Day: August 20, 2021

I’m not sure what happened today, but I overslept – until 9.30 am, which is late for me now I’m in the caravan. When I opened the door and looked outside I was greeted by the most beautiful morning that we’ve had for about a week, in fact a perfect flying morning with an azure sky containing a few fluffy clouds and only a very light wind.

Having rested my right wrist for a day or so, I’m glad to say that the pain I had has now almost gone and I began to think about the possibility of taking the X-Air for the flight that I’d planned. The main thing against the idea was that with the sun already beginning to warm things up, ideally I should have been over at Malbec and almost ready to go before the thermals started building and not just out of bed and thinking about it.

I’d also decided that the planned flight was maybe a little bit short – not a bad thing perhaps, if I was going to be late getting away – but if I’m going to make the effort to fly, I like to make it worthwhile and be away for a couple of landings or so, over a period of 2 hours or more. There was also another factor. The number to call for permission to land at Peyrillac is a fixed line which leads me to believe it could be a home number. It might be OK to get through in the evening or at week-ends, therefore, but maybe not in the daytime during the week.

So with these things in mind, I had been considering an alternative, and the obvious one was LF4623 Lacave Le Frau in the Lot. This is a private aedrodrome at 980 feet on the side of a hill with an enormous hard runway of length 630 metres on headings 13/31, with 13 being the preferred landing direction. The reason for this is that the first part of 13 is on a very steep hillside and landing is possible and safe even with a modest tail wind. Like today 🙂

So I decided to give the published mobile number a call to obtain prior permission to land there. There was no answer, just a voice mailbox, so I decided to put down as it was already by then becoming a bit late in view of the fact that I’d have to do a completely new flight plan and load the route into my GPS. But then fate took a hand. My phone rang and as it was the person I’d been trying to call, I asked for permission to land today and got the usual answer – no problem, bon vol!

So that was it. I hastily got everything ready and took off at 1315 hrs, a bit late really with the thermic bumps already beginning to start up, heading for a landing at Condat. Here’s the new flight that I’d loaded into my GPS.

I landed at Condat after a 20 minute flight watched by a lone cyclist who was swigging water in the shade of the clubhouse as it was already warming up pretty rapidly. I filled in Roland’s movements sheet and did a quick turn-round, taking off 10 minutes later heading for Lacave, a flight of about 35 minutes.

I had my GoPro 7 video running both for the flight from Malbec to Condat and for that from Condat to Lacave, and this time I just managed to strike lucky. The SD card ran out just after I’d parked on the apron at Lacave so I managed to capture both take offs and landings up to that point (memo – I need to buy some SD cards for my GoPros with much more storage on them).

The next few shots have been taken from the video and give a good impression of Lacave’s long’ sloping runway. First shot, from a few hundred metres out on final.

Second shot, approaching the threshold at the bottom of the runway.

Next shot, over the threshold. There’s no need to land on the numbers with an upward sloping runway like this in an ULM like the X-Air.

Next shot, just before touch down. Note how the airfield buildings have disappeared and only the top of the windsock is just visible. And this was from half-way up the slope.

Next, breasting the top of the rise before continuing on the runway and turning off left onto the apron.

At the entrance to the apron.

Now several shots of my X-Air 24ZN parked on the apron at Lacave.

While I was at Lacave there was a Group A single parked on the grass with a cabin cover on. I think it was a Cirrus, but I’m not sure. As I was preparing to leave, a young family of 4 drove up and began preparing the aircraft for flight. It turned out that they were there on holiday and that they planned a short flight over to Sarlat to refuel.

I told them that I was also going there but after taking off, I found that the thermic bumping was becoming too uncomfortable and that it would be a good idea to cut the corner and shorten the flight, heading straight back to Malbec. I still flew overhead Chateau Beynac (just beautiful, Google it as it was too bumpy to take a photo) and past St Cyprien, before setting 24ZN up for a long bumpy final onto Malbec’s short runway.

After the usual lift, sink and lift again just before the threshold I was safely down after a very satisfactory landing, and after taxying up to the area in front of the barn, here are some of the final shots that I took.

So I enjoyed what turned out to be a great flight and 24ZN flew flawlessly. I had a bit of a scare when after the jar of landing at Lacave, one of its carbs started overflowing. It has happened once before – I think that maybe a needle gets jarred and sticks in a fuel inlet or maybe it’s something to do with one of the carburettor floats. Anyway, it has never happened in flight and today I did as before, namely detached and re-attached each carburettor bowl without tipping out any fuel, which cured it. I might have to think about buying a Bing carb refurb kit but that’s not for today 😉