French Radio Calls for Uncontrolled Airfields - An idiot-proof guide (as seen on "The Flying Reporter").

Useful resources

Kneeboard sheets

Kneeboard sheet – Departure

Kneeboard sheet – Arrival

Videos

James’ Interview with the Flying Reporter about the use of « cheat sheets ».

Video about the dual use of French/English for RT in French airspace.

Differences between flying VFR in France and the UK

Articles

Flying in France : « FR only » and issues surrounding the use of French for radio communications

Background to this guide

This guide was initially created at the request of the management of Le Touquet Airport, to cover the times when their ATC were on lunch break. I later appeared in a video with UK Youtuber « The Flying Reporter » to explain in more depth.

What do the rules say?

Under French regulations, the « language to be used for radiotelephony can be either French or English, unless aeronautical publications state otherwise ».

In practice, the only case where aeronautical publications do state otherwise is on visual approach charts which indicate « FR Only » just next to the radio frequency.

An airport can be designated « French Only » for radio communications in one of four scenarios:

– At an uncontrolled airfield where the management (usually the local club) have decided to only allow French
– At an airfield with a FISO (AFIS) when outside of the FISO’s hours of operation
– At an airfield with a FISO (AFIS) where the FISO is not qualified to provide a service in English (this is actually fairly common in France)
– At an airfield with full ATC, outside of the controller’s hours of operation (as is the case with Le Touquet, for example).

So if it says « FR Only », can I land? »

It is worth remembering that the regulations only refer to the language used and not the one for which the pilot is qualified.

In any case, most EASA non-French speaking countries would not apply a French language qualification to your licence even if you were to obtain one! On that basis, there is nothing (at present) to stop you complying with the « FR Only » requirement by transmitting basic radio messages (blind calls) in French.

But surely this is dangerous?

How dangerous (or not) landing at an « FR » only airfield is for a foreign pilot (with associated loss of situational awareness) is for the PIC to determine.

As things stand at present, there is nothing preventing you from doing so.

The fact remains: whether I publish this guide or not, people are still going to land at FR Only Airfields. So if they do, surely some language information is better than none!

There are also some very good reasons why you might need to land at such an airfield, such as in an emergency, or if your initial destination airfield is closed and you do not have sufficient fuel to make it to another airfield where English is « allowed ».

Disclaimer

This page is most certainly not a « teach yourself French » guide. Learning to speak a language fluently takes years of practice and dedication.

My aim here is just to provide a simplified set of messages for non-French speaking pilots which are clear and concise. They essentially allow the pilot using them to tell other pilots on the frequency two important things:

1. I am here!
2. My French is lousy, don’t press me too much!

Another thing which this guide will not teach you is how to understand what is being said by other pilots. This can only be achieved by experience.

As always, the golden rule remains : The commander is responsible for the conduct of the flight. Apply common sense and do not put yourself in danger!

The absolute basics

Before you start, you do need to learn some absolute basics.

1. Numbers – To start with, you should learn and be able to pronounce the numbers 1 to 36 inclusive. The free website Forvo is a fantastic resource for this

2. Circuit legs – You should be able to pronounce the main circuit legs in French

Term	Translation
Vent Arrière	Downwind
Base	Base
Finale	Final

3. Basic compass directions. You should be able to express basic compass directions.

Term	Meaning
Le Nord	North
Le Sud	South
L’Est	East
L’Ouest	West

Basic and Simplified Messages

Departure

Let’s take an example of a common message you might hear at a sleepy uncontrolled airfield in the middle of the French countryside. For the purpose of the exercise, we’ll use « Petaouchnouk »

Petaouchnouk, F-ROGS, PA28 avec 3 personnes à bord, nous roulons point d’attente A de la 29 pour un vol VFR à destination de Perpète-Les-Oies »

For the average non-French pilot, trying to remember and regurgitate a message like that in anything like a coherent fashion is simply not realistic. Aside from the pronunciation part, it uses a lot of mental energy which could be put to better use managing the aircraft.

At an uncontrolled airfield, nobody listening really cares about your aircraft type, your destination, or how many people you have on board. They just need to know you are there and what you are doing.

On that basis, to simplify our messages, we can take the nouns relating to the key things we do on the ground, and break our messages down into 3 elements (click to hear the pronunciation):

Term	Meaning
Roulage	Taxi
Alignement	Lineup
Décollage	Takeoff

Departure : Putting the messages into practice

Using these basic terms, we can then construct very simplified but intelligible messages to let people know what we’re doing. As a reminder, French runway numbers are pronounced as whole numbers and not as individual digits as in English, i.e. Runway 29 would be « vingt-neuf » and not « deux neuf »

Message 1 – Apron to Runway

Petaouchnouk, G-ABCD, Roulage Vingt-Neuf

Message 2 – Lining up

G-ABCD Alignement Vingt-Neuf

Message 3 – Takeoff

Arrival

Again, let’s look at a commonly-heard radio message from an aircraft arriving at an uncontrolled airfield.

« Petaouchnouk, G-ABCD, DR400 avec 2 personnes à bord, en provenance de Poilu et à destination de vos installations, actuellement à l’est à 2,500 pieds QNH, nous rappelerons verticale dans 5 minutes »

Anyone who can remember that probably doesn’t need to be reading this page!

As a slight technical aside, the « overhead join » used in France is slightly different in the sense that the deadside is not normally used.

The procedure is to arrive overhead the airfield at an altitude higher than the circuit height (500 ft is often applied as a rule of thumb, but is not an official requirement).

You then fly for 30 seconds on the heading of the runway in use, before turning crosswind and descending to circuit height.

Deadside joins are sometimes used when the overhead cannot be used, i.e. when there is parachute dropping or aerobatics going on, but with the difference that the descent to circuit height only takes place on the active side of the circuit.

For our purposes, we can once again take the key nouns relating to things we usually do in the air (mile-high club excluded) and put them together to create effective and intelligible messages