Très français, très chic!

When I told my consultant on Thursday that I’d driven to the hospital in a 2CV her reply was , ‘Ah, très chic!’ So it was doubly so today when I drove to Malbec in Victor’s 2CV and then pulled my little French Weedhopper out of the barn for its first flight landing away from the airfield.

My plan was just to ‘do’ the usual local airfields with which I’m very familiar on a small local tour lasting about an hour or so taking in Galinat, with its 450 metre up-sloping grass runway, Condat with its enormous up-sloping hard runway on which you could land a turbo twin and Sarlat with it’s long, flat hard runway that I expected to be quite busy on a day like today at this time of the year.

Sarlat only accepts radio equipped aircraft for that very reason and also because there’s parachuting there at this time of the year. However, although I saw the jump aircraft taking off, there didn’t seem to be any parachuting going on today.

Today was forecast to be benign early on but becoming a scorcher later, so my plan was to get away by about 9.00 am or so in order to get back again before it became too thermic. However, due to the usual unforeseen hiccups eg I’d forgotten that I’d removed the velcro from the back of my tablet that’s needed to attach it to its mounting bracket in the Weedhopper, so after getting hold of some more off Victor that saved me driving all the way home again, it was 10.25 am before I actually got away.

After passing over Victor and Madeleine’s house my first heading was for a landing at Galinat that should have taken not much more than 10 minutes or so. However, as I approached the airfield from the direction of Thonac, I could see that there were obstructions on the runway. These turned out to be hay bales that are everywhere in all the fields at the moment as the farmers have been very busy as a result of the fine weather harvesting fodder for their animals.

I decided that there wasn’t sufficient space to avoid the ones along the side of the runway so after passing along its length, turned left and took a heading for Condat without landing. It was a pity because with Galinat’s runway being so long with a slight up-slope, it’s a great place to come in a bit fast and practise your flare and hold-off when you’ve had a bit of a lay-off from flying, as I have.

After leaving Galinat behind me, I took a couple of shots through 28AAD’s windows. First a shot looking forward with Condat’s runway in the left-centre of the screen in the middle distance and then one of Aubas with its little ‘barrage’ (weir) on the river Vézère.

As usual (almost), when I got set up to land at Condat there was a choppy cross-wind and I had the surprising experience of a sudden very high nose-up attitude in the Weedhopper after landing, with its nose wheel way up off the ground while rolling on its main wheels. I can’t remember ever experiencing such a thing with MYRO and I wonder if its due to the French Weedhopper having larger diameter main wheels? Mind you, I can’t remember its happening with the X-Air either so it probably isn’t and it was maybe just due to a sudden strong gust hitting me just after I’d touched down.

Here are some shots that I took of 28AAD at Condat after I’d signed Roland’s movements book that the police insist that he keeps.

Then off to Sarlat. After taking off at Condat, you fly towards the face of a low range of small hills. Usually in the Savannah, and even the X-Air, I pay no attention to them because by the time I reach them I’m already at height. However, this wasn’t the case with the Weedhopper, which was climbing at only 500 ft/min at about 6200 rpm on its little 503 engine, so just to be sure I turned slowly away from them to the right towards Montignac, until I was satisfied that I’d more than cleared them.

Then on to the town of Sarlat. And it was then that I realised just how slow the Weedhopper is! I didn’t think too much of it at the time, but I now realise why people thought that I was crackers to fly MYRO from the UK right down to the Dordogne. Compared to the Savannah especially, it seemed to take an age to see Sarlat come up and pass by under my right wing, and yet another one to get into the overhead of Sarlat-Domme aerodrome.

It became clear as I approached the overhead that something was going on at the airfield. There were many more aircraft than normal on the parking and even the grass in front of the tower together with flags and banners and initially I was worried that I was gatecrashing some event or other. I hadn’t bothered to read the NOTAMs and this was a lesson learned, even for local flights to ‘well known’ airfields at this time of year.

However, I then spotted another small aircraft landing on runway 10, which I was setting myself up for, so decided to continue and landed nicely without incident. I decided that in view of the number of parked aircraft, I’d park the Weedhopper away from the main parking outside what used to be the ULM club hangar and walk along the side of the taxiway to the ‘Acceuil’ to sign the movements sheet.

There were lots of people milling around together with Breitling banners, tables for this and that and so on, but I don’t know what the event was actually for. I’d seen the parachute jump aircraft departing shortly after I’d landed but there was what appeared to be a separate group over to one side outside the parachuting marquee, so I don’t have a clue what it was all in aid off. However, I found the movements book, which had been moved from its usual place and taken outside, signed it and decided to get away a bit pronto as the wind already seemed to be rising, which it always seems to at Sarlat because of the airfield being located on the top of a plateau.

Before I went though, here are some shots that I took of the Weedhopper on its parking place outside the old ULM club hangar.

The flight back to Malbec took exactly 30 minutes and whereas I’d had some leaway for speed and height for the landings at both Condat an Sarlat, this time at Malbec I didn’t. As I hadn’t flown for several weeks, it made me concentrate as although it wasn’t yet too strong, there was already a choppy cross-wind gusting from the right on the approach. But I needn’t have worried. It wasn’t my best ever landing, but they all don’t have to be, and after touching down and taxying up the runway, I switched off outside the Savannah’s hangar with a smile on my face.

I’d done what I’d wanted to do and achieved what I’d wanted to achieve, so that was good at a time when I’m still coming back after my chemo. Any niggles? Not really, other than the Weedhopper’s slow speed over the ground, which I’m not accustomed to these days after the Savannah. I also thought that there was a lot of vibration, maybe due to an unbalanced prop. After shortening it a bit, I’d taken care to balance it as I thought, but maybe my efforts weren’t quite good enough.

I also noticed that where the Weed has been standing in the front of the barn fully exposed to the hot morning sunshine, its engine cover had stuck to the propeller’s painted tips and a thick chunk of paint had been removed from one end when I took the cover off. Whether this would be enough to account for the imbalance I do not know, but I think that it’s something that I’ll need to look into when I have the time.

But otherwise, what a great morning’s flying and how wise to get away when I did to miss the rising winds and turbulence that are both active and increasing as I type this, just before the start of the England-Sweden World Cup football match. So I must go!!