Day: August 13, 2016

Wednesday 10th August

The big day had finally arrived – the first day of my flight back to the UK in my Savannah – and I was up early completing my flight planning by adding the latest wind data into my spreadsheet. My route can be found HERE and I was slightly dismayed to find that the northerly wind was stronger than had been forecast earlier in the week. This meant that my flight times for each leg would be longer and that if the wind direction persisted, the flight I’d planned for my second day would be very tiring.

But that was for later and after checking and rechecking my lists, I was at Malbec ready to take off just after 10.00 am. It was sunny with a clear blue sky with the temperature already in the high 20 degrees so the prospects for the flight looked good despite the wind forecast.

Wim, who’d been flying earlier on, then turned up to see me off and after loading my case and flight bag into the aircraft and starting up my sportscam video recorder, I was airborne at 10.15 am.

I quickly turned right onto my heading and was soon at 2900 feet, my planned height, and was pleasantly surprised by how smooth it was, especially as the day was warming up quite quickly. A few minutes after taking off, I was flying east abeam Périgueux Basillac airport.

Here’s a shot of my panel that I took shortly afterwards.

I carried on taking photographs as I headed north but unfortunately I have no idea of exactly where each was shot.

As I flew on, though, I could see from the murky clouds ahead that the pleasant weather was unlikely to continue, which proved to be the case.

I knew that I’d entered the Loire wine region when I saw a small commune passing under my wing with what looked like a small chemical works on its fringe, which I guessed to be the storage facility of the local wine cooperative.

Then I entered the murky zone that I’d been able to see from further south and although the flying conditions continued to be not too bad, although the cloud was slightly broken, I’d more or less seen the last of the sunshine for a while.

But after not too long, I could see the dark smudge of Saumur approaching and it was time to stick rigidly to the course line on my GPS to ensure that I’d be able to easily spot the airfield.

With the city and the river Loire in view though, it was easy to find the airfield and although there was obviously no other traffic in the circuit, I decided to execute a proper overhead join. Here’s a shot I took of the city and its chateau as I was approaching the overhead of the airfield.

The circuit was easy enough but as I descended on final, I knew that the landing was going to be tricky. The reason was that the windsock was showing a 90 degree gusting crosswind of something like 25-30 kmh (15 – 20 mph). However, that was for only a part of the time. For the rest, it was swinging through an arc of the best part of 90 degrees, meaning that it was alternating in moments from being a headwind to a tailwind.

The result was that while I was flaring and about to land, a sudden headwind gust sent me about 10 metres higher again, so as there was plenty of runway ahead, I added a bit of power and tried again.

The same thing happened two or three times and when I actually did touch down, it was with a bump that I’d rather have been a bit less. But it was well within limits, although with hindsight I wish I’d approached a bit faster and plonked the Savannah down more positively with a bit more speed. Flying is a constant learning process.

Here are a few shots that I took of the tower at Saumur and 77ASY (F-JHHP) parked up along with a British registered V-tailed Bonanza and what I think was a lovely old Cessna 170 in polished aluminium.

After I’d tied 77ASY down and secured it, I took my baggage with me over to the tower and aero club to see what the procedure might be regarding landing and parking. The door was wide open but there was not a soul around despite the building having a cafe area with a fully stocked bar and other stuff. Such is France!

I then waited for a while for my friend Linda to arrive, during which I chatted with a very pleasant French couple who’d turned up in the beautifully restored red Renault Caravelle sports car shown in the shot above.

They’d come for a 2.00 pm flight to view the Loire and its chateaux and not unexpectedly, as this is France, the pilot turned up at 1.59 pm after his lunch. But before they took off, Linda arrived and we packed my stuff into her car and set off to head for our hotel in the city on the bank of the river Loire.

And so ended my first day’s flying of my return by ULM to England. Malbec – Saumur 2 hours 35 minutes. Now was the time to look forward to our first evening in the city.