Day: April 20, 2018

Come what may, I intended to do my planned flight today taking in Galinat, Condat and Sarlat Domme. I did all my planning and downloaded my route into my GPS last night and when I checked the weather this morning it was almost identical to last night’s forecast – wall-to-wall blue sky with winds variable from the east to the south-east with gusts up to about 12 kmh. So relatively benign, it seemed, and a good day to do my first flight for over a year.

Here’s a pic of my intended route, dropping into Galinat then Condat, then doubling back again to Galinat and back once again to Condat before flying south to Sarlat Domme and finally back to Malbec.

The one thing we have to look out for down here, though, on days like this is thermal induced turbulence and with today’s high being in the region of 28-30 degrees C, there was almost a cast-iron certainty that there would be a big build-up of thermals as the day progressed. So I really wanted to get away pretty smartly from Malbec with the aim of being back shortly after lunch time before the thermals had too much of a chance to build up.

But then the inevitable happens. First you get delayed leaving home and then when you’re preparing the aircraft, unexpected things crop up. Like my landing light, that I found was loose and will require a more secure fixing. For the moment though, as the next shot that I took at Galinat shows, I just duck-taped it in to make sure that it couldn’t fall into the prop.

Finally, after fixing one of my little sports cams to the right wing strut, I was ready to take off, but at gone 11.00 am, which was a bit later than I would really have liked. But no worries – as I took off, everything felt immediately familiar as though I’d never been away from the Savannah’s controls, let alone for over a year. The new scimitar prop felt great – I was up and away in well under 100 metres and as I climbed away over Victor and Madeleine’s house, then I spotted it. The ‘Remove Before Flight’ tag hanging out of pitot.

In my haste I’d forgotten to remove it – a lesson learned – but I wasn’t too worried. If I can’t land the Savannah at Galinat by now without a proper airspeed read out then I shouldn’t be flying at all, and so it proved. A perfectly good landing that I was very happy with after such a long lay-off. It was great to be back at Galinat and here are some shots that I took there.

Then on to Condat. Here’s a shot that I took of Montignac as I passed by.

After I’d landed at Condat, again not too shabby a landing at all, that’s when my time plan really went by the board. The reason was that Roland, the airfield owner, and his wife were working getting it ready for the season. And it showed – the airfield looked the best that I’ve ever seen it and I told them so. But it’s hard to get away once you’re engaged in a friendly conversation here in France and I stayed for much longer than I’d planned to and already the wind and turbulence were beginning to pick up.

Here are some shots of the Savannah at Condat.

After I’d signed the visiting aircraft book that Roland has to keep for the benefit of the local police, I was off as planned to drop in again at Galinat before returning to Condat. By then Roland and his wife had left for lunch so after a quick turn-round, I was off south for Sarlat Domme. By now the visibility was reducing a bit but the main thing was that the wind from the east was increasing, as was the turbulence.

The saving factor was that the wind was almost straight down runway 10 so apart from a very bumpy final with a bit of wind shear, the approach was actually quite straightforward. And also, because my groundspeed was so low, I was able to slow the Savannah down in just a few metres and turn right immediately onto the main apron, something which I’ve never been able to do before!

Here are some shots that I took at Sarlat. The last time that I was there was at the beginning of last year and I think that the airfield’s been given a makeover, as today it and its facilities looked superb, as the pictures show.

The tower and aero club looked super, but also the public cafe with all of its tables and seats outside. That I’m sure will be a big hit with visiting families during the summer, especially now that the weather seems to have turned the corner. I couldn’t help but think that the overall impression was so positive compared say, to somewhere like Headcorn in the UK which is all a bit ramshackle and amateurish in comparison. Perhaps it’s chicken and egg, and we can see why the general public attitude to general aviation is so much more positve in France compared to the UK.

But already the weather was beginning to fall apart. While I drank a can of Coke and chatted to a mechanic in the aero club club house, I noticed that at times the windsock was horizontal. I’d originally left the Savannah with its flaps down and tail into the wind and because it has no handbrake, we suddenly spotted it starting to move blown by the wind across the apron!

Luckily there were no other aircraft in the way and I just had to turn it out of the wind, but this meant that as well as having to contend with bumps and turbulence on my way back to Malbec, the wind direction meant that I’d also have a pretty strong tailwind component to deal with on landing.

On balance it seemed a good idea to consider what to do under the circumstances, and I gave Victor a ring on my mobile. The wind direction would be almost straight down Galinat’s runway so we agreed that should it be too risky to go for a landing at Malbec, I’d land at Galinat and leave the Savannah there for the night. Victor would then drop over and pick me up so I could retrieve my car from Malbec.

When I checked the weather on my mobile, I saw that gusts of up to 50 kmh were now being forecast, which seemed incredible compared to the situation as it was when I left Malbec only a relatively short time before. So I decided to hang on for a while longer at Sarlat and see how things developed.

After an hour or so, the worst of the gusts seemed to be over so I decided to give it a go. Sure enough, conditions on the flight back up to Malbec were pretty bumpy but things seemed to settle down a bit when I was set up for final. So I decided to continue for a landing, despite having a strong crosswind from the right. And after a landing that was I have to admit, not the tidiest that I’ve ever accomplished, the Savannah and I were down on the ground ready to fight another day with the shot below to prove it.

After such a long break from flying, I was very pleased with how the day went. My landings were all OK except for the last one at Malbec, but that was challenging to say the least and I was pleased to have handled it. Not that I’d have tried if I’d thought that I couldn’t do it, but I was, let’s just say, overall very satisfied with how my first flight for over a year panned out 😉