Stunning day’s flying

After planning it carefully beforehand, yesterday was the perfect day for my tour of local airfields familiarization flight in the Savannah. I wanted to do it for two reasons. Firstly, since flying 77ASY down from la Ferté Gaucher in February I’d only managed two flights in it, one of just over 10 minutes ferrying it over from Galinat to Malbec and the other of just over an hour to Brantôme and back, and secondly, because my landing back at Malbec after the Brantôme flight had left something to be desired, I wanted to get a few landings in before landing back again in order to thoroughly familiarize myself with the Savannah’s handling in that phase.

Wim said that he’d like to come along too in the Weedhopper and because he didn’t want to trek all the way down to Castillonnès and back again, I revamped the route to take in Belvès first. That way, when I then went off to Castillonnès, Wim could go straight to Sarlat to await my arrival. Here’s the route that I flew, therefore.

Wim flew into Malbec at about 9.00am and as the morning’s light mist cleared, there were already indications that it would be a glorious day. After we’d sorted ourselves out, he took off first and I followed a few minutes later, but whereas Wim was going to route direct to Belvès, I intended to fly a dog-leg overhead Le Bugue. The flying conditions were fantastic – smooth and hands-off easily possible when trimmed. I wasted some time getting my main GPS working as I’d not noticed that it hadn’t locked on before taking off and had to revert to my phone instead, but it then began to play ball and I was able to settle down, relax and enjoy the flight.

As I approached Belvès I could see that Wim had already landed there and was waiting on the taxiway so although there was no sign of anyone or any other aircraft moving either on the ground or in the air, I called up for a landing on runway 11. Having carefully checked the numbers in the manual, I set 77ASY up with 20 degrees of flap and an approach speed of 80 kmh, which seemed incredibly slow after the X-Air. However, I reasoned that if things were stable and safe at 500 feet on final, they would be also at 50 feet making for a gentle flare. And so it proved to be. I touched down just after the visual markers that I’d selected so powered up for a touch-and-go and went round again.

This time I hit them on the button so braked and taxied around to where Wim was parked. After a brief conversation, I started up and taxied the length of the runway to take off for Castillonnès and as Wim took off shorter, he’d left by the time I was airborne. The flight down to Castillonnès was as smooth and enjoyable as the shorter hop over to Belvès from Malbec and after only 20 minutes I was joining for a landing on runway 15.

I used similar landing settings and the results were just as good, which boosted my confidence considerably. I’d intended to do a touch-and-go but pulled up instead and taxied back to the holding point for an immediate take off without stopping my engine as once again, the airfield was deserted. I then took off again and flew a single circuit and touch-and-go before setting up a heading for Sarlat.

The flight took just over 30 minutes and already a few thermals were beginning to form as the sun heated up the landscape. As Wim would have been waiting for some time, I did a full-stop and taxied round to where he was parked, in front of the old ULM club hangar. Here are some shots of our two aircraft parked there on the grass.

Wim mentioned that before I’d arrived, he’d had a conversation with the owner of an Avid Flyer who’d then taken off and left the airfield zone. While we spoke, the Avid returned and after it’d taxied round to where we were, its owner Juan and the pair of us all chatted for a while as ULM owners do! Wim then left for Galinat and after talking with Juan for a bit longer, I thought that as the airfield was by that time again deserted, I’d do a touch-and-go or two and join him there.

However, it was not to be, but fortunately not because of anything serious. When I took off, my GPS, which was only mounted on Velcro, fell off because it had been heated up by the sun. This meant that I had to make an immediate landing in order to secure it again. I managed to by using some string that I hold my camera round my neck with, but I ended up losing about half an hour with the result that by the time I got to Galinat, Wim had already left as I could see from his wheel marks.

By now it was already just past mid-day and the thermals were becoming quite severe making the flight a bit less comfortable than earlier on. However, otherwise everything went smoothly and I landed at Galinat using the same flap and airspeed settings as before. Annoyingly, although my landing was perfectly OK, it was slightly harder than at any of the other airfields thus far, which is rather ironic as Galinat is the airfield that I have the most experience of.

Here are a couple of shots of 77ASY parked with 56NE’s old parking place behind it.

Then it was time to take off and head for a final landing back to Malbec. The grass on Galinat’s runway was very long and it took a longer-than-normal take off roll to drag the Savannah out of it and into the air. However, its power is such that as soon as it’s airborne even just a few inches, it picks up almost instantly to climbing speed and then ascends like the proverbial lift!

It was then time for the landing back at Malbec. Funnily enough, despite the shortness of Malbec’s runway, I felt confident that so long as I maintained the approach speed that I’d been practising with 20 degrees of flaps, I’d nail it. And I’m glad to say that I did! The deep dip and trees in front of Malbec’s runway are usually rather off-putting but this time I found that by concentrating on airspeed and keeping my eyes on my selected visual markers I hardly noticed them. That made the runway appear just like any other and before I knew it, I was gently flaring and touching down exactly where I’d aimed for, just beyond the threshold hump.

I didn’t know until I taxied up to the hangars that Wim had landed at his own airfield and come over to Malbec by car and was with Victor as I approached and landed, so it was good to shut 77ASY down and share our day’s experiences. I was very happy with the day’s results and stayed on a bit of a high as the evening progressed and Victor and I went off for dinner at les Eyzies.

Even if the Magret de Canard was at my expense 😉