Forced to speak French to land my plane.

You might think that English is the common language of aviation, but in fact there are quite a number of places where you can't land unless you speak the local dialect. See me use some terrible Franglais to land at a remote airfield in France.

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[occitaniejemesouviens]

Comme disait Chaballe, ”we are in France, we speak french ".

[gsbeak]

"English words pronounced with a French accent"... Those English words may actually be French words pronounced with an English accent.
Remember 1066 ? 😄

[katsogogeshvili]

So, you understand now what feeling rest of world speaking English in flight

[kidocq]

If a French, German, Belgian, Dutch, Spanish, etc want to land their planes in the UK, they will have to speak english. Please also note that in Europe, French and Spanish are also ICAO languages …

[scialomy]

I'm impressed by the French coach. Is he a native English speaker with an impeccable French accent or the other way around? Can't tell.

[paulmakinson]

I fly from Auch. It is not a controlled airport (AFIS during the week from 9 to 5). It has 2 runways, both 18 and 36, one paved, the other grass. Many people don't speak English, notably, the pilot of the tug, a local farmer, who is sometimes the only one doing the rounds towing gliders. The custom is to ask him what QFU he is using and adapt. In light or no wind, he will use 18 for takeoff but the gliders will land on 36. I remember a British plane landing, he was obviously not understanding anything spoken on the radio, making all his calls in English, and going opposite to the tug and me. I went around and waited until he was out of the way.
I also often go Catalonia, Spain (La Cerdanya). I speak fluent Spanish, but all the radio chatter was in Catalan! I make my call and make sure I get some feedback if there is activity. Usually from the tug pilot.

[antoinecine]

I'm French, I fly in La Baule and you did a great job speaking French ! Well done !

[mirandahotspring]

English words with a French accent... you mean English words that were borrowed from French!

[lynxrdwing]

Hello, as a FISO in "Paris Information", believe me, I've hear way worse... At least you try ! Just an advice, you can say it in english and double in french, so if a pilot mastering Shakespeare's'aeronautical chatter, can inform you and/or the others... Was great, give you à 9 out of 10 !!!

[Bugy]

i'm french... i can understand it may be annoying but actually, it's a remote airfield there...most of pilots flying there are older, retired, don't speak necessary english... second point, french is ICAO language... aviation in france has a long history as well. Sure you fly to Paris, Lyon Marseille and so on, you do the radio in english no problem. But a small local airfield ? well, you have to adapt. :) Welcome to France though, have safe flights

[charlesbremner]

Well done, Jon. French pilots appreciate it when visiting foreigners make the effort to use the language. Uncontrolled airfields are French-only but quite a few UK pilots drop into the circuit with all their calls in English. Many, if not most, French private pilots are not proficient in English. At my field, I sometimes translate in the air to explain what UK pilots have just announced.

[johnpipping]

French pilots, especially those training and building hours for professional licences, often speak in English with ATC just for the practice, despite not having any language endorsement. I have never heard of any pilot being given a hard time in France for speaking French. That in itself would be counter intuitive!

[Tiwow]

So nice to see James out there helping a British man learn French radio after he's helped sooo many French pilots to learn English radio!

[jtag]

Off topic : if you teach your son the very basics of controls, and he sits up front, in case of emergency he could assist you or if you get incapacitated he could try to save himself. I find it awkward to have a passenger with the 2nd set of ocntrols unattended.

[papics]

Besides the not mandatory ADS-B in/out (but this is a topic), this language madness is my biggest pain in general aviation. I live in Belgium, where there are 3 official languages (Dutch, French, and German), none of which are my native languages (Hungarian), and I have a Level 6 FCL.055 in English on my licence (and English is the language I use at work and at home most of the time, mixed with Dutch). Now in Belgium - which is historically a very multilingual country - all aerodromes operate on English, while typically the local language is allowed as a second option. Still, most pilots communicate in English, as we are sure that will be understood by everyone. Even though it is nobody's mother tongue. In The Netherlands, English is the primary language at every airfield, and while here and there you hear a Dutch sentence on Flight information frequencies, I have never heard that in the circuit, but always English.

During my PPL training we often flew to an uncontrolled French airfield for circuit/touch-and-go training, because it had no landing fee (and my base is a Class D international airfield, so not often could I get a slot there), and I was shocked when my instructor first told me, that I will have to make calls in French. So like everybody, I made a cheat-sheet, and used that, and of course I learned those basic phrases very quickly. But I find it ridiculous that for aviation, where you can cross borders very quickly, and where every controlled airspace will accept English, there can be these local fields, which are allowed to put French (or German) only on their charts... But this is not only a French problem. In Germany I encountered many fields where while English is allowed, the local pilots will 90% of the time speak German. So that was a bit of a shock on my first visit to such a field, because my situational awareness was seriously lower as I had no idea what the German pilots were saying. For my next flight to Germany, I had studied tha German phrases and had a cheat-sheet is German too, and things went much better, I could understand 95% of what the pilots were saying in German. In that sense Germany is better, pilots seem to stick more to phraseology, while the French seem to tell their life's story in every call to make any foreigner's lie more difficult.

Even with English not being my mother tongue, I think English should be at least accepted everywhere, and I am glad to see in a thread below that legally there is no requirement to have another language certificate if you have your English FCL.055, as I also got - albeit a friendly - reminder under one of my videos where I flew to a German only airport, that I could get trouble doing that. I was pretty sure that cannot be the case, but now I know what to refer to next time somebody brings this up.

[imFeroxi]

I was flying near the aeroport and i have heard your radio call ! What a surprise to discover you on YouTube !

[boblatham]

My understanding based on "Arrêté du 24 juillet 1991 relatif aux conditions d'utilisation des aéronefs civils en aviation générale...updated July 2024) is that French pilots can fly VFR without needing English language skills but an aircraft wishing to fly IFR must have an English language qualified pilot onboard even if he is not the pilot in command.

[PilotVianney]

shout out to James from Lingaero ! Such a great company he created !

[SimonHollandfilms]

I have a US PPL and fly in France. The landing and takeoff phrases are pretty easy BUT.. I had difficulty understanding other pilots position reports in our busy local area...that made me nervous about flying in France. So I take a French pilot friend flying with me.. he does the radio calls. wish i was local French flying club encouraged members to learn English, as ATC in France speak English. they find that hard.

[stephenmccarthy]

12:35 "Nautiques" for miles Jon. Currently I'm studying for FCL.055 Français as I live in France and my aeroclub are unhappy about me flying when there's not a FISO in the tower however the DGAC exam is notoriously difficult. For safety's sake I am not sure the cheat sheet is sufficient except it does warn French pilots that there's a mad foreigner out there. One big problem is the way the French really dont adhere to ICAO phraseology in particular numbers which for a non french speaker is very difficult.