stressed for basic aerobatics—with front-seat occupants only and within certain weight limits.
Additionally, you could batten-down all of your papers and fly with the canopy open—which never seemed terribly popular among non-pilots.
The Fuji gave us 11 years of good service though maintenance costs were mounting towards the end so we decided to disband the group and sold the aircraft to one of our engineering contacts who completely refurbished it.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the syndicate though there were some stressful periods, particularly when dealing with engineers—a definite case of, “you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them”.
Inevitably, members came and went with some ‘fitting-in’ better than others—after the Cherokee crash, the group seemed to become closer and members flew together more often.
It’s always good to fly with another pilot and share the duties—there was always some friendly banter over who flew the outward leg and got to drink wine with their lunch at Le Touquet.
Towards the end, I began to feel that I would like to fly something a bit more modern and ‘pokey’ so I was looking to move-on even before we decided to sell the aircraft.
Also, having run the administration (booking, accounts, log books, etc) for about 10 years, I was quite keen to fly an aircraft, pay the money and just walk away.
To some extent, I have achieved both objectives by flying with a club in France but I do miss the ability to drag the aircraft out and fly ‘on the spur of the moment’ when the weather looks nice.
I also miss my full involvement in the management of the group together with the fast, effective, considerate and democratic decision-making.
As far as I can see, flying syndicates are not so common in France but it would be good to hear from any who would like to make their presence felt.
Whatever the charging structure, the economics of a syndicate tend to depend on how much the aircraft is used.
Even if the aircraft never leaves the ground, costs such as hangarage, insurance and annual maintenance are incurred—you could postpone the annual maintenance or the Certificate of Airworthiness inspection (when due*) but you can’t fly without them.
* Maintenance requirements vary depending on the type of aircraft registration,
The principal advantage of group ownership is 'availability' rather than cost although significant savings can be made if the aircraft is flown frequently.
In our 7-strong syndicate (increased from 6), the economics worked well if the members flew at least 15-20 hours per year.
With those sort of numbers, there were few conflicts over availability.
On our Fuji Group Website, we addressed this issue as follows:
The Group have no direct interest in the value of Group shares which may be sold for whatever the buyer can get.
Although well-maintained aircraft do tend to hold their value, new members are essentially buying the right to fly this aircraft on the stated terms.
The Group is run for the benefit of active members and should not be regarded as a form of investment.
I would mention here that it is essential to have a good 'group agreement' so that every member is aware of their rights and obligations while also having clear title to their share in the aircraft and group assets.
I notice that an increasing number of UK syndicates do admit members without any capital outlay—presumably, the capital cost of the aircraft is recovered in the other charges or perhaps there is a ‘majority’ owner simply recouping some of the running costs.
As UK-registered aircraft in the ‘Private’ category cannot be operated on a ‘hire and reward’ basis, anybody paying to fly them must be a part-owner.
Nothing to stop syndicates registering their aircraft in the ‘Public Transport’ category but insurance costs are higher and maintenance requirements more stringent.
This was a discussion which dominated most of our semi-annual group meetings where these sort of decisions were made on a democratic basis.
In common with many syndicates, we charged a fixed ‘monthly fee’ which was kept as low as possible in the hope that we would make a profit on the ‘hourly rate’ to cover some of the larger annual bills such as insurance and maintenance.
The trouble was that some members flew less than a dozen hours a year which inevitably led to regular ‘whip-rounds’ to make-up the shortfall.
From speaking to other syndicate members, I found that most group aircraft were underused and experienced similar problems.
After a few years of operating the Fuji, we had a clear idea of the normal running costs and agreed to fix the monthly standing charge at a level which would cover all predictable costs.
We then charged for flying hours at the cost of fuel/oil which, at 2009 prices, would be about £50 per hour in the UK (it was only £30 in 2002)—I had previously measured fuel consumption accurately, over the first year of operation.
We had an account with Redhill Aerodrome but the cost of any fuel uploaded elsewhere by individual members would simply be deducted from their flying charges—an arrangement which my present French flying club would do well to adopt.
If travelling abroad, you can, of course, claim a fuel duty rebate which would significantly contribute towards the cost of a trip to Le Touquet—even better was a trip to the Channel Islands where you could claim the fuel duty rebate at the UK end and then fill-up with duty-free fuel when you got there.
The result of this change was that the ‘flyers’ were encouraged to do many more hours and the others sold their shares, without any great difficulty, to people attracted by the low flying rates.
The higher monthly charge worked better from the administrative point of view as the money was always there when the big bills came in.
It was also fairer for members joining or leaving the group—for example, you wouldn’t join to suddenly face a large maintenance bill or leave shortly after you had paid your share towards the annual insurance.
It would be interesting to learn how other groups structure their charges.
How many times have I said to my students the words "flying should be fun"?.
Flying is only fun when you are confident in yourself and your ability to fly your aircraft, when you receive your PPL this is the gateway to gaining a lifetime of experience and knowledge.Every time that you fly an aircraft you will learn something new from your flight.
During my time instructing in France, I have had numerous students who have arrived here with little or no confidence in themselves.This is due to many different things,personality, insensitive instructors, or just too many different instructors all with slightly different methods of teaching.The other factor which can cause the student disillusionment is that their lessons have been cancelled repeatedly owing to the weather or aircraft off line.They see other students improving and they are filled with self doubt why are they not moving forward more rapidly.
Every one learns at a different pace, some students solo in 7 hours but struggle with the navigation, others seem to take a long time before going solo but gallop through the rest of the course.
Gaining a PPL in 45 or 80 hours is down to numerous factors as mentioned above, the most important thing is that at the end of the training ,the student is a safe,confident pilot.
It is no good obtaining a quick PPL but being unable to have the confidence to fly to different airfields and perhaps try different types of aircraft.
It seems that learning to fly is rather like playing snakes and ladders, a student makes progress one week and gains a few rungs on the ladder only to slide down a snake a few weeks later.
Many instructors are excellent pilots,however they may not be good teachers, we all remember excelling in a subject at school because we were encouraged by a particular teacher.
I remember being near the top of the class in the subjects where the teachers were sympathetic and interesting however I just" switched off "when the teacher bored or frightened me.
My school reports were full of either "excellent" or "could do better "according to which teacher inspired me or not.
The same applies to training horses and dogs,"you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink". I won many races on inferior mounts by using a little horse psychology on jaded animals.
Horses and dogs respond to kind ,patient training just as humans do.
We all need structured training and each personality responds to slightly varied methods,some students are timid and some are bold therefore it would seem beneficial to teach each person differently according to their needs.
I was lucky to be instructed by a career instructor who not only imparted excellent knowledge in an understanding way,he took me out flying in very different weather conditions which gave me valuable experience on which I rely today.
Sadly,many instructors are en route to the airlines and are intent on building hours rather than imparting lifelong knowledge to their students.
I have heard dreadful tales of trial flights where the experience has turned out to be terrifying rather than fun because the instructor was showing off his aerobatic prowess.
These last two weeks I have had the pleasure to teach two members of the same family Charles (15 years old) and his new step mum Patsy. I was approached by Charless father some time ago.He asked me if I could start his sons PPL training during the summer holidays and help him to gain confidence in the aircraft as he was very nervous particularly in turbulence.( His father is a very experienced airline and ferry pilot with thousands of hours under his belt).
I commenced the first flight with Charles and tried to allay his fears by explaining that an aircraft in turbulence is similar to a boat on the water they are both riding the waves,one on the water (we can see the waves coming towards us) but the other one is on invisible waves of air.
I showed him how to trim the aircraft and to sit with his arms folded and to watch how the aircraft handled the turbulence and that his plane was not going to fall out of the sky.In fact after a couple of days of training he was too busy to notice any turbulence.
We are all scared of the unknown and we feel more relaxed when we are in control.
I am not happy in a car driven fast with someone else at the wheel !
Happily, Charlie went from strength to strength during in his two weeks of training (15 hours) his confidence grew daily,the dreaded stalls and the terrifying unusual attitudes caused several groans at first,however within a short time he said to me "this is fun" !
I would have happily sent Charles for his first solo towards the end of this week, however as he attained his 15th birthday during his training , he will have to wait for another year before he can write First Solo in his log book.
As mentioned in a previous article the FFA in France provide grants to aid young students gain their PPL http://www.francoflyers.org/2008/09/ffa-student-gra.html
Patsy and my other lady student Gwen were not afraid of turbulence, they were initially lacking in confidence in themselves, yesterday they had both "cracked the landings " and indeed we moved from the huge runway at Limoges( LFBL) to the tiny tarmac runway at Saint Junien (LFBJ) to practise short field take off and landings, always tricky with no wind, they both performed like professionals----- well done ladies!
Congratulations to Stine Angen from Trondheim,Norway who recently passed her PPL after only four weeks of training.
During that period of time she flew 45 hours of training and passed all her ground school subjects and skill test.
This was especially remarkable when you understand her initial introduction to flight training.
Four years ago Stine booked some lessons in Kissimee Florida,she was hoping to gain her PPL,sadly she had a difficult time there and after 30 hours of being "flown around" by an instructor ( she was never allowed to actually use the controls,the radio or to see a map).
She left the school in tears after being told by the president of the Aero club that "flying was not for her" and "as she was staying in a cheap hotel she may want to use her remaining money on a better hotel rather than wasting it on flying".
As one might expect this experience had caused her to lose confidence in herself,however she still had a burning ambition to fly, encouraged by her family,she decided to give it one more try,after her father had read of some of the success stories on the Franco Flyers blog.
After we had discussed her previous training, I related to her a similar story which had happened to me about ten years ago.
Twenty years ago I took my PPL and night rating followed by an FAA IR.After completing that training I had a burning desire to pass my commercial licence and to become an Instructor.
However, life is not always predictable and I subsequently went through a divorce which completely curtailed my ambition of working in aviation. In fact with four children to support I could only afford to fly enough hours each year to enable me to keep my licence valid.
Many years passed, then I had a serious horse accident, the subsequent injuries caused me to be unable to walk for three years.
Finally owing to my injuries, I had the time to study so I used this forced confinement to study the CPL by correspondence course, with the help of my original PPL instructor Phil Matthews( Cotswold Aero Club) who received many plea's from me by fax "help I do not understand this question".
After passing the 16 ground examinations ( the hardest work I had ever done in my life) I was ready to commence my training for the flying part of the CPL licence.
I arrived at the commercial school full of joy and enthusiasm, sadly this did not last as I became more and more nervous, it seemed that my instructor did not teach me,he expected me to know everything and just chastised me if things were not going to his plan.
After ten hours of "training" I had become a complete nervous wreck and I found that even the task of speaking normally on the radio ( which previously had never been a problem to me) was becoming a a nightmare I was not good enough to pass a PPL never mind a CPL.
I had lost confidence in myself.!
I was not making any progress at all, and after another disastrous lesson my instructor asked me to come into his office where he imparted the soul destroying words "you are wasting your time and money, you will never pass the CPL or become an instructor , why don't you just enjoy your PPL".
I am sure that my readers will understand the feeling of utter devastation that I felt upon hearing those words.
I returned to my PPL school in floods of tears and was informed by everyone in the club that they were supporting me and I could make it!
I cannot describe the feeling of depression that lasted for days after I had been dismissed from this school as I had thought of nothing else except obtaining this CPL licence for over three years.
However I am not someone who just gives up, life as an amateur steeplechase jockey had taught me that.
Luckily, I was introduced to Tizzie Hodson she was a CPL/IR instructor at Oxford Flight training (Gloucester ) who upon hearing my story told me "that there are no bad students only bad instructors."!
She suggested that we go for a flight together and afterwards if she felt that I was not good enough she would tell me the ugly truth about my flying skills and future prospects.
We took a Slingsby Firefly Aircraft ( which I had never flown previously) and she threw me around in various aerobatic manoeuvres (which I hated) then she turned the plane around several times and said "take me back to Gloucester". I had no trouble doing this and surprisingly I spoke on the radio without any problem,we arrived at the field and I touched down gently on the runway without any problems and at that moment I felt totally calm and positive, I was no longer a "bag of nerves".
Tizzie's words to me were " you are much better than most of my current students I will take you on"
I subsequently passed the CPL and the Instructor rating without any further problem.However I have never forgotten her words about bad instructors and I vowed that I would always give confidence to students no matter how difficult they found the task of learning to fly.
Within a very short time Stine was soon relaxed and happy and enjoying solo circuits at Limoges, followed by her qualifying cross country flight.I was so proud of her as she was improving and gaining confidence every single day.
She joined Matt and I on our flight to Cannes this gave her untold confidence and knowledge.
Upon our return home we did some revision work and soon it was the day of the skill test.
I listened to her calm voice on the radio prior to the flight and I was filled with happiness.
In fact after passing her skill test the examiner Mike Grierson told me she was a "natural" pilot.
Sadly too many students never obtain their dreams owing to the situations as described above.
I don't normally post to this blog on technical subjects but I notice that the layout of some recent articles has become a bit 'ragged'—higgeldy-piggeldy font styles and sizes, no picture borders and captions 'departed' from the pictures.
Firstly, I would mention that a Typepad blog uses a technique known as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) which sets the layout (font style, font size, borders, etc) for the whole site.
These can be over-ridden when posting an article—for example, you could use bold and italic or change colour and alignment for particular selections of text.
The 'insert picture' function also has standard settings which may be over-ridden for individual pictures.
The 'messy layout' problem arises when, instead of using the Typepad 'compose screen', the author prepares the article using other software (such as Word) and then uses copy/paste to transfer it into the Typepad blog.
It is actually possible to post directly to the blog from the Office 2007 version of Word but the use of copy/paste introduces HTML code which conflicts with that defining the blog layout.
The correct way to use copy/paste is to save the original article as text which removes all of the HTML formatting (which can't be seen on the article though it is in the background)—then, open the document in a text editor (such as Notepad) and copy/paste from there.
The article will then adopt the standard site formatting, leaving you to insert pictures and make any required format changes.
Picture Captions
Correct alignment of captions to pictures involves the use of HTML tables which is best avoided unless you really know what you are doing.
I find it far easier to edit the original picture (using Photoshop, or whatever) so that the caption becomes part of the picture.
Both of these issues are mentioned in 'Posting Tips' which is one of this site's permanent pages.
As I am actively looking to leave my present French flying club and ‘take my business elsewhere’, I immediately noticed this possible alternative in the August edition of ‘Today’s Pilot’.
St Dizier lies to the East of Paris, about half-way to Nancy and to the South-East of Reims.
According to the article, the airfield dates from 1913 and a civilian aeroclub was first established in 1931.
Today, the aeroclub shares the airfield with two operational squadrons of the French Air Force—guess who uses the grass runway!
The club atmosphere is described as “friendly, kind and generous” in addition to which they promote a diverse range of aviation activities including a separate aeromodelling section and a small aviation museum whose prize possession is a SEPECAT Jaguar simulator.
There is an interesting fleet of aircraft ranging from a TB9 to a Piper Cub which served in the Normandy landings (it’s been repaired now)—there is also a brand-new clubhouse with a spacious dining-room.
The airfield is adjacent to the largest man-made lake in France and the local area looks quite picturesque
I could go on but you really should read the original article to get the whole picture.
In these ‘hard times’, I was particularly interested in the published flying prices which look rather attractive, particularly compared with UK rates:
|
Aeroclub de St Dizier Rates (Euro per Hour) | |
| TB9 | 101€ |
| Robin DR400 | 89€ |
| Cessna 150 | 62€ |
| Piper L4 (J3) | 62€ |
| Instruction (additional) | 12€ |
As far as I can see, this is ‘a club which has everything’ so I emailed them today for more information which I will happily share once they respond.
As price was one of the main drivers for myself and many UK pilots to fly in France, it would be good to share information on what different clubs and flying groups are currently charging—any comments on the subject will be most welcome.
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