Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
#1909978
I've been going to Paris a few times a year by GA pre COVID but only once since. Most of the places I need to visit are right in the centre and I've settled on Lognes as the easiest way in. First of all, I hate all public transport and I find the Enterprise car rental place at the airport is ideal, not that expensive and outside of rush hour, a 25min drive to the underground car parks below the Champs Elysée. This is especially useful if you want to go in and out in one day. I started going there when they had customs onsite but since that finished, I've been stopping at L2K to clear in and routing around the top end of Paris Class A airspace and down to 1400' under the low level shelf for the last 20 miles or so. Fairly straightforward VFR route. Lognes is part of ADP and although their landing fee is numpence, the central billing at ADP forget to send a bill 50% of the time. Apart from the person in the tower there is no one there to talk to and the tower door s always shut. The flying club have nothing to do with the administration of the airport and don't speak English so you just park up or use the self service pumps and make your way past the probably closed restaurant, which is lovely when open, to the car rental and you're on your way five mins after landing.
highfive, GeorgeJLA liked this
#1909985
I can endorse:
"St Cyr is my choice but it is grass."
The frustration (and hassle) that the cessation of Border Control at Toussus le Noble has caused; resulting - as the postings sadly show - in most pilots just giving up on flying to Paris nowadays from Southern England.
Not one to be beaten, I have tried to overcome the challenge by flying to Saint Cyr L’ecole LFPZ.
Admittedly, I have to clear Border Control en route at Le Touquet [LFAT]; but St Cyr l'ecole is a nice pretty field with a wonderful approach over Versailles itself.
One can then walk to St Cyr station (20 minutes) and get the RER in to the centre of Paris (another 35 minutes).
highfive, Ibra, GeorgeJLA liked this
#1910810
Thanks again to all for the hints and tips - thought I'd post a quick follow-up.

I planned VFR to Le Touquet and then IFR to Toussus. That plan then went awry when we got a slot for an hour after LT closed. I did ponder sending a ready message to try for an improvement, but as time was getting on went VFR instead.

In the end, VFR on a sunny Friday evening was a piece of cake. We went DCT to HOL with transits readily given by Beauvais and Pontoise. Descent to 1500ft after Pontoise, catch the ATIS and contact Chevreuse who gave us a straight in for 07L, then on to Tower once established on final (I can't quite remember, but I think we were told to call at 7nm). We were re-cleared for 07R at about 2nm to allow a turbine departure 07L.

On the ground and parked as per @Ibra's instructions on stand 24. There is a card exit system to the 'terminal'. You press the 'take card' button first to get a keycard, then the 'open door' button. The keycard is needed to get back airside upon your return. We got a taxi to our hotel (2 blocks from the Arc de Triomphe) which took about 25 minutes and cost 70 Euro for a Mercedes minibus (there were 5 of us). I faffed around a bit at Toussus, but if I'd been more organised, I think we could've done LT to hotel in just over 1.5 hours.

Sunday's morning fog/mist lifted by lunchtime, cancelled IFR and filed VFR again for the return journey. 07 departures are quite straightforward, except the exit point 'Dampierre' is not clear on any of the charts I had. Nonetheless, the AIP 'Visual approach' chart shows the route quite clearly, and in the event Chevreuse approved DCT HOL (presumably as there were no IFR inbounds). This keeps you away from misc. danger areas etc., and gives plenty of time to get the northbound transit of Pontoise sorted out, or avoided altogether.

All-in-all, a pretty good a way to visit Paris, but certainly helped by cooperative weather and ATC, combined with not much traffic.
#1910818
Glad it worked well, especially on the inbound leg, you got the whole way paved for arrival, surely, it's MTOW and some 'chilled' guy from Chevreuse :lol:

The fog/mist on Sunday was unexpected and it did clear up unexpectedly: the TAF never catched the METAR :D
highfive liked this
By Ibra
#1910961
Yes Melun could have got customs as it does not have “ADP conflict of interest”

However, since Snecma/Safran (I used to work there :D ) and Dassault stopped using those runways for commercial purposes and since the Airways College school went bankrupt, it’s going downhill, it did lost it’s CTR ATC and Seine SIV…still a brilliant infrastructure & place: RNP, two cross-runways, night PCL and hassle free

Orly ATC are getting less and less supportive of it’s IFR usage without CTR/TMA (arrivals have no one to handover & departure pretend the SID do not exist at all)